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I can't relate easily to nothingness. Void however I have experienced. Void is infinite and bottomless, and goes both ways. Void engulfs, but also is engulfed. I know I am made of voidness. Would you say void and nothingness are one and same thing?

@graded24 1) I-AM-ness is nothing. Which is why the mind cannot grasp it. Yes, I-AM-ness is awareness. Nothingness is self-aware. But don't think of awareness as a thing or a substance. It is nothing. The reason you struggle to get this is because you assume that nothing cannot be self-aware. This is a false assumption. 2) There is only one "substance" in reality, period. That substance is nothing. Everything is it. No exceptions. Everything is self-aware because it is nothing. The entire sponge is nothing. The sponge is not distinct from the empty space it occupies. This cannot really be conveyed by the analogy because it would require you to already have nondual awareness. You see the sponge as distinct from the empty space because you're looking at it dualistically. If you were awake, you'd realize the sponge is nothing, as are all physical objects. This does not mean that sponge disappears or changes shape or color. It just means that you realize that shapes and colors ARE nothing. 3) Again, you are making the mistake of thinking of nothing as the opposite of something. This is the ultimate duality. You're expecting nothing to be a blank -- the opposite of something. And it is that. But it is also all the non-blank stuff as well! Form and formlessness are actually identical. This won't make much sense without a deep awakening. You have to deeply question all dualities like: Something vs nothing Form vs formlessness Dual vs nondual Me vs you Inner vs outer God vs not-God Life vs death Existence vs non-existence Awareness vs non-awareness Material vs immaterial Mind vs body Self vs world Good vs bad Sentient vs non-sentient Life vs non-life Matter vs empty space All of those distinctions will ultimately collapse into unity if you question them deeply enough. Everything you've experienced in your entire life was nothing. It's like the entire universe never even happened. In the beginning, there was nothing. The end. It's like the universe was never even born. This is an utterly shocking realization which requires super-human levels of consciousness to realize. If you ever get this far, it's as though you broke all of existence. And then again, this is already true right this second in your experience. You just overlooking the obvious.

I feel like most people on the path to enlightenment are seeking the truth to achieve one main goal: end suffering. I respect that, happiness feels awesome, but, my main drive has always been understanding the nature of reality and consciousness, for curiosity's sake. Not just a mundane "i wonder if it will rain today" curiosity, but this big thing inside of me what wishes to solve the big mystery. If the path leads me to happiness, cool, its a welcome bonus. If understanding the truth means sacrificing my happiness, then by all means I am willing. I see no higher goal or price, and I have learned to embrace sadness as one of the many beautiful colors that paint my life. I've had many fascinating spiritual experiences with psychedelics, ranging from movie-like fantasy realms to black void nothingness, I keep getting insights every day, big or small, but each day feels like a step forward towards the endless path to truth.

Cos nothingness is really really funny. Remember when you used to laugh for no reason when you were a child? Like, everything was just hysterical? Same thing.

Yeah I see them as the same anyhow. But from the place of confusion, fear, that divided state of self, observation seems to be constantly based on reward/illusion which makes it always partial/limited. You know what I mean. Freedom that I refer too was in itself bliss/peace-nothingness/emptiness. It was a freedom without searching that was influenced by a reaction of lack of freedom. See what I mean?

@Jack River winter said it’s cool to substitute nothingness/emptiness for peace/bliss - so it’s the same context / concept he is pointing to. So, I’m considering his usage of peace/bliss to be synonymous with nothingness/stillness/emptiness in our conversation- unless he draws a new dinstinction

That’s why I prefer “nothingness/emptiness” over “bliss”. Seekers seem likely to associate bliss as satisfaction and trigger the self to chase. The self is unlikely to chase “nothing/empty”

"Peace" and "Bliss" are loaded terms for my self. Would it be ok to rephrase it as "If these thoughts are simply happening, as if automatically, in an atmosphere of total nothingness/stillness/emptiness, well, no problem."

@winterknight During meditation today, the mind became still and the self-inquiry question "What is Love?" arose. There was no analysis or thinking about what love is. Yet, there was also no nonverbal appearances of what Love is. The question just existed there in the stillness. It just sat there. Then it would dissolve into nothingness and reappear. Yet, nothing else related to Love appeared. Should there be attention effort to maintain the presence of the inquiry? Or is it ok if it dissolves and reappears? (When it dissolved, mental chatter was still low and off in the distance).

@EternalForest Thanks for the reply. Yes, knowing it really doesn’t change anything because you could believe that this is a simulation or a game or a movie or a dream or an illusion and still suffer. That is why we need direct experiences of non-duality, because then it truly has an impact. I could answer what you are looking when you see all those things you mentioned, but it will not satisfy you, sorry. (Just to not let you curious: you are not really looking at anything ( or, you are looking to nothingness) because there is nothing (not even people) there, all you are seeing is the projection of your mind created by yourself)

@Serotoninluvwow yes I believe it...you say you had ego death in your first trip? No self came after the psychedelic experience for me Maybe this is why I didn’t see more to be better... heres a funny analogy... Taking psychedelics is like going over to the “dark side”: “total dark” yet “very powerful”. Facing yourself is the Jedi way: “using the force” “destroying evil”. In the end “oneness” “nothingness”

Sorry, I realize that this was not the kind of advise that you were looking for you just wanted some quick advise on how to initiate interactions or smth and we give you this spiritual stuff :D:D But do you really want an advise like that? I can give you some if you want. Be confident, speak laudly, smile, know what you want to talk about, keep eye contact. But is this really the kind of advise you're looking for? it's not gonna solve much I think To be honest I'd recommend you to try something from sadhguru. Either yoga or kriya or something. There're many things that he offers. Especially because his beginning programs are highly focused for things that you're talking about. Good life. Happyness. Easy living. Joy. Love. Friends. Health. Energy. Adventurous life. It's made like this on purpose. That you satisfy your basic needs and then the other programs are then about nothingness and shiva and enlightenment and stuff. You said you're looking for those things. Sadhguru would be helpful to you. Other meditations like self-enquiry or vippassana doesn't care about your happyness. It's goes straight to the enlightenment. But you say you don't care about it. So I think sadhguru would be what you're looking for.

This thread is about overlaying some foundations about spiritual knowledge. 1. Awareness (Non-changing/ all ever there is) 2. The real-ity (the object, target of the Awareness/ the empty box/ nothingness) 3. Existence (Universe/ Environment/ Infinitude/ Illusion of time also gets under here) 4. Person 4.1 Personal experience (Memory) 4.2 Personal appearance (Body) 4.3 Personal preferences (Mind/thinking/EGO) Properties that don't know where to put in order on the list: Power to claim the realty one (H.Self) desires Power to choose (Who chooses?) Power to wish the reality one (EGO) desires Power to imagine Things to consider No-self Ego-self Higher Self Questions: Which one to identify with? Why to identify Why there're lot's of identities Who's identifying with what? Questions regarding to 1. Awareness Why awareness is dynamic? (Under reality, It is dynamic and infinite, have lots of shapes and forms, is the ultimate super-set) EDIT: Work in progress, posted by accident

Just a few questions I had after the video. Primarily for Leo but if u have an actually intelligent answer I’ll welcome it What’s there when no one is looking? Myself I had the intuition that infinite intelligence simulates everything so that it looks like there is an objective world. Why do we appear to live in a shared world? Again I intuited an infinite intelligence world simulation, with people who are linked karmically appearing to share a world. Why does it appear as if we have sensory organs directed at a world? By Nothing, you don’t mean what people normally think of as nothingness, do you? Is what you essentially mean by nothingness just total nonduality to the point where all appearances dissolve? Does the bubble dissolve in deep sleep, and is that blankness of deep sleep God’s perspective? Were you implying that no-self is more true than universal Self? You said the more profound way to interpret reality was pure objectivity over pure subjectivity. and this is tangential but is awareness inherently intelligent or is intelligence an appearance in awareness?

Lol ? Fosho dude also might want to learn how we project knowledge/experience, thought, in place of a “direct experience”. And how “self” holds on to experiences. This seems to keep alive self. The self tends to cultivate an appetite for certain experiences. The ”me” will have a certain experience record them and cling to that experience which give self its continuity as the “experiencer”. So there may be a moment of death but it’s short lived when we are chemically induces..Then memory of that experience and we are back into the dual again. Because the memory is always limited to experience/the dual.. The point is death is a moment to moment type of deal. So actually the difficult thing is dying continually. It’s not looking to the experience of death, but more about sustaining death continually by never accumulating experience or holding on to experience, as in AWARNESS. So a way to look at is the ground or default “state” is not an experience but is no experience. Experience comes in when thought is used to navigate/respond physically. Like using thought/experience to learn intellectually, solve outward problems using thought. So try psychedelics fosho, but look into how self records/projects an experience and holds on to an experience as well. This will prevent the need to depend on psychedelics and the after effect of projecting your own accumulated content of knowledge in place of that no self experience when you come to and the chemical wears off. Then you will be able to die continually from moment to moment. Then the more moment to moment awareness stops this unnecessary recording/projecting, then the deeper in nothingness as default.

Yes this is all good stuff!! But how practical is it... Ofcourse Rupert Spira is the best and I have heard all of those and followed those pointings.. I always return to being a body that needs to have food, needs to sleep, needs comfort and many other things like money to be alive, healthy and happy. In deep sleep I do not need those things and I do not crave anything, I do not identify as anything but I also do not experience happiness. I experience nothingness - I want to be happy, to EXPERIENCE happiness. I want to be rich and be able to afford good food, travelling, to be able to build a family and live "The dream". If I were Jane's infinite mind, I would never want Mary to suffer. Who cares if Mary thinks she is Mary and not Jane. Jane is so infinite it shouldn't be a problem for Jane to give Mary the BEST life she can possibly have. If I really am the creator of my own reality, why am I making this body suffer? It doesn't seem right. I would NEVER do that. I am not a sadistic fuck like Jane's infinite mind. Must be my humanity speaking.

Light travels faster than sound so its only natural you saw the thunder strike before you heard it But did you notice the shape, colors, lenght and width of the thunder? Did you notice little branches separating from the main body of the thunder strike? Did you notice where it hit, or did you notice how it went somewhere you dont see? Did you notice your thought how it went somewhere you dont see, but in your mind you know it did go somewhere? Did you notice how the loud bang that hit your ear, how it crackled and how its volume fluctuated? Did it hit hard and fall flat, or did it build up, peak in the middle and fade towards the end? Was it high pitched? Was it low pitched? Was there multiple sounds clashing? Did you notice how the crackle came from nothingness and faded to nothingness? Can you still vividly imagine that sight and sound in your mind when you think about that thunder strike?

@Jack River with nothingness you mean the emptiness of essence? Cause in buddhist text the concept of nothingness is used in terms of a deep meditative state just before reaching nirvana. Where no-thing is perceived but also not nothingness.

Fosho. But thought will imitate nothingness as explained with knowledge. So when we learn about nothingness as an idea/abstraction thought inherently tends to conform too and project that content in place of “now”. That’s not quite my point my man. Awareness sees the whole of this movement towards abstraction and doesn’t continue in that direction. By not going in that direction of positive or negative action that movement/process disolves which brings about that silence then nothingness. To me nothingness seems to be more of a stoppage of thought/time and its registration/recollection/projection. So what I mean is by offering such knowledge about what may be beyond thought, when a person is not aware of how thought opperates thought will tend to accumulate and project all that knowledge as an experience.

1. No. 2. No. The nothingness that is contrasted to the experiencer/experiencing/registration/recollection is not the true nothingness. The nothingness that has to worry about "not being abstract" is not the true nothingness. It may be a reflection of the true nothingness, but it is not it. The true nothingness encompasses the duality of nothing-something and experiencer/no-experiencer. The true nothingness is not a "result," really, but the realization of what you already are and always have been, permanently and unchangeably.

Nothingness is as a result of no registration/recollection and therefore projection of self/thought. If we accumulate content about “nothingness” as an abstraction that seems to get transferred over as an experience as the experiencer. So what I mean is, doesn’t True nothingness come as a result of a mind that doesn’t react/respond with its conditioned movement/process?

Illusion is that which, when you look for it, it disappears. There's no trinity or duality, though you can use that as a provisional framework if you find it helpful. There's not even a oneness in the way we usually use that word. Nor is there nothingness. Just what there is cannot be expressed in words; you'll have to see for yourself. If you see nothingness, then there are no questions being asked and no answers being given.

All these questions though are seen realized when that silence/nothingness becomes actual. In regards to what I said about experiencing without knowledge/experience. A continuous dying. By answering these questions for people could we be imposing knowledge onto others and thereby they will project this information as an experience. Isn’t that an imitation of nothingness/or the unawareness I was speaking about ?

Is it possible there is triality present in an enlightened? The duality interacting with a some "One"? (Regardless of whether one or more of these is illusion). What is illusion, and what relation does it/them have with nothingness? Thank you

I finally found my life purpose and i feel fucking great. Motherfucking awesome. Thank you Leo fucking Gura dude. Everyday i get new ideas that I'm implementing and right now there's something I have to take care of - my life purpose will require from me to be really creative but that's not the same thing as being inventive. I mean - i need to come up with new, fresh, first-time-ever ideas. And yeah, I know, right now I'm doing exact the opposite, asking you a question about HOW TO BE MORE INVENTIVE, without thinking about and INVENT the solution by myself (ego is tricky fucking bastard). So let's say (I swear to god almighty who is nothingness), that last time I'm gonna look for help from the outside sources. Any books/ideas/concepts? Thank you boys in advance. Blesssss