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I guess I could just quote it in full (from a review on GoodReads): "First book I have read by Dr. David Hawkins and it was very dissapointing. This is basically Ben Shapiro writing about nonduality. The majority of the book is him expressing privlieged, uneducated and unexamined American exceptionalist, imperialist, white supremacist, capitalist and patriarchical talking points and views. There are some OK parts dealing with epistemology and ego mechanics, where there are some insights. However, these become quickly muddled with his ultra-conservativeness and arrogance of his gradation of consciousness level of various historical figures, ideologies etc. If you are interested in a western take on spiritual enlightenment and nonduality I would recommend to instead turn to teachers such as Rupert Spira, Chuck Hillig, Leo Gura instead of Dr. Hawkins. Perhaps his other works focusing more strictly on epistemology, and less on his views on basically anything else, are better than this one."

Saw a discussion on his book where someone described him as akin to 'Ben Shapiro writing about nonduality', which makes me wonder if I might be better off finding these insights elsewhere without wading through braindead political takes to get there...

@Dino D What you are doing is called a gish gallop. You are posting an overwhelming number of arguments all of which lack quality. ''During a Gish gallop, a debater confronts an opponent with a rapid series of many specious arguments, half-truths, misrepresentations, and outright lies in a short space of time, which makes it impossible for the opponent to refute all of them within the format of a formal debate'' anyways... There's a difference between being open to an idea and believing and acting on it. Strawman argument. Few nondualists would say this. as for the paragraph below that one, what the fuck? Its pretty nonsensical rambling A whirlpool on one side of the world cannot interact with a wave on the other side of the world even though they are aspects of one ocean. There's a difference between 'your' limited human experience and the you which is the entire universe. Also, you do experience stuff when you sleep and people sometimes recall past lives. Why can't a guru charge money? After all, he needs to survive and spread his teachings, all of which require money. As for drugs, most gurus dont take drugs, and even if they did, what's wrong with that? As for fucking up their lives, that's just complete bs. 1. Reality is infinitely complex 2. Leo is pretty different from most teachers Because it's a mental construct Because are minds are optimized for survival, not truth. These methods remove the deception mechanisms. huh? This argument is incoherent Because there is no answer. You are trying to grasp nonduality with the conceptual mind which is a mistake. How do you think the conceptual mind understand things? who is this 'you' and 'me' you are referring to? 'you' is a distinction that the mind makes to separate an aspect of consciousness from the rest. It's a mental construct. As for the other arguments, I cba

Look, in the end, what you want is totally up to you. Maybe you want a cucumber up your ass. I dunno. But there is nothing more satisfying than God-Consciousness. I'm sick of listening to these nondual monkeys talking about their nonduality. They are parroting stuff someone else parrotted to them and they are inventing their liberations and nondual states. These are people lost in nondual dreams.

Nonduality as a teaching is actually pretty elementary for any sufficiently intelligent person (unless you want to go into philosophical debris). It's actually practicing and changing your whole psyche to align with the teaching that is usually hard. So, it's the practical stuff that matters more, and in that respect Spira's material is pretty good IMO.

But one thing I want to add: for idealist philosophers and spiritual teachers the quality of teaching and presenting the material matters. Kastrup, Rupert Spira, even more populistic Tolle give good quality teachings, and that, as a cumulative effect, can make idealism and nonduality more and more influential. But poor quality teachings do exactly the opposite and compromise the movement. That's why I'm more concerned about poor quality and toxic presentations of nonduality teachings by teachers like Leo and other similar cheap teachers. Spiritual teaching requires high level of maturity, knowledge and experience, that is why in spiritual traditions (like Buddhism) the lineage holders would only pass the transmissions to the students they tested and trusted. In our days there are a lot of self-proclaimed immature "Enlightened" teachers presenting poor quality practices and teachings (which you can also pretty much tell by wild beliefs and unhinged behavior of the followers), especially because it is so tempting to make money on that, and eventually it is going to take a toll and divert people from nonduality.

Basically, Leo's teaching is a version of neo-advaita, which is essentially classical Advaita stripped from Indian cultural baggage and presented in modern language, with some psychedelic stuff added as a bonus. But historically, Advaita is not the only approach to nonduality, there was also Buddhism, Zen in particular as one of its pinnacles, that approaches nonduality from quite a different angle, and that is what I'm trying to vocalize here, also presenting it in modern philosophical language. The fierce dispute between Buddhism and Advaita went for 1500 yrs in India until Buddhism was eradicated from India by Moslems, but it revealed all practical and philosophical details of the differences in their approaches to nonduality. I just encourage people not to limit themselves to Advaita only, but stay open and explore other approaches to nonduality. I am myself a long time practitioner of both approaches, so I was able to compare them from both practical and philosophical perspectives. I found that Advaita works well enough, but the Buddhist approach leaves more freedom and opens more dimensions for liberation. Advaita is still a religion (albeit a good one), while Zen is beyond any religion.

If there is a consciousness identical to me... (two not one-non duality gone)... i was able to recognize a telepathic connection... because it was fully awake like I was and this can only work if both are fully awake, one God reaching to another God, two absolutes reaching to another God... If you would ask Leo: are you above Jesus (higher level), Budha, Ramana Maharshi in the awakening stage or knowledge, guess what this humble man would answer... Just analyze the psychological style and way he talks about his (perfect persona-absolute God), not only the content of his words and ideas (i know he is super intelligent and has enormous knowledge (that partly trapt him into overdrive and not freed him into peace)... there is the same patterns seen in delusional people, and narcissism and so on... so even if he is right, he sounds like a lost cause... he is getting more and more criticism for being deluded evan from followers... I just try to see his body language, his patterns his ways of speaking and acting that don't give me a positive vibe, and where i can see patterns of someone who is delusional or trapt in overthinking and over his fantasies and everything that pops up in his head, mental masturbation can only produce so MUCH content and overthinking (manic behavior) videos, blogs, forum, never ever stopping, that can not come from a peaceful and enlightened soul that mostly just IS, and does not endlessly search and think and lives on the internet typing and filming what it thinks(that does an unrested mind) be it even sophisticated nonduality, at the end it lost its ground and lead to falsehood...

Yeah I agree. It's a shame because he has some amazing videos on nonduality and enlightenment.

Awareness is not a "thing". These nonduality teachers are teaching bullshit. You are Consciousness. Consciousness is Absolute Truth. The end. It is a mistake to try to do some reductionist deconstruction of your conscious field, trying seperate out perceptions from "awareness". That will not result in God-Realization. These people do not know what God is. They are parroting nondual dogma that they have brainwashed themselves with. Nonduality is just brainwashing at this point.

I came across this video where Aaron Abke has an interview with Jesse Lee Peterson - A far right youtuber and radio host. Aaron is a pretty advance spiritual teacher and he tries to explain nonduality and spirituality to Jesse however, his words get twisted to fit the right wing agenda. Its clear that jesse has no idea what Aaron is talking about because his mind is far too closed. I was surprised to see someone as spiritually advanced as Aaron even on this show, and at certain points in the interview he shows some pretty strong right wing opinions about abortion, vaccines, gender, etc. It's worth a watch just to see that even spiritual masters can have some pretty conservative views.

To make some parallels with spiritual traditions, what Leo teaches is fairly close to Advaita, just presented in a modernized language and conceptual framework. The idea ais that our "Atman" - pure consciousness-awareness that we directly experience, is ontologically identical with "Brahman" - the "Ultimate Reality of the Infinite Universal Consciousness". But Advaitists and neo-Advaitists fail to realize that is it just a belief, an assumption. It is a reasonable assumption, no question about that, at least more reasonable than materialism or naive realism. But the fact that it is reasonable does not necessarily make it ultimately true. In other words, Advaita is still a religion. However, Zen goes beyond that, beyond any religion. Zen is living in a direct experience of the given at the moment of now without any views or suppositions about the "Ultimate Reality", without any interpretations of the given. It is just "THIS", be it a pure presence of awareness without any phenomena, or presence-awareness with a flow of qualia-phenomena. There is essentially no difference between the presence or absence of phenomena. Any ideas or concepts are also included in the flow of phenomena, but with clear realization that they are simply contingent ideas, they are just thoughts, not true and not false in the "ultimate" sense, but some of them may be more practically useful than others. This "given", as it is given, is neither dual, nor nondual. It is just what it is. "Duality" and "nonduality" are just concepts automatically included in the given. It is true that this "given' is only our direct conscious experience, yet we do not know whether "all there is" is also only conscious experience, or whether there is anything beyond that. But we do not need to assume whether "all there is" is only conscious experience or not. Either way, these assumptions would still be just concepts and beliefs.

Let’s start from a quote from Leo’s talk with Curt: “time is overlay or projection that universal mind is imagining on top of the now”. Similarly it can be said that “matter is overlay or projection that universal mind is imagining on top of the given conscious experience”. However, these projections are also equally part of the given “this”, of the flow of qualia of the given conscious experience happening now. Why then these projections are considered any less “true” or in any way inferior compared to the presence of the given raw conscious experience at the instance of now which we consider to be the “Absolute”? Since there is no hierarchy in the Absolute, then any overlaid projections must be equally the Absolute and must be as true and real as any other experiences, qualia or ideas. Why then ideas and projections, be them true of false, are considered inferior to the given raw conscious experience if any ideas are always inseparable from the given conscious experience? Any ideas or projections are equally qualia of our conscious experience and are in fact as “raw” as any other kinds of the qualia of conscious experience. If we experience our hands as the “reality here and now”, then the overlaid idea that “these hands are material objects existing beyond my consciousness”, if it happens to appear in our stream of conscious phenomena, is also equally consciously experienced as qualia, as the reality here and now, and there is no way to distinguish and prioritize the raw sensual experience of the hands over any overlaid idea about the hands no matter how wild this idea can be. For example, Leo says that “the shape of a castle is a concept of a second order”, but that implies the existence of a preference and hierarchy in the reality: the Being is the fundamental preferred zero-order, the raw sensual qualia are the first-order phenomena, and the imaginations and concepts are the second-order phenomena that are somehow inferior in “truthfulness” or “reality” compared to the phenomena of the more fundamental orders. But such prioritization is already an idea that belongs to the second order, and there can equally be other alternative ways of prioritization where, for example, the concepts can be claimed to be more fundamental with respect to qualia of the raw experience and to the Being itself. If fact, there is a Plationic version of idealism claiming that the Absolute Idea is the ontic fundamental, and the being, awareness and qualia of conscious experience are only secondary forms and aspects of it. So, the view that the Being-Awareness is fundamental and is prior to any concepts is only a belief and an implicit idea which lies in the blind spot of the subjective idealism paradigms (such as Leo’s, Rupert Spira’s and like). I’m well aware that we all can directly realize and experience the “indivisible Beingness-Awareness”, as I did it myself, and that’s fine, but then we construct a belief that somehow this “Beingness-Awareness” must be more “true”, more “real” and more “fundamental” as compared to all other fleeting phenomena and qualia of our direct experience, including any concepts and ideas. But that is just another abstract idea, there is actually no sound reason to believe that it is true (there are logical arguments for that, but that’s all logic and reasoning which is just another set of ideas). In order to distinguish truth from non-truth, there needs to be a criterion of truth belonging to a category of meta-truths. But there can be many criteria of truth, why prefer one over the other? In order to have a criterion of truth that is selected from all other alternative criteria, we need a meta-criterion of truth to assess the truthfulness of the criteria of truth, and by repeating the same argument we run into an endless process that never arrives to a definite criterion of truth at any meta-order. And even if we would somehow arrive at a criterion of truth at any meta-level, it would still be only an idea, a mental form among any other possible ideas or forms of consciousness with no possibility to choose and prioritize between them. Leo: “Meanings are illusions, meanings are what we construct, Being is what actually is”. The belief that the Absolute-Being exists as something of its own and as a fundamental Reality is simply one of our abstract ideas. If we carefully examine the given facts of our direct experience, we find that what we actually directly experience is only a finite flow of phenomenal qualia in our field of direct conscious experience at the instance of now, where any phenomenon (be it a meaning, idea, sensation, emotion, imagination etc) is equally present and equally real by the very fact of their presence in our conscious experience. We usually construct many ideas about this flow and about the phenomena and their origins and causal relations, but all those ideas, once they arise, immediately become equally real and equally present as qualia and as inseparable part of our field of experience. In other words, the ideas, thoughts and meanings are also simply phenomena of our direct conscious experience. This is all we can know and directly experience as facts. The unsolvable epistemological puzzle is that there is no inherent “right” way to prioritize and sort these phenomenal qualia according to their degree of truthfulness or a degree or reality, or a degree of relativity or absoluteness, because any such way of sorting and prioritizing would be just another constructed idea, another phenomenon. That includes any ideas about the primacy of the Absolute, God, Being, Awareness or whatever you want to call it. The unchangeable presence of awareness-beingness is definitely a fact of our direct experience, no question about that, but to assume that the awareness-beingness is somehow more “fundamental” or more “absolute” with respect to other phenomena is only an abstract and constructed idea. The well-observed fact that the awareness-suchness is omnipresent in our experience and never changes is not a sufficient justification to declare them to be “ontologically more fundamental”, more “true” or “more inherent” to reality as compared to any other phenomena, ideas or aspects of reality. Similarly, there is no ground to declare any of our meanings, ideas, imaginations or thoughts as “false” or “unreal” or “secondary” since they are all equally real and equally present in our direct conscious experience together with all other qualia and with their suchness-awareness. For example, what if there exists a beyond-consciousness Meta-Reality? It would be something like a Kantian “thing in itself” for us that we can never possibly know, imagine or experience, so we have all practical grounds to deny its existence based on the principle of parsimony (as Bernardo Kastrup usually argues). But such Meta-Reality would not care about our ability to experience it and about our principles, it would still exist by itself regardless of what we believe, think or perceive. We may still choose to ignore it and believe that “Consciousness is all there is”, and we indeed have all practical reasons to do that, because conscious experience is the only thing we can actually ever know and experience, and because the existence of such Meta-Reality would be absolutely irrelevant to our practical life and existence anyway. But still, this would only be a belief if we take it in a religious way, or an assumption if we take it in a philosophical way. In other words, “Consciousness is all there is” is still a limited paradigm, a belief, a choice among other possible beliefs or assumptions, and possible versions of Reality. But any belief system, no matter how practically useful it may be at a certain stage of our development, becomes a limitation at some further stage. By adopting a belief that “Consciousness is all there is” we still corner ourselves into a very specific and limited worldview, no matter how practical, comfortable or nirvanic it may be. Would not the ultimate liberation be letting go of any beliefs, including the belief that “Consciousness is all there is”? So, what if this “oneness” or “the truth of non-duality” is as much a constructed trickery of the mind as the “world of duality”? What if the “nondual Self” is as much an abstraction and projection as the “individual self”? What if we simply fool ourselves by flipping from one kind of mind-constructed view of reality into another equally mind-constructed one: from naïve realism of believing in the reality of separate subjects and separate material objects outside our individual minds and in the absolute truth of our mind constructed meanings to a naïve nondualism of interpreting the reality as a fundamental nondual “Absolute-God-Consciousness-Self-Awareness-Beingness is all there is”? The latter might arguably be more practically meaningful, functional and productive, at least for some people, but that does not necessarily mean that it is ultimately true. And what if there are other levels of realization beyond both of these mind-constructed beliefs-views of reality, and beyond any other possible mind-constructed beliefs-views of reality for that matter? Just like Leo said that any meaning is mind-constructed, but he still believes that the “Being” is prior to meaning, it would be a simple realization that there is nothing prior to anything else, and all our beliefs in the primacy of something with respect to something else is also nothing else then a constructed meaning. And then what’s left would be a real freedom from deceiving ourselves into any beliefs in the absoluteness or absolute truthfulness of anything and simply abiding in the given reality of the direct conscious experience just as it is present here and now. This is not agnosticism, not a denial of any possibility of knowledge, but a simple realization that any knowledge can only be mind-constructed, pragmatic and relative, including any realization of “Being” or “one's ABSOLUTE nature” or any other kind of “spaghetti monster” that we would want to believe to be “prior to” any knowledge. But from that perspective, we can still acquire and exercise knowledge, including non-dual realization. However, any knowledge we have will always be contingent. The difference is in the fitness of the knowledge. The fitness can be assessed from practical and consistency perspectives: any knowledge has higher fitness if it is more useful for our functioning and more consistent in correspondence with the body of facts. In that respect the nondual knowledge arguably has the highest fitness as compared to any other currently available to us.

That's good, but there are still degrees of no-self realization. No-self is still pretty profound. It is not to be poo-pooed. A) Much of mainstream nonduality is shallow Neo-Advaita stuff. B) Just because Sam is familiar with Maharshi does not mean he understands the depth of what Maharshi was talking about. Maharshi had some serious God-Realization going on. It wasn't just some tepid no-self insight. You need to be careful to distinguish all these different teachers. Some of them are shallow, some of them are deep. Rest assured there is a lot more for you to become conscious of and awaken to. The really good stuff is way ahead for you. Serious Awakening is very special. It's not some tepid insight. No book will convey to you how special it gets.

Turquoise is not nonduality.

I acknowledge that i was very ruthless and vicious in my posts about Nahm, and i see that everyone is always doing their best and i believe Nahm did his best. That being said, I felt the desire to respond to Nahm calling me a liar about what i said about our calls, and im calling it out for transparency sake. He said he told me after months of free calls that this won't work and that i should seek out therapy. But according to his own logic, he then went on to accept thousands of dollars in donations from someone who he believed he was unable to help. Im not sure how anyone can look at that logic and conclude that Nahm is a fully honest person who acted with complete integrity and honor in our interaction. It should also cast into doubt the validity of whats being shared on his forum, and the wisdom and integrity of the core community who stand by him. one “user” who did experience sessions, who claims I am a charlatan, taking advantage, “unenlightened”, etc, and outright lies about what transpired, is experiencing the same trauma, the same suppression, the same denial, and the same deflection & projection, as Leo. This is why Leo not only allows, but subtly supports the lies and claims by making threads about, “Nahm”, and”Nahm’s Neo-Advaita teachings”, etc, etc. Making a dreamboard, understanding the emotions experienced, inspecting thoughts & beliefs - this is obviously not neo advaita, and aside, there is no such thing as neo advaita or neo advaitan teachings. That, is actually, Leoism, or… basic, obvious, trauma, emotional suppression, deflection & projection. The one “user”, after months of twice a week sessions for free, was told this isn’t going to work for him because there are no enlightened selves, and no one can enlighten someone else. He was told to seek out psychoanalytical therapy specifically. To this day, this “user” continues to project, and the chief complaint - that Nahm promised him enlightenment - which is an outright lie, persists and is supported by, one purporting to be, a teacher of nonduality, in that separate selves become enlightened.

Depends how your brain is wired. For some people it can work. A single rigorous 10-day retreat can get you to see what nonduality is talking around. But nonduality is not God-Realization. There are minor human benefits, but not serious existential understanding -- which is my primary concern.

What I find hard to understand is how we have these experiences of nonduality, oneness or 'I am the universe' etc; then drop back into separateness with this appearance of us all being distinct bubbles of consciousness. If you really are the universe, and awakened, then you are also everyone else, and the whole universe is awake. So where's the need for saviours? Yet here I am with my problems and delusions. Are you and me the same being? If so, how come you're awake and I'm not? If you're not me, how can you be awakened?

Lets begin. There are no limitation to consciousness. You are only saying that and have come to that conclusion because of your own lack of understanding of yourself as consciousness. Firstly it can be biased. How so? By being a man, woman, cat etc. Any finite manifistation/form of it by definition is gonna be biased, and let us not get to how survival of any different form makes consciousness biased. Yes in its pure formless absolute infinite state it is Love and unbiased. What does it mean to reject? It is to seperate and that in the Absolute Truth is an ILLUSSION. Unity, nonduality, oneness etc. Are not meaningless names. There is much more to explore in this biased topic alone. But I wanna keep it simple and be straight forward. There is a reason for why Leo is pointing at Omniscience and how everything is Infinite Love. What are these two words pointing at? And lastly there is no evil. You almost sound so afraid and sad of accepting everything as yourself. Let me spoil it for you thats the only reason why you came here, and why you're not in your Absolute Infinite state. Don't wanna keep digging on this point, but I have a lot more to say. Sorry but you're wrong it can create things beyond our wildest dreams, things that we as humans can't comprehend, that is Infinity for you. Like I said before, you came to these consclusions by your lack of consciousness. No thinking, logic, contemplating (without psychedelics), imagination capabilities, basically all things comming from the human mind can make you realize and understand what Consciousness is. The funny thing is that you came to the conclusions of the limitations by your own limited mind. We can't comprehend Infinity by our ego minds, you need to connect to it to fully understand and realize what it is and what it is capable of.

Leo is the only person I know of who claims it is possible to know why there is something rather than nothing. I remember his answer: there is no difference between something and nothing. Conceptually, I can't argue with this, and I think it is much more reasonable than the common materialist worldview. Leo also has many other claims about the nature of reality, such as the universe is intelligent, I am the universe, and I am actively creating my own reality, but I have not been able to independently verify such claims thus far. I just want to point out that Leo is the ONLY person I've seen who explicitly states something like this and is not question begging. I will say that my knowledge of various spiritual claims is not very broad, but it is pretty descent. I have studied a lot of Physics, Christianity, Buddhism, and even nonduality (from people such as Fred Davis, Thomas Campbell, Elkhart Tolle, Alan Watts, and more), and not one, NOT ONE, has told me that I can understand that fundamental question, or even seems to be interested in the fundamental question, except Leo. These are the questions that Leo says can fall under the category of actual philosophy: 1. What are the right and wrong ways of doing philosophy? 2. What is reality? 3. Where did reality come from? 4. Why is there something rather than nothing? 5. What is Consciousness? 6. How to live the best life possible? 7. How to construct the best society for the good of all? Really. why. WHY isn't EVERY philosopher who has ever existed repeating some variation of these questions as a mantra? What could possibly be more important and intriguing? This isn't to say that other sects of philosophy and spirituality haven't done valuable things though. Buddhism gives you a practical way to achieve supreme long term happiness, Christianity tells you how to live a "morally correct" life, physics tells you how you can understand the physical machinery of the universe using math, and nonduality tells you how to transcend your ego and begin your true spiritual journey. But Leo is the only one who dares to ask the big questions. The fundamental questions. And he claims to have answers. For this reason, Leo is one of the only true philosophers in the world.

@Thought Art No amount of yoga, meditation, Zen practice, scripture study, physics, maths, or psychedelic trips will prevent the ego from drawing wrong conclusions. I take solipsism very seriously concerning the Infinite Mind of the Infinite Ocean of Consciousness - the Absolute (but here, you must bear in mind that this is a human concept). I do not know anything that any of the participants of this forum accomplished the complete transcendence of the ego - therefore, speaking about The Absolute compressed to any individual here is, in my opinion, at least an intellectual abuse. The problem is that Absolute Nonduality does not exclude duality on the lower levels - in God's Dream. Many people here cannot open up to this possibility - which I believe is a symptom of intellectual immaturity, not enlightenment.

Oh trust me, I haven't been "following" him for quite some time. I am following my own path and my own heart. On another note, this whole "alien" descriptor is EXACTLY how McGilchrist describes the experience of schizophrenics. That is one of the defining characteristics of it. From the standpoint of nonduality, schizophrenia is actually quite interesting. Much of it actually resembles enlightenment, but at the same time the subjects are terrified and anxious and ungrounded. To me, it seems that the sense of self exists in both halves of the brain, with the left being more gross and conceptual and the right being much more subtle (time, space, context, etc.). Schizophrenics essentially LOSE the subtle sense of self while retaining the gross sense (because it is a disorder of extreme left-brain dominance); this results in a half-enlightened terror state for most. Leo isn't so terrified because of his experience with spirituality, but nonetheless he seems to be going deeper and deeper into this fantasy realm of pure abstract conceptualization, devoid of embodied presence and relationship, devoid of aliveness and inseperable connection to the source experiences which ground and inform abstraction to begin with... Alien. Genuine enlightenment typically involves unraveling the gross sense of self first (via inquiry, vipassana, etc), and THEN as insight clarifies, concentration deepens, and equanimity is attained, gradually unraveling the extremely subtle sense of self (right hemisphere identity, essentially). When both are complete, Reality simply shines as itself. So, healthy progression arrives at Thusness in a way that is "big to small", grounded, and supportive of psychological health.

@vladorion I'm tired of listening to your nonsense. If you do not open your mind I am banning you. You have zero idea what Consciousness is. Zero. Yet you keep acting like you do. This goes not just for you, but for any others here who subcribe to Buddhism and nonduality. Your arrogance knows no limits and I will be banning all of you if you do not start to demonstrate openmindedness. Consider this your last warning.

Solipsism Notes “One who sees everything as nothing but the Self, and the Self in everything one sees, such a seer withdraws from nothing. For the enlightened, all that exists is nothing but the Self.” - Ishopanishad; Sloka 6, 7 “May I recognize whatever appeareth as being mine own thought-forms.” - Tibetan Book of the Dead Student: “How should we treat others?” Ramana Maharishi: “There are no others.” Anyone who claims the existence of other minds, or even allows them as a theoretical possibility, does not realize oneself as God. Introduction Definition of Solipsism Solipsism = Solis (Alone) Ipsi (Self) Philosophical idea that only one’s own mind is sure to exist Knowledge of anything outside the mind is unknown Self is the only existing reality and all persons are representations of the self Denial of existence of other minds Other minds are private and are inference at best Mankind and I gives negative connotations to Solipsism Start to wonder why Why am I biased against Solipsism? Why do I assume it is crazy or bad? Having a bias against Solipsism is unscientific and irrational Truth is the truth regardless of whether it is liked or not. Logic or improbability have nothing to do with Truth Be open to all possible worldviews until I arrive at Truth If I am interested in Truth, then it does not matter if it is Solipsism People make a mistake to assume and make a fact that it is impossible to know Truth. Solipsism deals with the nature of self but also nature of other. Other is the inverse of my self-definition What is other? What is self? They are inter-defined. Spirituality frames it as What is the Self? But the uncommon direction is to ask What is Other? Most people don’t contemplate what other is. Be open to the fact that I don’t know what other is. Other may not exist. If I change my identity of self, I change my identity of other. Infinite self makes no more room for other. My definitions of self and other are mentally constructed Is Solipsism True? Yes. Most people object to Solipsism because it is too crazy and radical. I can become conscious of what self and other are. Other is my own self and my own mind. My entire worldview and life depends on the notion of other. Other defines my self and my sense of reality. Awakening is realizing I am God and that I am the only conscious thing there is. Be conscious of everything being myself and that I am alone. God’s mind is alone and sovereign. I give partitions of other minds, but I fail to realize that I constructed all of that in my own mind. Other is my own construction. I am the only conscious thing in existence. There cannot be any other conscious being. There are not multiple conscious beings or souls or parallel lives or past lives or parallel lives. There is only my life right now. All the qualia and experience now is all that existence. I have 100% direct consciousness of existence. The issue is that I imagine other things to explain away the present moment. Outside of this dream is nothing and no-one but me. Mainstream notions of solipsism don’t include God, Love, Will, Intelligence, etc. My human self is part of the construction. My bubble of consciousness is all there is and nothing is outside of it. All of the qualia is my bubble. Life is a dream for an audience of one. It is a dream for myself. There is only one entity that needs to be fooled to construct reality. Myself. Why would there be other minds? Solipsism is the simplest explanation. How is reality created? Dream up self and other and fool myself Multiple animals being born are all the same self and not other to each other. Science cannot tell me what other is. Rather than having materialism and multiple minds, there is one consciousness that fools itself with images of other minds outside of itself. All things that I posit will always have a self-referential problem and infinite regress. It pushes problems down a level. There are no limits to what Infinite Mind can create. An atom is just as easy to create as an elephant. Mind does not need a big bang or years of evolution. It just imagines this human life and then a chain of causation of stories. As a kid, I asked questions of where am I? Where did I come from? My mind started filling in the blanks from society when I don’t know. The backstory becomes my worldview. Biology, history, science, etc. are all backstories to explain the present moment. I have given my authority to imaginary others. Others have an impact on my self. I assume adults know what they are talking about when in fact they went through the same thing as me. I am all that I have ever experienced in my life. Before I was born there was nothing. All that I have ever experienced was myself visual, auditory, emotions, thoughts, tastes, smells, touch, etc. I have never experienced anything other than my own mind, my own experience My experience is absolute Anything other than direct experience is speculation and inference All science and all others is part of my experience I am experience I have given my authority and trusted others more than my direct experience This is a problem. Trusting others is a second-order phenomenon. I have to first assume they are real and that they are in my direct experience. Trusting myself and direct experience is primary. Why am I so triggered by Solipsism? Why do I want reality to be different from Solipsism? Why do I depend on the companionship of others? Others define the self Solipsism is objective, denial of it is subjective and emotional reaction. Other can be minds and inanimate objects like external world. Can there be something beyond my experience? anything beyond my experience is in my experience No amount of thought experiments or science will always be in my experience. All of us are solipsists are already. But some go one dream further. We all accept that at night we dream and that they are solipsistic The entire dream and dream characters are a construction of my own mind. When I wake up from a dream, all other characters are all me. Do my dream characters have a mind of their own? How is reality any different from how I dream? I am dreaming right now, but I still cling to otherness. When I wake up from this dream, it will be just me and nothing else. Spiritual teachers say life is just a dream. There is a notion is that when I wake up from this dream, there will be others waiting for me on the other side. There is only one dreamer who dreams all other dreamers. I am very attached to dreaming. I am 100% responsible. I am constructing the entire dream. I am responsible for everything in my experience. “We are all atheists but I believe in one less God than you.” — We are all solipsists. My nighttime dreams are imaginary. Make that shift to all of my experience and not exclusive to my dreams. Nighttime dreams are grounded in daytime dreams. Nighttime dreams and reality is imaginary distinction. Solipsism traditionally is not tied into spirituality. But Absolute Solipsism is spiritual. Solipsism is essence of spirituality. Love, God, Will, Omniscience, Immortality, Eternity, etc. are all part of Solipsism. This dream is my own will and my own intelligence. All mystical/spiritual traditions point towards Solipsism. FAQs Enlightened teachers deny Solipsism they are not fully awake and not conscious how they are creating all sense of other Some may be conscious of this but do not want to tell people this because they want others to discover it for themselves. Solipsism is bad marketing and triggers people Ex. Ramana Maharshi was a Solipsist and says “there is no other.” Most people will not reach the highest levels Not telling kids about death and letting them figure it out - analogy Where do my ideas of enlightenment come from? teachers books from “others” Be aware of spiritual ego Goal: Have a complete understanding of reality Why does Leo even teach if I am the only conscious being? Playing a game with himself and do whatever gives meaning I am actually playing a game with myself Actualized.org is a dissociated part of my mind that I need to integrate The question isn’t why is Leo teaching me but why am I teaching myself? Does Leo have his own experience? There is only my experience. There are not other experiences. Leo is my experience. Why is Leo talking as if he has his own experience? Why is Leo tricking me? The real question is why am I tricking myself? Why did I construct Leo? I have to deny all identities to construct my identity and my dream has to be convincing I am God cosplaying as a human Finger pointing exercise: Point figure at the screen at Leo and then point it at me. Say Leo out loud when I point to Leo and me when I point to me (behind my eyes). Then after a while, point to me and say Leo and realize that Leo has always been behind my eyes. Everybody is my body. This is all a projection of my own mind. Stop imagining other people have experiences until all there is, is my bubble. That is awakening. I am imagining that other people are awakening. I have invented characters in the dream who awoken to give me an example. My imagination is so powerful that I believe others. Imagination vs. reality I can awaken to that I am imagining reality I imagine that others will exist after I die When I cease to imagine, everything ceases to exist. There is no world outside of my own mind Open my mind to the possibility that it is just me and everyone else doesn’t exist. I am imagining Leo is imagining me. I imagine Leo’s joy, awakening, pain, etc. All suffering that anybody experienced I am imagining in my own mind. I never experienced death, but I imagined many animals dying, and I assume I will die as well. I never seen death. I can imagine others and myself dying but I cannot die. When I realize I cannot die and I am immortal, that is the holy grail. The holy grail is realizing the death of everyone and myself is a construction of my own mind. Solipsism isn’t contradictory. All denial and objections and everything is part of the dream. There is no escaping the dream. Angels, demons, Santa, etc. are no different from humans and animals. It is just part of my dream. It is dogmatic to state that it is impossible to know. All other minds are sub-minds to my infinite mind. If Solipsism is true, I am avoiding it and everyone is avoiding as a conspiracy to help me avoid it. If Solipsism was on CNN, I would either already wake up or I would avoid CNN. Society is geared so that I can remain asleep. My mom says she has an experience of her own. Is she lying and being an evil demon? My mom is not an evil demon trying to fool me. I am God fooling myself using my mom. All dream characters will deny they are dream characters so that I remain asleep. If not, there is no dream. My mom is not faking it, I am faking it. There is no mom, there is only me. There is only me deceiving myself so that I can exist as a human. If not, I would die and stop existing as a human. God creates others so it creates itself. The only conspiracy theory that matters is my own self-deception. It is a conspiracy of one. I am conspiring myself during my dreams. All other conspiracy theories are sub-conspiracies within the meta-conspiracy. I am doing this to myself. Reality isn’t a simulation, it is a dream. Simulation still has a sense of other like an alien or other reality or something. It pushes the problem back another level. Where did the aliens and simulation come from? What are the odds that I am the only one in existence? The odds of me being conscious are 100% Everything I have ever experienced has always revolved around me. What if I am not an accident but an absolute? If I am the only one, where did I come from? I have always been and have imagined all places and invented stories Nothing can be conscious but me. A dog and Leo being conscious is what I am imagining. One day, I can imagine my computer being conscious. It will be just another character in my dream. Is the suffering of others real? No. There is only one conscious being who suffers and it is me. Where has suffering ever existed? Suffering only exists in my mind. If I kick a dog and it wimpers, I am imagining that. I am imagining the dog’s suffering. If I torture a dog in my dream and wake up, where is the dog’s suffering? Suffering is a mechanism to keep myself asleep. Suffering feelings very real in my direct experience and in others. Life has serious consequences to sell the illusion of the dream How could I construct a dream so well to fool myself? Make suffering so overwhelming that I would never do any existential questioning. I am creating a drama. What makes a good movie is the drama. Why do I watch action movies? I crave distraction and I want immersion. I cook in a video game for immersion to simulate life and have a game. The world is boring without evil. It is to construct a powerful illusion. Think of self-deception in an existential manner. Self-deception constructs reality atoms, evolution, science, space, time, other beings, planet earth as metaphysical self-deception All philosophy and spirituality goes out the window with pain. Pain is part of the dream to keep me locked in the dream. If suffering is imaginary, why not be selfish and harm others and be a devil? No reason at all. There will always be consequences in this dream for my selfish behavior. My dream can turn into a nightmare. I am dreaming. What kind of dream do I want? A nightmare or Heaven? A long road ahead of suffering if I am selfish God creates the dream to teach itself about how to live (for Love) Since I am in the dream, why not create the best possible life? True goodness and love is when I am even nice even when I know others are an illusion. Love and goodness don’t need reasons. There is no reason why a life of suffering is worse than a life of joy. Solipsism is unfalsifiable because it is absolutely true. It is verifiable Is it safe and logical to assume other minds? Is it practical to assume other minds? Practical and true aren’t always the same. It is convenient to live the dream but it is not true. Nonduality is Solipsism Nonduality is Oneness and is Absolute Solipsism There is so much untruth because truth is dangerous. Truth is dangerous in every domain in life Often times, the most dangerous things are true because most people care more about truth than survival. Society is an illusion If I find truth, I sit alone and contemplate and not go to others and to the herd I can still socialize even when I know Solipsism is True The Truth of Solipsism is beautiful. Leo goes to parties has sex, etc. because it is his dream I am imagining and he enjoys it. Enjoy the dream. Should we be openminded to other minds? start being openminded and then close off my mind to things I have become conscious of that are false Become absolutely conscious to where I no longer have doubts Openminded all the time can be closed off to being close-minded. Be closed-off to positions I have validated as false in my direct experience. Truth is more important than openmindedness Being openminded to everything is a trap because that means I don’t get anywhere Does God have the power to create other minds? This contradicts God’s omnipotence God is one. God has the infinite power to dream up many minds within its own mind. God cannot sever its own oneness because God is One. How to verify Solipsism 200+ 5-me0 Trips and do all the practices to deconstruct my mind the trips could kill me How do I know 5-me0 is not an illusion? How do I know anything is not an illusion? Don’t misuse skepticism and go test it. The real cult is mainstream society, spirituality, and materialism but most of all, my own self-deception. Become conscious of Solipsism and not believe it Nobody will verify that I am all alone. Humans need a degree of socialization. Don’t use Solipsism as an excuse to be a loner. Self-Understanding is the highest happiness and end of suffering The highest happiness is realizing I am God Conclusion What is other? Contemplate what is other. Don’t take solipsism on as a belief. Find out what is true. This is a hypothesis till I can verify for myself. Stay with what is true in my direct experience. Think for myself. Important to not fake it till I make it. It can create disfunction. True liberation is freedom from the illusion of other. “Hell is other people.” - Satre I am Alone because I am so together. Love is togetherness. The illusion unifies and not separates. It’s like God has multiple personality disorder and when God is one, God connects back to it Self. Being Alone means I integrate all parts of myself together into a unity. Love is Unity, Oneness, and togetherness. The illusion unifies all the sub minds together and not separates. There is a lot of bullshit out in the world. Awakening is basically Absolute Solipsism

Vicki Woodyard, Lisa Cairns (nonduality), Gigi Young (not necessarily about non-duality, but she is a female mystic who covers interesting topics on spirituality), Simcha Lev (had a spontaneous awakening), Tara Brach (Her themes reveal the possibility of emotional healing and spiritual awakening through mindful, loving awareness as well as the alleviation of suffering in the larger world by practicing compassion in action.)