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@seeking_brilliance i have only indirectly understood the "can't really be explained or put into words" via metaphors. for example, in any movie or video game, the character that is being played isn't real. there is an actor playing the character... for example, Tom Cruise playing Ethan Hunt... It's like Ethan Hunt wanting to know or see how he does not exist... Ethan Hunt does not have any existence outside of the play/story of Mission Impossible... Ethan Hunt (ego) is wanting to know or find out that he is portrayed by Tom Cruise... do you kinda see why/how that works? The moment Ethan Hunt finds out he's a portrayal... he seizes to exist... you see? because Tom Cruise is the TRUTH. only he exists... he can take on many characters Hunt, Maverick etc... about where and how thoughts work and how they arise from... i am just gonna tell you what i have been told/read ... they arise out of nothingness they simple appear. it all happens in an apparent orderly manner which is sequential... but it's really just that... an apparent order. lastly... why does @seeking_brilliance have different thoughts from @SoonHei i guess you can also ask why is @seeking_brilliance seeing something and @SoonHei seeing something else or hearing, or smelling etc thoughts are exactly identical fundamentally to sights, sounds, taste, smell etc you dont control how or what you see, hear, taste, smell... same thing with thoughts and most of all. if you say, well, it seems like i control it... that's just it. it is an apparent control. you cannot argue that it seems like it, because that's the whole point of the illusion. it works like its real when it isn't you gotta shift your perception just like you do with any visual optical illusion

@kieranperez I know plenty of experienced folks that set intentions with psychedelics. It was a major theme in the Ayahuasca retreat I did. Setting an intention is thought to provide grounding for a trip to return to. Like a theme. For me, the work in general I've done the weeks prior set an unofficial "intention". For example, if I've been spending a lot of time contemplating nothingness, I may be brought to nothingness during the trip. If I were to set an official intention, I would make it humble and genuine such as a request "to be shown my inner blocks to deeper states of being".

Hi @Mu_, I was showing all my high level conclusions of how to exist (or at least get over my current challenges), he said that I was thinking too rationally and that my best Idea was to experience more and let something pull me. This way I wouldn't need to think so much. He might be right and I am there is noting to lose testing this out. However.... When putting these new experiences: I am unique and constantly changing, and I am nothingness, of which I believe to be true to a greater extent, They somewhat contradict each other and I find myself confused. Am I the character I am led to believe, through all the social constructs and lessons learnt. This personal identity that may well have a unique ability and purpose. Or am I really nothing that is observing a fairy story, that could be any character with no real meaning or purpose. Hi @Nahm Could you point me at something to learn what you mean be nothingness is nonexistence and why I could be considered as essential. Many thanks! You are super stars!

"I" got 5 of these rasa trans last december. They really work. I lost my will to seek, because there is nothing "I" can do. Month by month The Nothingness is getting more and more clear

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

Have you heard about the concept of oneness? This might be an avenue to explore. Would you say that you are experiencing duality now? You, which is nothingness or whatever word you prefer, and everything else. What chooses which thoughts and feelings to act upon? Are there "resistance" to certain thoughts and feelings?

Nonexistence = we are using this word to point out that there is indeed, no such thing as “doesn’t exist”. So, your two statements are the same, nothingness is not nonexistence, it’s everything, it’s infinite being. The brain auto-attempts to resolve. They are the same. You are not accidental, you are most essential.

hi 1x0, Can you clarify what pursuing experience that pulls you means. And then what you mean by putting the brakes on as a result of those statements. Generally those statements aren't thrown around to stop, but widen the mystery of things. If you mean looking for what interests you and then these statements somehow make you believe that you shouldn't since you are nothing and constantly changing, so whats the point of pursuing. Then ask yourself what do you want to do, and forget about what you read is right? Nothingness can still enjoy pursuits and changes, and its own nothingness as well. Why not celebrate in the unique and changes that happen as well. If its because you read somewhere that things are not this way ultimately, just throw it out, its b.s.

I've experienced various "flavors" of mystical / nondual experiences. In one flavor, the timeline dissolves and there is only the eternal now. Another flavor is the one you describe in which the self and many distinctions dissolve - and there is a sense of awareness from a point. The regular "me" dissolves, yet there is still some type of "me" present that is aware. Yet, it still feels weird to describe the experiences using terms like "I" and "me" - since this "regular" self wasn't present. Most of my mystical experiences are in this genre. They can be very profound and intense. I've only ventured deeper one time. Into the null void - absolute nothingness - in which all distinctions dissolve. I dont't think I have experienced the other side of the coin - absolute everything.

There is a realm of timelessness where there is no beginning or end, (sequential time), or a series of consecutive momentary happenings. This is not merely an intellectual/conceptualizatual invention of thought, (what thought thinks about /contemplates about), but can be seen direct as phenomenon, or as what can be considered the ending of experience. This “place” or realm comes about when all psychological reaction/responses of thought cease to be activated, as in a form of resistance to the inevitable change of “evolutionary process” (dynamic movement of life or WHAT IS). This seems to be an instinctual/conditioned response to environmental conditions as they arise in there dynamic nature. “The thinker” seems to respond to environmental obstacles, (control), as that is a conditioned response of the organism/environment as a function. But psychologically, self/ego resists the unpredictable and impermanent nature of change and interprets that as being unsafe or not a secure situation/position for “self” to be in. That self then seems to cling to its self, which is its content,(knowledge, experience, memory) or (thought/time). This is the attempt to establish for itself what seems to be secure or permanent. This sense of time/thought is the result of reaction as the self/ego searching for certainty/permanence or security. Seems to do so by using thought/time as a measure to bring about a capacity to anticaipate/predict various environmental challenges. This seems to be a type of defensive measure, as in the function of the mechanism as the intellect. Seems to do this by identifying with its content(thought), which is that which is familiar, as in the response of memory. Memory which is of the “past” is then modified into or onto the “present”/now, and then projects a moment of time as “future”. This seems to establish and perpetuate the illusion of time as having that beginning and end continuity/progression. This movement of psychological/mechanical reaction seems to reinforce/nourish the illusion of there being a continual process of cause and effect (evanescent like effect), as in a series of short lived moments as starting and ending one after another. Awareness to this process can and may dissolve and bring about a cessation to that illusion of time-thought movement and bring about that timeless “realm” that doesn’t change, which means No more beginning and end as that which is referred too as change in this very thread. This is not a cultivated result. Not a skill. It does not come about by any activity of practice/routine/effort. As cultivation of a skill imply conditioned action/reaction and are tacit as this reactionary instinctual mechanism of thought-time(self). That continual refinement of skill is actually what seems to establish that very illusion or time in itself. Cultivation is implicit in time-thought itself and only sustains that time bound propulsion. As one resides in this headless-immeasurable realm there is direct perception that the timeless, or (unlimited), is not separate from time,(the limited), but the timeless contains, if i can use that word, time within it. As directly observed, (as in ‘actually’ observed) in and as this headless/immeasurable realm, that which is timeless is the ground. Time seems to be simply a manifestation or process(limited energy), that arises within that emptiness/nothingness,(infinite energy). As this emptiness extends further and further into the this void, this limited energy as time/thought seems no less intelligent/infinite than the unlimited energy of the unlimited. It can be seen first hand that time/change is simply an aspect of the unlimited.

I have experienced this too Daniel. It may help to realize the assumptions you have made in regards to absolute nothingness. This "belief" is not based off direct experience, so it can be treated as such. An "idea" to explore in your everyday life, but don't let it control you. Why does there need to be a purpose? Possibly there can be meaning in meaninglessness. Investigate your thoughts/emotions without trying to control them. What sort of division is happening and how is it false? Without the "you", there's total freedom to just be, completely limitless, completely whole. "instead of asking what do i want from life, a more powerful question is what does life want from you" --Eckhart Tolle

@Dan94 Hi Daniel, I hope your doing well. First of all the "meaninglessness" that you speak of what does that feel like? Be as honest as you can. Does that meaninglessness have a negative connotation? I am genuinely asking you that. Search for that sense of meaninglessness and honestly enquire about that very sense does it have a negative feel to it? Like life is pointless, a drag, ect. Be as honest as you can, and then write back to me and let me know. "If I'm nothingness & the void then who is feeling these emotions" The answer to this one is easy, you are, you the nothingness/void is feeling these emotions aren't you. "Why do self help" It can dramatically improve the quality of your daily existence, emotions, feelings, attitude ect and consequently improve your behavior and expressions in relation to your environment. Sounds like a good way to spend some time, don't it?

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.

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.

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

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.

@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.