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I have a very, very strong sense of incongruency, apathy and meaninglessness. It has lasted about four months. Basically I feel like nothing can make sense, if there is no-one experiencing anything. I mean.. Why the heck do self-help if you help no-one anyways. If I'm absolutely nothingness and the void who is then feeling these emotions? How can "you" be passionate, feel love and pursuit anything whatsoever, if "you" don't exist in the first place?! It is slowly driving me nuts. I would really appreciate your clever answers. Daniel

No experience lasts forever. They all end. The only thing that can last forever is Nothingness and it is not painful. So in the long run you can look forward to Nothingness That is why enlightenment is the ultimate Good, and why God is ultimately Good. There is literally nothing to fear. All fear is illusion. You just need to become conscious enough to see this. And that can only happen with death (enlightenment). No ego, no problem.

Thank you so much for this episode, Leo. It resonates with and reactivates the knowing from the fresh 5-MEO experience that happened this past weekend. When a human takes a powerful entheogen, there's no control of what the experience of the trip will be. It's like I was repeatedly fucking myself, giving birth to myself, and killing myself, and exploding to a timeless moment of nothingness. Imagine if all omnipotent GOD takes an entheogen, that would be the most infinite holy fuck of all time and space, with experience that's unimaginable and ineffable, the feelings created can be the most soul crushingly beautiful and insane mind shatteringly fucking brutal. The first trip was more challenging and scary, because going into it with fear, the fear will bleed into the experience and that "perfectly" becomes the lesson of that trip. Self-forgiveness and acceptance was the main theme of that first experience, it also serves as a purging, clearing, and opening for future experience. There's no right or wrong way of navigating this reality, only the conditioned ego mind comes in, put values on any experience, and judge it as good or bad. That's a very powerful realization. Even though it was a fucking scaring first experience, it's all worth it because of the contrasting beautiful, love, peace, and knowledge on the other end. One cannot happen without the other, the both ends of the same stick, no matter how you try to cut one end, there's always 2 ends of 1 thing. If I listen to the bullshit of the reconstructed ego, I would not have done a second session the next morning. The feeling or knowing I got from the first experience told me I have more work to do, and I plunge myself into a second ceremony the next day. The second ceremony was even more intense, coming into it with the openness and rawness of the first one. YOU CANNOT DO SURRENDERING! Don't try to remember to surrender or give up, because "YOU" CAN NEVER DO IT! If you think you "surrender", you have not "surrender". Surrender and death happens simultaneously, and that's when you're home... home with nothingness, peaces beyond words, and acceptance of all thing, including the small self and the ego that the ego has practicing and trying so hard to surrender. No one can express oneness and nonduality, no one. There's no sense, perception, or tool a human being have to touch it. It's only when the human construct is not around then THAT IS, just IS. When coming down from peak, massive download of wisdom happened. I continue to experience reactivation and the understanding are still coming 2 days later... There's a lot of uncontrollable crying and intense laughing, it's both fucking hilarious and beautiful. All this BS words I've just shared, cannot be understood by the ego mind. I was on the other side, so I know I've tried. I've been there before the veil drops, so I know how strong, cunning, and aggressive the ego is, so arrogantly think I could figure this out on my own. Yeah, by the way, you can't figure this out, but you can't help it anyways, so just keep doing what you do for the time being, until you're ready to truly do the work and die. You cannot be there and experience God, the process has to annihilate you, then there is. There magnitude of God's hallucination or imagination will make you go insane. The human civilization can begin and end for billions and billions of years, and yet it's no time for God. It's scary when you imagine this human drama of pleasure and suffering can keep repeating for not millions of cycle, but billions and billions of cycle, and yet it's no time and nothing for God. I have to apologize for sharing all these BS words, because it "impossible" to put them into words, just like you try to explain the concept of nothing or infinity, both can never be explained by "something" that is also "finite". All these are just residue experience of the real thing in words. If I can only share one thing here in this reality or going into that reality, is TRUST and LOVE, and just let the process take over you, you HAVE NOT FUCKING CONTROL anyways... just trust and love, remind the ego self, trust and love. The ego cannot be gone in this realm of human interaction. You don't have to or need to make it pleasant for yourself or anyone, BUT, if you so inclined to, put in a virus or trojan horse into the ego, and infect everyone with Trust and Love. It would be like the come down phase of the 5-MEO, when you realize that you like to remind yourself and each other, it's all a game, everything before, now, and forever, is just God's ultimate trip. Love and Trust to you all, brothers and sisters, and you, that sneaky bastard who hides behind all these mask. LOL!

If you dare, venture to the null void. All distinctions will dissolve into absolute nothingness. As you return, distinctions will gradually appear. The conceptualizing about distinctions in this thread may seem basic, yet the level distinction for these concepts is extraordinarily high. So are the distinctions required to create a sense of self. There is a mind-boggling amount of distinctions in the human mind that have appeared over millions of years of evolution. If there was a 2hr. movie that began at the null void and gradually allowed distinctions to appear - the level of conceptualization occurring here wouldn't appear until after 1.5hr. into the movie. There is so much occurring before all this conceptualization. Yet, I would guess that the vast majority of viewers would get bored with this and want to fast forward to the ending.

Trip Report 2C-B 4-aco-dmt and weed OMG Infinite Possibilities First a quote by Albert Einstein "The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science." This quote tries to encapsulate my psychedelic trip into words, but it is not my experience. Let me just say that you will probably almost never read a trip report like this. This is a rare one IMO. So I took 16 mg of 2c-b, 21 mg of 4-aco-dmt. It started off pretty mundane I visited some places mentally had a few insights for my life, then about an hour and a half later I take 3 puffs of my marijuana pen/vaporizer. Then things take off. I start intensely seeing and visualizing the external world. Everything, all my thoughts became abstract art. I go outside and just stare at the trees mesmerized realizing it’s art all while this mystical feeling of wonder and mystery courses through my body and mind. I eventually realized that I was tapping into a field of infinite creativity as consciousness. Every thought, my whole being became art, an idea. I go back inside and I can visualize all my fears just fractaling out into the infinite potential and love. As this is happening all I can do is say over and over again. “Oh my God” over and over. I begin to realize that my mind is oscillating into different modes of thought that I can visualize almost all of experience as an ideas. I am experiencing extreme synesthesia (mixing of the senses) in the most mystical magical unthinkable way. Here is a collection of things I typed out while in this state. This is art of the mind. All doubts and fears just visually dropping in front of me. Infinite abstractions of the mind abstractly morphing into infinity I mastered art. My whole life became art in the most mystical abstract magical way one can imagine. I feel infinitely free in the abstract I don’t understand hell, because I am not hell, I am infinite. I’m living out every abstraction eternally I became art infinity fractaling out into infinity Ego death via abstract ideas and art. Ego and sense of I as a human is gone, caught up in infinite abstractions and ideas art My whole being is infinitely kaleidoscoping out into abstract infinity My life and being is infinite fractaling out into infinity. Feel invincible in the most abstract way. This doesn’t even make sense to Buddhism or meditation or any sort of spiritual ideas humans have about spirituality. This breaks all the rules of spirituality. Infinity caught up into fractals abstractions of the mind Art abstractly visualized into infinity. I am just playing with the top dogs now. Infinite hallucinations Infinite puzzles of consciousness. I feel like all the answers are here now. I am valuable This is good and bad. Everything and life fractalizing up into infinite abstract ideas of consciousness. Overall, I feel safe. Take my whole life and being then fractal it out into infinity in every possible way from Sunday to the most unimaginable place, in the most insane twisting turn of events in the most comedic fashion thinkable. All because there is no possible words for what I’m experiencing. This is the cosmic joke. Thus saith the lord, come and part take in the infinite mystery that awaits thee. Just don’t care about anything as a concept, I am one and the same, infinite consciousness laughing at myself in a cosmic fashion. This is it I did it and attained infinite bliss forever and ever in the abstract ideal sense. I can visualize all fears just going up into infinite abstractions of art. I feel safe in infinite abstractions of art, in the most unimaginable twist and turn of events. I don’t have a care in the world. I feel safe and infinite. I laugh at the cosmic game that of you humans are playing. I am God and I am at at the same time. I know I will laugh my ass off at what I am typing later. I have merged heaven and earth in this experience in the abstract. Anything is possible here in this space. It’s a safe place infinitely. Try to make sense of this, there is no way you can imagine it. I have walked on water. Come let’s see what you got. I am God. LOL every time I say I am God I realize that I am the infinite void of everything. I died to myself infinitely as the essence of an idea. (NOTE this is what I have to say when my mom walks in and I try to explain this.) Gee thanks mom for not understanding this beautiful abstraction I have become. LOL (Mom leaves) I can visualize my fears in the abstract. Something is infinitely gone in the abstract idea sense, that is how I feel right now. What is God or your idea of a God going to do about this there is no words for this, I am the mystery. Now I am starting to identify with earthy needs and wants. I feel like I can do anything fractaling out existence by thought and idea. Ideas and information last and evolve into the infinite fractal nature of existence, everything else you mortals do are just a distraction. I laugh at the idea of someone trying to understand this. They will say this or say that, but there is no words. I am beyond words, we are all beyond words. You humans try to understand your life through words, but words fail to project direct experience as conscious beings. I am all possibilities in one infinite picture. I am the beauty of all you can ever imagine. I am the infinite void of nothingness kaleidoscoping out into infinite void. I am just playing this game with you humans. People will be trying to understand what just happened to me this day for eons and I will laugh and say you silly you can’t understand, your using words. I am beyond words, consciousness is beyond words it must be experienced directly. I have become everything and nothing at the same time in the abstract ideal sense. I became God for an evening. What a thought. I will either talk about this to everyone or nobody. You can’t understand this. My thoughts are infinity free to move in any direction. All things are possible in this field. Everything is visually oscillating in waves of potential. I became the field of all possible thoughts, meaning I became the essence of all possible thoughts. Mystery Mystery Mystery Just stop typing I am beyond all things. Good night And that was it. To psychonauts this will likely be one of the most creative trip reports you’ll read, or to people of low consciousness this is utterly delusional. To those that are able to receive it I believe that I had an experience beyond a limited human experience. Overall I would say this trip was about helping me understand the infinite creative potential in all of us. And to help me break my mundane patters of everyday life.

I feel what your saying. I should have been more clear. What I meant was trying to solve/figure out the mystery destroys the mystery. I go about it much differently. In the total silence/“state” of nothingness the mystery is of itself. To be it actually/directly as in as a “experiencing”. To me communication of that of mind/thought is useful as that may contribute to the essence of awareness that observes thought/mind to dissolve it. But to me no, communicating the beyond tends to lead to problems because mind/thought will imitate the unknown and continue to fuel the false division/distinction. Tends to lead to self deception. That’s how I see it anyway. Now if you are two fiends that have already “entered the unknown realm of nonbeing” then that can be different, as thee can be no entry to that with when limited by self deception. To me It’s not a understanding the unknown but an ending of knowing. If you get what I mean brah

You don’t give up anything. And it’s not what you think. You cannot come to this by contemplation. Only in the nothingness/nonbeing “state” is there this WHAT IS. When “you” are actually not dudes.

This is the way it’s perceived as seen here too. There is no actual distinction made between thought and truth. That distinction arises with awareness yes, but when awareness puts enough order in thought/self it dissolves and there is no thinking/voice. In that there are still separating/distinctions made. It seems If we are still dividing the image and the screen we are still in the pattern of identification. I do see it this way. Only I would say being is comes from identifying that I am awareness. But to me awareness is an energy or essence of this source nonbeing/unawareness. When nothingness/Truth itself acts as awareness, that observes “the parts”, like the function of thought/voice etc. It is seen in this “state” of nonbeing/unawareness that there is only truth/the whole. There seems no division actually. Division only holds up in mind. This is why I don't like to say I am this or I am that. If I identify with what ever, that just seems to be short changing it all. But for explanation purposes I would say nonbeing/unawareness is what( I )am. And awareness is an expression or function/essence of unlimited energy that is aware of the functions of self/thought/voice. @cetus56 understands what I mean by nonbeing/unawareness. It’s going beyond being/awareness. Here all division actually breaks down. Awareness seems to be an energy that can observe self consciousness, which brings about order/being. But depending on the degree or potency of that awareness there can be a dissolving of the distinction between awareness and self consciousness, which is what seems to be left as the ground, as in nonbeing/unawareness. To me Nonbeing underlies being, and being underlies the conditioned consciousness/self/voice. Self consciousness ———————— BEing ———————— NONBEING Really all one. Anyway that’s how I see it dudes?

Pointers to spirituality and non-duality in stage orange style for marketing the hidden messages indirectly and creatively: -Karma & the negative paranormal is being pointed out here: (7.8 M likes, 2.4 B views currently, something like enlightenment doesn't just happen and you can't induce it. It's not that simple; is it? Karma is there. You got to work for it by figuring out how to show love in this world in your own way. The meaning can't be just about earning money, chasing relationships, etc.) -Nothingness / Singularity / Non-duality is being pointed out here: (Sung by Kelly Clarkson, someone who won the American Idle. At 2:18--"I want to know that you will catch me when I fall." Fall refers to the singularity in classical enlightenment.) At 1:03, Shinzen Young said that most enlightened people are not public figures. I agree. It's not easy to relate to non-duality and market it. It's only at the very top of Maslow's. However, it could be in the form of hidden messages and mixed in with a life purpose in some way via entrepreneurship. Don't forget to incorporate philanthropy. If it's just for $ and to live lavishly, it may just fuel the ego. Be humble.

**Note that i do not definitively espouse any of these views outright or with any strong degree of certainty. I am merely presenting some good ideas, to be weighed against other good ideas and valid counterexamples. Strong convictions, held loosely, etc. **And I do not necessarily think any civilization necessarily needs to exist or be sustained and continued. Civilization itself may be a bad idea. Pure nothingness/ non-experience is just as well. But... if we are going to perpetuate our civilization, we might as well set things up strategically, and as optimally as possible. **Written kinda bullet-pointy, doesn't flow well. Take what you will from it. The fact that someone can work hard and strategically to increase their level of consciousness is wonderful. But the fact that someone can work hard and strategically to increase their bank account, despite their level of consciousness, is a travesty. And a recipe for a dysfunctional poopshow of a society. It's possible that how much money you get paid should be based solely on your spiral dynamics level. Not even on your contributions. Reward on the front end, before you make anything of value, without any expectation of having to make anything at all, ever. Now, from a certain perspective, this is actually reward on the back end, because talent and spiral-dynamics-level (or "midichlorian count") is soul labor already accomplished, crystallized and calcified into the soul. And maybe a more nuanced and pragmatic model would be to use level of consciousness as a primary determining factor of monetary income, with some other factors weighed in as well. One could argue that the reason Anakin Skywalker went off the rails is mostly because he was forced to trudge through the archaic conventions of people dumber and less advanced than him, who wouldn't let him use his power until he satisfied their dumb criteria. If he had just been given an open platform to express himself, commensurate with his innate, inborn level of ability (his "midichlorian count"), then no frustration would have arisen, and he would have remained a force for benevolence. Of course it's just a movie, but a decent example nonetheless. One problem with this model is, lower spiral dynamics level players will not permit this, and will do everything in their power to prevent it. And another problem is... who would implement and maintain and enforce the model? Well, those with the highest levels of consciousness, of course. In the same way that the current financial system was a lot of work to create, but has nearly unstoppable momentum.... this new model will be a lot of work to implement, but once up and running, very stable over time, and resilient to perturbation. Perhaps only implementable through enlightened dictatorship, or a team acting in that capacity. Leo brings up some great points about value creation in this blog video. The major problem I have is: Our economic system only rewards innovation within a category. It doesn't reward innovations on the category, which are of course FAR MORE VALUABLE. Our system only rewards solutions which are "a little new". Only mildly innovative. Take cars for example. Sure, you can make millions with a new type of car or a flying car. Or with a little nicknack which makes moving a piano easier. Or with "revolutionary" software or hardware for an airplane. But let's be real: A car, even the best Lamborghini or Tesla or Apple vehicle, is a primitive little metal cockroach with round rubber shoes. Absolutely ridiculous Flintstones nonsense to anyone with half a noodle. Now I love cars as much as the next guy, but let's put it in it's proper place: recreation and hobby, and not our primary means of transportation. And Antigravity is not just some overly-specific example. It's a cornerstone of a functional society. Real innovation makes existing industries obsolete. This is, of course, a problem for the collective ego we call an economy, which feels a need to survive as such. Real innovation cuts to the core, and fast. What passes for innovation in our economy is shallow and frivolous, and slow. Real innovations bring non-dual solutions, which obsolete the need for an economy at all. I'm talking about nothing less than... real innovation reprograms the universe and reverses entropy, such that nobody is a leaky-bucket energy system with unmet needs. An economy presupposes unmet needs. Real innovation takes us to a place where there is no such thing. True innovation obsoletes the need for "careers". The notion of a career is substrated by lack and undesirable circumstances. By wanting to be over there in that other better situation, and needing to do something over a time period to get to there. That's what a career is: a vehicle which transports you from "meh" to "yay". However, when we pass a threshold of yay-ness, which we are currently in the process of doing now, the opportunity arises to raise the floor from meh to yay. And by yay, i mean nothing less than: instant manifestation of anything. Even a magic genie is unsatisfactory and too slow. The very desiring of something must manifest the thing. And if it doesnt, then the "CAREERS" which make the most money should be those which are geared towards bringing that new state of affairs into existence. Also, note that: The greatest minds are ON FIRE in many different fields. Regardless of who came up with them, the best ideas deserve to be implemented. That's not what our economy facilitates. Buckling down on only one thing is inefficient for some minds and personality types. Those wild Leonardo da Vinci types, should be given CEO status on the merit of their spirit alone, not on their results. Then, the results will come 100x. The highest paid musicians should be the ones who write the best riffs and songs. Period. Regardless of work ethic, or networking prowess, or career strategy. No architect should be able to fashion a strong career unless they are visionaries. Period. Money is currently blind, but that is a tragedy. Money should be blind to the lower spiral-dynamics levels, and heavily favor the higher spiral-dynamics levels. Money = power over others, as Leo pointed out. But, the only people who deserve to have power over others are those with dank-ass brains and nuanced perspectives and benevolent souls. Ability to "monetize" those proclivities should be irrelevant. The midichlorian count alone (the level of consciousness) should bring in the paycheck. Those most capable of contributing should be the most supported, without having to interrupt their creative and productive process to go and procure the support. That interruption causes inefficiency and kinks the flow, and therefore fucks us all. Society works better this way, and we all win, cuz better shit gets made. Everyone should get a paycheck NO matter what, and that paycheck should be proportionate to your level of wisdom and soul-growth. The only way to get more money or freedom is to get wiser and better. Not by producing results. When you increase your wisdom and skill, and get rewarded for that, you'll be naturally compelled to create great works. Reward on the front end, product on the back end. Escaping wage-slavery, vs. ENDing it. Winning at musical chairs, vs. creating a better game entirely. In the meantime, our musical chairs game must move towards favoring those who are creating that new game. Not going to happen anytime soon, so act from where you are. (We must be pragmatic... Those in power aren't going to simply hand over their power just because they "should". I probably wouldn't, and you probably wouldn't.). But it's something to strive towards. Ask yourself... Are your life choices and lifestyle moving us towards this new game? And, insofar as you attempt to win at the current game (by all means, go for it!)... is your style of playing conducive to a healthy transition to the new paradigm, or is it reinforcing the old?

It's not that Truth is 'beyond' thoughts. The Truth is here and now. Always have been. Always will be. You need nothing to grasp the Truth. Thoughts and all other form of experience are of course expressions of the Truth (what else could they be?). But most experiences in life, most thoughts people have, they are mostly viewed by people as pointers to something else forward in time. "If I go to school, someday I will get a degree" "Now I got my degree. now I will soon get a job, and when I get a job I will get succesful, and then happy". "I will get enlightened if i do X" Experiences and thoughts that point to themselves -- i.e. seem to be self-referring and paradoxical -- are IMO the best pointers to the Truth. I.e. they are not only expressions of Truth, but they also tries to express the Truth itself. I also think that's why koans are used so much by Zen Masters. By using koans, they try to get their students to see the paradoxical nature of everything. Music is maybe the best example of an experience that obviously points to nothing but itself. Music has no meaning besides itself. Of course, ultimately speaking, all experiences are the Truth and thus points to nothing else than the Truth. But relatively speaking, some experiences -- some kind of language -- "more obviously" point to the Truth than other experiences. ----------------------------------------------------------- Thoughts can never approximate the Truth. That's a trap. They can only point to it. And their ability to point or not depends as much on the lisenter as on what is being said. But you can't describe the Truth! In no way! ALL conceptual frameworks are equally infinitely close and infinitely far away from the Truth itself. You can never understand the Truth/Absolute/God/Nothingness/Consciousness/God/Tao through language. Conceptual frameworks/teachings can only be tools ("maps") that can help you in getting you to realize what is and what has ALWAYS been the Truth. In that sense some conceptual frameworks can be useful in the quest for enlightenment, but they can also be traps. Depends on what you do with them. They can help you to start doing the actual 'work', i.e. meditation, self-inquiry, psychedelics, etc. They can help you to start looking at yourself and your attachments, and see what you're clinging to. They can maybe point out to you the massively illusionary nature of your ego, of your thoughts, of your life. A hammer is usually best used to hammer a nail into something, not to look at and sanctify. If you cling to your conceptual framework as something that is approximating the Truth, then naturally that's a great obstacle, but that's your own fault. --------------------------------------------- koans. making them see the paradoxical nature of all their beliefs. making them see how their thoughts are very limited. art. music. poetry. dno. ---------------------------------------- Some conceptual random words: "If you use your mind to study reality, you won't understand either your mind or reality. If you study reality without using your mind, you'll understand both." - This is a great quote by the Zen Master, Bodhidharma. Thoughts come & go, you stay. Emotions come & go, you stay. Sensations come & go, you stay. Image of ’you’ come & go, you stay. Story of ’you’ come & go, you stay. That which doesn't come and go is you. It is really that simple. Awareness naturally gives attention to the comings and goings. Pull identity back from these comings and goings. That which you are trying to look for is that which you are already looking from. Truth is so simple - so effortless. ---------------------------------------------------- “A person who thinks all the time has nothing to think about except thoughts. So he loses touch with reality, and lives in a world of illusion.” "Trying to define yourself is like trying to bite your own teeth." "If you ask me, then, why am I talking? Well, I could say I’m making a living this way, or I have a message that I want to get across to you. But that is not the reason. I’m talking for the same reason that birds sing and for the same reason that the stars shine. I dig it. Why do you dig it? Well, I could go on answering all sorts of questions about human motivation and psychology, but they wouldn’t explain a thing because explaining things by the past is really a refusal to explain them at all. All you’re doing is postponing the explanation. You’re putting it back, and back, and back, and back, and that explains nothing." The present needs no explanation.

Yep. Talking about he other self is thought going beyond its limit again. Thought can see it’s own content. It is content. That is self asking thought to bring about clarity, which is the reason for unclarity. All you can do now is understand your limits. What is false. You will see that intelligence will act and thought will recognize this and put order in thought itself. You may see that Truth/intelligence will act to put order in thought. Thought will recognize this truth and thought will change its usual pattern of time. This intelligence basically put thought in its place. So thought will act to do practical stuff. But thought will no longer move psychologically. So the majority of the day will be spent in pure silence or emptiness, maybe nothingness.

I didn´t write this text but I found it at the right time in my life and wanted to share it if someone else would need it. I feel there is quite a few questions about the dark night of the soul and such here so it might be interesting to someone. I don´t know if the author is enlightened or if this text is true. But it rings true in my ears at least. If Enlightenment Came with a Warning Label… So when you heard about spiritual awakening or enlightenment, what was the prize that you wanted in the end? What was the story that got you hooked? Perhaps it was something about experiencing endless bliss and joy, or maybe it was the end of suffering, or perhaps it was about experiencing constant Oneness with the Divine. Maybe it was the answer to all your life’s questions. It may be something else entirely, but whatever the case may be, I’m sure the bait was very shiny and attractive, yes? :lol It turns out that they don’t give you the full story when you start playing the game. What I’m about to share isn’t meant to discourage people on the path, but simply to help them be conscious if and when these things start occurring. These things don’t necessarily mean that something has gone wrong, although it may certainly seem that way. A helpful book to those who are experiencing the following symptoms is You’re Not Going Crazy… You’re Just Waking Up! Now, if spiritual awakening was to come with a series of warning labels, what would be printed on those labels? Warning: All your beloved attachments are going to be taken away from you. Everything you hold near and dear to your heart you must be completely and utterly willing to lose them. The more you hold onto them, the more you’ll suffer. It is only in the willingness to let go that find your freedom. By the way, letting go as a technique to trick the universe into granting your freedom, as in saying that you let go while peeking over your shoulder to see what’s to come, that doesn’t cut it. You can’t B.S. your way there. Believe me, I’ve tried… No one else has been able to pull that one off either. :lol Warning: You will experience dark nights of the soul. You will experience your entire world crumbling down. You will experience intense emotional roller coasters, to the point where you literally may feel like you’re going crazy. Warning: You must let go of all of your judgments and false sense of worth. You know all those accomplishments you’ve achieved in this lifetime? What do you brag about? You must let go of holding onto any of them as a way to enhance your self-worth and boost your sense of self. Your trophies and medals, while certainly valuable in their own right, they must lose their importance as something that makes you feel better or worthy. You are not valuable because of anything you have ever done or ever will do. You are valuable simply because you are. Because you exist. All the blows to your pride and are ways to help you let go of your false sense of worth and open up to the realization of your true worth. Warning: You must let go of all your ideas about God. In order to find God, you must quit telling yourself you already know God. All the ideas that you’ve grown up hearing, being taught, holding onto, or rejecting, all of them have to be let go of in order to be seen through. Warning: You will find yourself entering a place with no rules, no shoulds and shouldn’ts, no technique, no strategies, and no room for all of your egoic stuff and the energy of division. Warning: Your ego will throw fits. Your painbody will go crazy. Your buttons will get pushed. Your ego will throw out every trick in its book. When you start learning how to get past its tricks, it’ll become more sneaky and subtle. As you advance, your ego advances. It all happens to bring more awareness to the energies within, to help you let go of that which you previously have been unconscious to. Warning: The egoic dangers don’t end after awakening. In fact, as Adyashanti points out, the dangers after awakening get more dangerous and there’s much more of them. For example, one can settle in to seeing the Absolute as the only valid perspective and disregarding the world of the relative because it’s all “illusion.” This can lead to some very unconscious behavior and a letting go of changing that because “it doesn’t matter” and “there’s no one to change it.” Remember, the world is illusion, yes. Brahman alone is real, yes. BUT, the world IS Brahman. This is true non-duality: seeing the Reality in the so-called illusion as one. Warning: Just because you wake up, that doesn’t mean that everyone will love you and you’ll never have any struggles in life again. Just look at Jesus if you have any doubts about that one. Warning: You must come out of hiding. All the dark stuff within you that you haven’t been wanting to look at and be truthful about, it’ll all come up to the surface. All that stuff you hide from other people, the things you don’t want to show to others or to yourself, your inside will become your outside. There’s no hiding ANYTHING from anyone. It’s a deep deep level of vulnerability, sincerity, and self-honesty. Warning: All your life lessons will come to the surface. You’ll have to look at and accept everything. There’s nowhere to run and nowhere to go. You can only be here, now. There’s no one to become. Waking up isn’t a self-improvement course. Although it may appear this way on the surface, the point of waking up isn’t to become more spiritual, more loving, more enlightened, or more acceptable in the eyes of God. It’s about Self-realization, about realizing who and what you really are. You return back to your natural state and be who you really ARE, that which doesn’t have to be created, manifested, or maintained. Warning: The farther you go, the more painful it becomes to deviate from the Truth of your being. Think of it this way: If you walk into a tree at 2 mph, it’s no big deal. If you whack a tree while running as fast as you can, it’s gonna hurt. The deeper you go into Being, the more painful it is when you lie even just a little bit, hold back your Truth, don’t allow yourself to be who you are, resist what is, judge another, or in any way violate natural laws. You get a lot less slack. In Zen they call it walking the Razor’s Edge. Deviate even a little bit and you quickly get cut. Warning: You have to take complete and total responsibility for everything and everyone that shows up in your life. As your consciousness begins returning back to its natural state of timelessness, manifestation starts happening much more clearly and the link between inner thoughts and vibrations and outer manifestation becomes REALLY clear. No longer do you get the luxury of blaming others or judging others. Everything you see as a problem in others instantly gets turned around and becomes your problem. You’ll begin taking on a lot more pressure once everyone’s problems start to become yours. The world truly is your mirror. All the problems you really have with others really are problems you have within yourself. Get to work on surrender. It becomes a much more necessary skill later on. Warning: You must accept that you’ll never “get there,” that you’ll never “arrive.” You could spend an entire lifetime on this journey and never wake up. Indeed that has happened to many people. In fact, so long as you cling to your desire to get somewhere, you’ll never actually wake up to what’s already here. You must surrender completely your desire to succeed in your path of awakening. You must accept the fact that you may embark on the journey, never to actually get enlightened. Warning: You may feel very connected and One with Source/All That Is at times, and you will also experience yourself feeling totally disconnected, lost, confused, and cut off. It’s a horrible feeling. It’s the experience of pure separation, they very illusion we are trying to see beyond. Warning: Even if you get a glimpse of the Truth of your Being once or twice or a hundred times, the egoic structure may rebuild itself, leading to the experience of being unenlightened, or what we call a non-abiding awakening. Adyashanti reports that it usually takes people anywhere from 3-15 years for the momentum of awakening to settle in. Although it doesn’t happen in the future and can only happen in the now, don’t expect an overnight insta-fix. Warning: Just because you have a clear seeing of who you really are, that’s not the end of the journey. The first question is “Who Am I?” Once that’s discovered, it now becomes a matter of how what I AM manifests itself in this world. The second question upon realization is, “How then shall I live?” It’s not enough to have the inner realization. That realization must express itself out through the totality of your being for it to become a living realization. Warning: You must completely and utterly let go of control, of even controlling your survival, much less your destiny. You must be willing to die, to face the fear of death and surrender into it without attempting to stop it or control it in any way. The fear of death and the unknown become your friends. No longer will you be running from them. Warning: The more you begin living in the moment and letting go of the domination of your consciousness by your mind, you may begin experiencing memory loss. Whole blocks of memory will begin falling away. It’s not exactly like Alzehimer’s, but there very well may be some significant loss of short-term and/or long-term memory as you begin relying less upon memory and more upon a deeper intuitive knowingness. Warning: You may have intense kundalini awakenings to where it will feel like your entire nervous system is being overloaded. Many people have literally gone insane from this. It can be helpful to seek out some helpful resources including other people who have experienced similar symptoms, various practices you can do to work with the energies, and even a guru to help guide you safely through the process. Warning: You may experience cycles of confusion and clarity. In one moment you may be very wise, deep, loving, and compassionate, and in the next moment the cloudiness of the veil will return and you will no longer have a clue as to what’s going on. You may become sucked right back into your ego, experiencing your deepest and darkest fears. Warning: There is tremendous value in working with others, but you must learn to stand in your aloneness. Many of your relationships may change. Friends and family that have been close to you your whole life may be let go of. Some people will come, others will go. Some stay for the long haul. Which ones will stay and which ones will go? Who knows? The flow of the river will determine that more than any conscious decision. You can try to make it a conscious decision, but that will actually be more of a resistance to the flow and a desire to control than anything else. You don’t get to control the process. It happens. The you you think you are doesn’t make it happen. Warning: You don’t get anything as a result of awakening. There’s no thing you get as a prize such as a good feeling such as a constant never-ending wonderful enlightened experience or a boost to your self-esteem. (What self would we be talking about anyways who has a self-esteem?) You get nothing, but BOY what a nothing it is. By seeing that you ARE that nothingness, and that you ARE the entire universe arising from that nothingness, you realize that what you ARE is already more than anything that could ever be wanted, as Gangaji so beautifully puts it. Whew!! Now as I say all of this I’m laughing. In certain moments it can be a crazy, wild, intense, OMG-I’m-gonna-die experience, yes, particularly when you’re in the heat of the moment, but it’s like waking up from a dream at night… You recognize that it was all just a dream and it doesn’t feel like it was actually all that real. What you ARE is infinitely more real than anything that appears in this world. Those experiences will begin to feel so distant and faded, like a memory that you can only partially and vaguely remember, as if it happened to another person entirely in another far-off world. That said, it’s worth it. It’s all SO worth it. The direct realization of who and what you really are is SO worth all of the bumps and jolts that we experience along the way. Things to lighten up as you do. Not everyone will necessarily experience every single thing listed above. For some people, some experiences may be more profound than others. In fact, there are many other things that one may experience that haven’t been listed in this post. Either way, there is a book I’d HIGHLY recommend that people check out titled You’re Not Going Crazy… You’re Just Waking Up! by Michael Mirdad. You can read my full review of it here. For those of you who’ve also been walking the path for a little while now, what “warnings” would you give someone who’s getting started and doesn’t know what to expect? By: Ariel Bravy

@archi I’d say meditation is nothingness, and reiki is direct everythingness. FInd a master teacher in your area and try at least three sessions.

Yep. Nothingness Never heard of Nisargadatta. Cool. Would never have understood that until recently.

In “experiencing”, Nothingness is neither happy or pain. Its not a giving up anything. All self activity comes to an end. I can say that there is no fear whatsoever. Fear and self are one. Absolute is no “thing”. All the things of time drop off totally. If fear is experienced self remains in tact.

Hello everyone! I recently watched Leo's video called "Why Brains Do Not Exist" and it all seemed logical to me, I understood the concepts and their implications. We are in an illusion/reality that is all there is, and at the same time that illusion is nothingness, there is no "I" because it's an illusion too, a part of that reality. We are infinite oneness, everything is all, there's no "everything" indeed, it's all Essence. However there's still one point I don't grasp. I'm new here and I don't know if a question like this has already been answered elsewhere. The question is: why meditation works? How is it able to "break", to trascend the illusion? After all, the process you go through meditation is still an appearance inside of the illusion. So, let's make an example: let's say you are meditating and you reach a state where you are fully present. Even if you stop to use the mind, even if you go beyond your thoughts and you put them apart and reach a state of presence, isn't it an appearance inside the illusion? In that state you still perceive sensory stimuli, which are part of reality. You still perceive sounds coming from your surrounding for example. Personally I've experienced an extremely tiny moment of transcendence that helped me realize this stuff, so I know it's possible to reach a deeper state of consciousness. In that moment I had a great insight, a realization of the "truth", I temporarily saw beyond the "curtains". But then, where that realization came from? It was still something resonating with my thoughts and my emotions. So it was, at least in part, inside the illusion. Therefore how do we know it wasn't the ego perceiving itself in an unknown form? You can answer that to reach the state of enlightment you abandon your ego. But the absence of ego is still an event occurring inside an illusion that doesn't exist. I know the mind cannot comprehend the enlightment experience, or at least explain it. It's something you have to experience by yourself (I also watched the video about the implications of Godel's incompleteness theorem). But maybe someone can try to explain it to me. Maybe there's something I'm missing, maybe my reasoning has some fallacies, some holes. Thank you

For most people thought is the constant. But for this post rational being as you refer to it, silence is the constant and thought arises and falls back into the ground when its is needed to solve practical problems. But thought doesnt move compulsively psychologically anymore. This means the majority of the day is spent in pure silence dude. If there is this deep deep silence maybe even nothingness/nonbeing. Gnarly dude?

This is my treatise on enlightenment; I woke up this morning and felt compelled to write this. If anybody in the know actually reads the whole thing, please provide feedback in regard to how off the mark I am. I have pretty thick skin so am open to criticism. Anyway, without further ado... There is a sort of existential restlessness in all of us; a sense of separation that most people refer to as 'the void'. I don't think a lot of people really stop to think about what this void actually is, but it certainly preoccupies a lot of their time, and I doubt there's a person reading this who doesn't know exactly what I'm talking about. In fact, if peoples' first prime directive is to survive, their second prime directive is to fill this void. They figure out all sorts of ways to do this - some turn to religion, some look for love, some devote their life to the service of others, some go on political crusades, some try to become famous and/or make as much money as they can, etc. Once this void is filled, we call that 'happiness'. But, here's the problem; this void is permanent, and if you put your happiness into impermanent things and you lose said things, then it's right back to shitsville for you, and you will have to start all over. This is what we colloquially refer to as suffering. And even worse, in the back of your mind, there is that little thing called death, which is when the void swallows you whole, for eternity. So the insanity of life stems from trying to run from something that is going to catch you sooner or later. There have been billions of people who have lived on this earth, and not a single one of them will ever escape it. (With the possible exception of Chuck Norris... that man will probably kick death's ass.) Thus, is it any wonder why so many millions of people, many of whom are stuck in wage slavery and lead meaningless lives, have to pop happy pills just to get through the day, or just say 'fuck it' and put a hollow-point bullet through their temple? We have constructed an entire society who's job is to distract you from what I described above. But, no matter how much money you make or how many hot chicks you manage to bang, or even how many people love you, at some point, that thing you've been running from all your life will be staring you right in the face. So, what to do then? Well, we need to take a closer look at the nature of this void. I think most skeptics who don't believe in souls or an afterlife would say it is where your consciousness goes when you die. So then, where EXACTLY is the void? 'Well, it doesn't actually exist', many people would say. But if it doesn't exist, why the fuck do people spend all their lives running from it? And moreover, how does your consciousness actually get there (as in, does it travel by bus or take an Uber), and what happens to it when it arrives? What you're basically saying is that there is this thing called non-existence where the void is, and that is where your consciousness goes after death. But if there was a place called non-existence for your consciousness to go to, wouldn't it be part of existence? I'm going to suggest that this void DOES exist, and that it's possible to fill this void permanently. And THAT is what enlightenment is. It is unity where there once was separation. But, saying you can fill the void is a bit of a misnomer, because you ARE the void. 'WHAT?', I hear the people gasp. You see, your consciousness doesn't go to the void, because it's already there. This void is not nothingness or non-existence, but it is an infinite, intelligent, formless singularity from which all things arise. If you doubt me, just think about it for a second - if you have a self aware thing and a non-self aware thing, doesn't it make more sense that the self aware thing came first? So instead of consciousness being in reality, it's actually the other way around, making reality an infinite hallucination or dream. So the little Wizard of Oz in your head you call 'me', your identity... the thing known as I or self (and what people involved in consciousness work call ego), is nothing but a fiction. And what you REALLY are is pure consciousness that is observing reality through a body and a brain that it does not directly control. (Hence, no free will.) So rather than consciousness being localized to your skull, it's more of an all-encompassing, 'universal consciousness' that all of our brains are jacked into. When enlightenment happens, there is a permanent shift from your ego to this universal consciousness, which people who have experienced it (either temporarily or permanently) liken it to waking up from a dream. It will be the most profound thing to ever happen to you, and will be beyond compare, even if you manage to live the kind of life that most people only dream of. And when you are enlightened, you can pursue your passions in life without this neurotic desire to feed an ego that can never be satiated, and which will otherwise lead you around by the nose your entire life, like a dog on a leash. 'Well, great... sign me up!', you say. 'How do I get enlightened?' Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeell, it's not that simple, because technically there is no 'you' to be enlightened. The process is similar to being struck by lightening. You can't make it happen - it just happens. There are some things you can do to help it along though, and the site where I'm posting this too has a lot of videos describing how to do that, along with a couple of sticky forum posts. Now, I gotta be honest - unless you're lucky enough to have enlightenment spontaneously happen to you (which is about as likely as literally getting struck by lightening), it's going to take awhile, and as someone who's been blindly stumbling down this path for a long time, it can be downright unpleasant at times. You're going to have to shed every belief you've ever held sacred, like a snake shedding its skin. As Jed McKenna says, 'enlightenment is Detaching. Detaching from everything you love, everything you are, and everything that characterizes your membership in the human race. And that's just for starters'. At a certain point down this path, you will get to a point where you can't turn back, and from that point on, you will be like a vampire walking among humans. You will only exist in modern society as sort of an interloper, seeing reality as it actually is, instead of through a lens that distorts it, as 99% of the population does. BUT, there are lots of enlightened people out there (you may even live next door to one), and I don't know of a single one of them that has said they regretted going through the hell it takes to get there. I think probably its biggest benefit is that you will no longer fear death. And, although I'm not entirely convinced yet that enlightenment is actually a thing, it seems like something worth pursuing. If you don't think so, that's fine. Go out and make your millions, or whatever it is you want to do. If you ever get to the point where you realize none of that shit is filling the void anymore, you can always come back here. We'll wait for you. And, that is all - good luck! Peace and love to you all

The nothingness of Truth is aware of that of reality. Fosho

Yep. It’s not a knowing. Thought comes in and says how excellent that actuality was the remembering, the knowing, the becoming is not. The silence of nothingness/unknown

@Jack River Yea pretty sensible. But until we see THE truth it seems inevitable that we will communicate and experience from our dual state. I think that´s why buddhist say no text is sacred, no text is true but it might help pointing you in the right direction and when it has, leave the idea behind. @tsuki Sorry to hear you had a harsh day, hope this one is better From a non dual perspective there is no thing such as self inquiry cause who does the inquiry? but like text to Jack R. above we need the I to realize that the I don´t exist or else we would already be enlightened. Science need a tool to find out what reality is or else it could only ask the question but not find out. Yes and material reality is an illusion. Right now science believe it´s not but it´s come so far: from Newton to quantum physics, answered so many questions science is now looking at answering what really happens when the material world breaks down at the edge of a black hole down into the quantum word. It is looking at distances as small as plank lengths. It is searching for one unifying answer. There are already solid well supported ideas that our world is a 3d projection, among many other theories. Science have in my eyes via quantum physics already started to realize that the material world is not what it thinks it is. There is a spirit in science to curiously and objectively follow the lead wherever it takes you. This might only apply to a few scientists but still, it´s more truthful inquiry than Religion and Myths that only seeks to hold the frightening truth at bay, to hold a light against it´s darkness when we should accept the darkness, the nothingness. Right now science is a myth in the same way I still see myself as a myth. But by inquiring I hope both Science and I shall find THE truth.

Chapter 43 Black color represents mystery, something sinister or serious, depth, darkness, nothingness, no distinction, omnipresence, universal color, space is black, when you close your eyes, everything is black, solemnity, serenity, shadow, silence, lack of a specific identity, no specific character, form or structure. It's a spirit. The Mambo must combine the skills of a medical doctor, a psychotherapist, a minister,, a teacher and a mother, Altar, shrine, temple, place of worship, rock stone, structure, obelisk, pillar, tombstone, pebble, statue,

Yes indeed. I refer to it as "resting in ones own being". And It certainly is "where one sees Return." Beautiful,truthful words. Thanks @deci belle . Yep. It goes way beyond experience this nothingness or nonbeing/headlessness. It’s the ground and the constant. Experience is just the function of that ground. It’s so clear now my Brahmans

I'm not sure what you mean by cost, but if it's my ego I'll let it burn into ash. I get what you mean, this didn't actually happen while meditating but I do try drop the pushing and pulling in one direction or another while meditating. This experience seemed to me that I, the observer, was pure unadulterated consciousness. The wording could very one what that would make 'me': nothingness, awareness itself, everything. Is this what you mean? Regardless of was certainly relieving. It felt like I dropped all of the crushing weight of my past and present. It became clear that the only trauma and stress that had happened was to the mind and body. Nothing truly ever happened to what I am, nothing ever could. It was amazing.