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I've just had some profound and yet weird experiences. I wanna share and hear your thoughts. When I sit quietly in a restaurant ( I always eat alone) suddenly something went through me. I felt blissful. The whole world seemed to me like a dream ( I don't know if I deluded myself or not because to be honest I already watched Leo's video: Life is a dream). And all the desires for sex, power, money did not interest me anymore. If I had a wish at that moment, I just wanted to be nobody and stay in that moment for ever. I sat quietly for hours and came home. I meditated. Something strange happened: I remembered my weird dream. I was clear to me that the person being conscious in the dream was LITERALLY me. When that dream happened I identified myself as that man in the dream. My mind immediately contemplated: Could it be that in my awakening state I feel conscious and able to think but ACTUALLY there's a higher being that has that feeling and I'm just a vessel. I became conscious of all the irrational and stupid things I had done in the past. I felt every thought I had was not under my control. Moreover, I realized the mind was just a concept. I realized the difference between we (ordinary human beings) and geniuses is the latter not only have strong personality but also they're bestowed with more intelligence. The thought that comes to a genius's mind contains more insights and ideas than ours. 2 days after an insight came to my mind: Everything is unique in its own way. The Buddha is the Buddha, Einstein is Einstein. The Buddha cannot become intelligently at physics and maths as Einstein, simply because the Buddha is made out of certain elements that make him the Buddha. Albert Einstein cannot meditate because he's made out of certain elements that his mind always receives crazy insights. That insight feels a bit sad to me because it means we cannot change anything. The universe runs on its own accord. We're just the vessel. About EXPECTATION: In the way I see, people view enlightenment as something like super power. Honestly, Enlightenment is just an awareness-base pursuit. It does not make you as intelligent as Albert Einstein if the universe does not bestow you with that. I have a feeling enlightenment is not only not for everyone but also for people who are exceptionally gifted like scientists who have push their brain to the absolute limits and now they meditate as a way to surrender themselves in order to receive insights from the universe. The second type of people that are suitable for this path is the people who are not so creative. Their mind is quiet and that's why they can just sit and meditate. After hours meditation they receive insights about the nature of life and reality. It's clear to my that enlightened people are wiser than an average person. It's hard for enlightened beings to do stupid things because they're closely connected with their true feelings and they do not lie to themselves. However, enlightenment can make you lazy and passive. What would you expect from a person who has realized life is just a dream and he's got no control over anything? Do you really thing the person who has realized that has the motivation to go out there and compete with other people? I honestly don't see any chance for that. Take an example: Osho. He's no doubt enlightened. But what did he do through his life? Just meditate and bliss out in nothingness.

"Is the big bang real?" Maybe. Scientists seem to think so. "Did the big bang create the universe?" Maybe. Scientists seem to think so. But then you gotta ask yourself, where did the big bang come from in the first place? Everything comes forth from nothing. That nothingness is you.

I would like to share my story, which consists of three awakening experiences so far. I do not intend to keep a journal and I would like to invite discussion and ask for directions. Due to nature of my self-inquiry I am not committed to any spiritual tradition and know basics of very few ones, but I'm open to suggestions to what pursue next. This thread will contain three posts, as I would like to go in depth on each one and they may not be digestible in a one go. Currently, I'm intuitively feeling that a fourth awakening is coming and I think that remembering details of my previous ones will help it come along. For now, let's talk about my first awakening that happened 3 years ago, and some background. I was always smart. First, as a kid that did as little as possible to not get in trouble with parents and play videogames for the rest of the time. Then, as a teenager that would get hooked up on science and computing, pursuing career in mechanical engineering. I was raised in a reasonably wealthy family and by the time I was finishing my master's degree I had everything most people have by the time they are in their mid-40. A house, a car, a cat, and a reasonably well-paid job thanks to my family. And, of course - feeling absolutely crushed by life's miseries, barely holding it all together. I was having something of a year-off in which I was supposed to write my thesis, but instead of doing that I decided to check out philosophy. I was always admiring authorities in science, and philosophy was like its big daddy so of course I would get interested in that. Being a youtube junkie that I still am, I found The School of life channel and ran a crash course in art and philosophy. What got me really fascinated was existential philosophy, especially Martin Heidegger. He was advertised as the most obscure philosopher that talks about the most mundane things, and boy, how did I love riddles. My first awakening had two stages. First stage was while reading about existentialism as a whole on Stanford's encyclopedia of philosophy, and the second one was while reading Martin Heidegger's "Being and Time". Facts that I injected were not important in my awakening by themselves, but the process of opening myself to possibility. Transcending the point of view I had at the time. What is important is that I did not really try to grasp the logic this philosophy provides, but to accept it as it was given to me, and try to view "the real world" through its lens. A logical/rational person like me could do that only because I trusted that those philosophers were wiser than me and I was trying to connect with feelings I knew I had inside. I was trying to prove to myself that I am a human being, and not a robot which I saw as a root cause of unhappiness in my life. In the first stage, while reading broadly about existentialism, it induced severe feelings of loneliness, sadness and compassion towards other human beings. I remember looking at people focused on their business and feeling sorry for them for being "lost" in their "roles". I suddenly started cherishing simple things, like sunshine, or the wind. Breathing. At the same time, I started to doubt my material paradigm as I believed that I cannot simply be summed up as a story. I started seriously thinking about death, and having walks to the cemetery every few days to contemplate it. When I saw that something was going on with this existentialism thing, I finally decided to wrestle with Heidegger and thought to myself: "Damn, I read tensor calculus for fun, how hard can this whole "Being and Time" be?". Well, the book gave me a good fight and then knocked my Ego out for two weeks. The mainstream advice for anyone interested in the book is that you don't try to read it unless you have a Ph.D. in Philosophy. I was too determined to care at that point, so I read it in two languages to account for mistranslations, while watching Hubert Dreyfus' lectures on youtube. It took me several months to get through one third of the book, when my first awakening happened. It was a gradual process in which I saw how I construct reality. The book highlights the method of self-inquiry called Phenomenology that is used to map the inner territory of a being called Dasein. The being is defined as one that asks the question "What is being?", which is what the book tries to answer. I have been doing that out of pure curiosity for months, each day, every free minute until it hit me: "None of this is real, everything is me". It was a very nauseating feeling, very strange and profoundly beautiful. In everything I saw, I saw how I was in it. Everything was a reflection of myself - a book wouldn't be a book without me. I saw how "I" was constructed out of a "book", and the "book" was constructed out of "I". How "I" was dispersed in everything I saw, felt, smelled and touched. It was absolutely fascinating. Until, of course I understood that I can take ownership of the construction and I started to deconstruct what "I" didn't like. Funnily enough it was things I was the most proud of, like how I was attached to my house, but felt miserable for not earning it. How I loved my car, but felt fear of losing it. To disassociate from my body that I thought was too fat and didn't like. It felt so freeing that I cried. I got so carried away with this deconstruction that at one point I realized that once I knew how to do it, there was no coming back. I could not forget how to and I was in total control of everything. I could go all the way down into nothingness. And then it hit me: "A human is literally nothing and it is terrifying". "We run away from it and shove things into this bottomless pit without realizing it cannot be filled." "This is the misery of the human condition.". After days of fear, nausea, crying, laughter, ecstasy and love - the remnants of "I" decided that we cannot live this way. That this is too unsustainable and we have to close the pit. So it happened. In the midst of things, I reached out to my parents for help. First, they tried to fix me physically, when that showed not to be the problem - they sent me to therapy. Very pragmatic people, but hey - good call. I stayed with the therapist till this day and I'm very glad. What happened next is that I lost 16 kg over the next few years, changed my job to a better one, met my soon-to-be wife and graduated school at the top of my class. Ego at its best, trying to keep the pit closed. Overall: great ride - 10/10, would ride again So, what technically happened? What I learned a few years later is that I probably did a very intense Neti-Neti inquiry while being totally clueless. Ended up, probably, in the dark night of the soul and let the Ego take the wheel again to leave it. It grew back strong, but I knew that I could open the pit someday, which I did in the second awakening. I will report on it soon.

What I'm about to describe is NOT: - The experience of music aided by drugs - The feeling of listening to your favorite song - Related to meditation music, meditating with music, etc. - Being affected by lyrics - Dancing / Being at a concert Sometimes I get this jolt of higher consciousness / (nonduality?) when I'm spending time with friends I'm very close to while listening to music. This can happen when I'm alone as well but it's more common with other people. We'll go for walks in the forest, go on long drives, spend time at the beach, take pictures, have dinner, make music together, and have deep conversations. Usually while we're hanging out we're listening to a certain hip hop / rock / electronic album or sometimes just pop music from different eras. There are certain moments during these hangouts / trips that the weather is just perfect, the vibe is just perfect, the music hits perfectly and for a brief moment all pain fades, I'm one with the universe so to speak. Just being, content with existence, relishing the moment, seeing the beauty in everything and where whats in my imagination and whats in my perceptions lose boundaries. I know this is more than just a good feeling in the music, because it doesn't happen all the time when listening to these songs. But in the right environment, with the right mindset, the music is the thing that just pushes me over the edge into this euphoric state. I believe the music is part of it, but its moreso that the music opens me up emotionally so to speak and in that moment I am able to fully embrace being. It's in these moments where I think I understand what Leo often talks about as nothingness and infinity, it's like an infinite nothingness, and all I can respond with is awe. I sometimes wonder if that is what enlightenment is, to experience this feeling nonstop, if so that would be a bit overwhelming! I wanted to get your opinions on this, and any other music that opens you up to experiencing being in this way. If you're curious, here's a few "magic moments" in songs where my friends and I have experienced this feeling.

First of all, English is not my primary language, so sorry if I'm not able to express everything clearly. During last night's sitting, some mind blowing insights came to my mind and I started shaking like hell while feeling this extremely pleasant sensation. Is this normal? Does it mean movement in the right direction? In the wrong direction? Or no movement? Insight No1: How can all this stuff come from nothing? Imagine you start with 0. Thats nothing. Now, you have +1 - 1. That still amounts to nothing, but you see some "individuals" making up that nothing, but it is still blatantly obvious that it is nothing. Then, it becomes -3 -2 -1 + 3 + 2 + 1 = 0. Still nothing, but it is getting more complex. I felt like today the equation got so complicated that it is deceiving us by being incredibly tricky to trace back to 0, so we start to believe in separateness from it. It is as if universal intelligence has found a very clever way to create something out of nothing Insight No2: The Society Struggle Imagine you are trapped inside a well. You are 100km from the bottom of the well, and you are 1km from the top surface of the well. However, there is a little problem: every time you come close to the top of the well, the well increases its size upwards by 1km. Therefore, it is infinite and you will never reach the top end. Now I ask you: in which direction would you move? Society, unconscious people keep moving upwards, believing they will reach the top. And even when they realize they can't, just keep going, because it gives this false sense that you are going somewhere. But they do not realize that if they want to get somewhere, the only way is to move downwards towards the bottom. There, you arrived. Now imagine that bottom is the nothingness, the origin of all Circles are amazing. Imagine the center of a circle is the origin of it all. The source point. The nothing. As things get more complex, we walk away from that point, and we find a circle with a radius. Now, the bottom of the well is the center of the circle. And moving outwards the center of the circle, as society does, is the journey to nowhere. It looks like it is increasing complexity, but that's it. It is still a journey to nowhere. And the problem is that this "complexity", as it increases, it becomes further away from the center, that is, the world will become less connected to its core. Insight No3: Science has got it backwards Imagine this same circle. Imagine that in a point this circle radius describes the understanding of the universe from like 3000 years ago, and lets assume that's point 0 for the beginning of math/physics. The goal of developing math, then, was to describe the universe. However, the universe needs no description. It just is. By being a human being and creating math, you are just creating further complexity compared to the complexity you have on that moment, thus expanding the circle outwards. Sure, math can explain some things from the inner circles. Actually, I would say it does not "explain", but just "describe". What good does describing something do? It just increases its complexity. It the object we call the sun has complexity +30020, calling it a sun just increases its complexity to +30023. Therefore, to really get to the meaning of stuff, it is not about the journey outwards, creating more complex models to explain the inwards. Actually, just go inwards. Ok, that was it. hahahaha. I'm more interested not in the insight content evaluation, but more on the nature of having these kinds of insight. Does that mean Im increasing consciousness? Staying in the same place? Decreasing consciousness? Does this stuff clutter my mind or help me feel connected to the nothingness?

Your second phrase= I can't think about NOthingness there is nothing in it,,,, It's just nothing clear I guess... !

for the dark tunnel and the fast car - maybe your subconciousness tells you hey i‘m driving in a fast fancy vehicle into the unknown in full speed - question is: where you afraid? how did it feel? what is the dark tunnel? life? subconciousness? spiritual world? reality? past? future? nothingness? maybe both dreams show you a signal that you are working in another mind level where you didn’t bring light, maybe yet? subconciousness just talks to you - tells you it’s aware of it, that’s how i would interprete it.

Perhaps. But I see two issues here; putting aside the Buddha's prescription to ignore it as an inappropriate question. First is that there are various states of consciousness which seem eternal, or unmanifest, or unconditioned. Buddhism has a rich lexicon covering these. Some examples include the formless attainments: the perception of the dimension of infinite space... the dimension of infinite consciousness... the dimension of nothingness... the dimension of neither perception nor non-perception. There is delusion-concentration (like dreamy, half-asleep), there is non-perception (in which absolutely nothing is perceived), there is the non-dual totality I quoted earlier, there is seeing everything is being luminously white. I could go on. None of these are Nibbana, yet it is easy to mistake them for such. I'm sure Hinduism has its various samadhi states which it also discounts as being "not the final thing". But even putting aside these rarefied states of consciousness is the tendency for people to "think" their way into enlightenment, deluding themselves. Secondly, is that most people, even if they see the "real" thing, will delight in it, take passion in it, and take it as an eternal self. If one does this with Nibbana, their awakening is said to be incomplete. This is precisely why Buddha hard-rejects all notions of eternalism, precisely for this reason. So when I hear people say "I know what the Self is... it's blah blah", I already know they haven't reached the end. They've made it into something to cling to. This is why "Who am I?" is a bad question, because there ARE answers to it, and they are all wrong.

hey leo, i was wondering that absolute nothingness. So if someone did an injustice toward you or killed you. is there a way the to pray to the universe to due process that person?

That's an illusion of nothingness. rawr!

@Nahm NOTHINGNESS ??? ? I guess

@Zweistein so will you let your children face nothingness or awakening when they are grown up? so they won’t fall into the trap? i think i really would want to let them experience that, but in a guided surrounding...or do we need to protect them from growing up too soon? i don’t have children yet, but a god daughter i lived with for some years when she was a tiny.

right intention I know there is nothing. no reason, no purpose, no meaning. I've experienced that nothingness. the ego uses the mind to construct all of that. why? it's about survival. to keep going. to get up in the morning. motivation, goals, validation. to reassure I am, I exist, I matter. I matter in this world, I matter in other people's perceptions. it's not necessarily a bad thing. I don't want to judge that anymore. the k.ey is the light of awareness. I see that it's all a projection of my mind. but why not embracing it? I don't want to get rid of 'my' ego. I want to integrate it. I want to embrace it with love. the mind is a poor master, but a good servant. I create my own meaning, I've always done so. I can do it in a mindful, conscious manner. why am I doing all of this? why am I living at all? what's the purpose? what is my purpose in life? my mother says I'm egoistic, self-absorbed. that hurt me. am I? why do I spend so much time meditating, doing yoga, reading/studying, practicing mindfulness? my goals have changed over the last year.. what I am aiming for now is something completely different. I couldn't have ever imagined. I want to become empty. so empty, to be filled with the only thing there is: divine love. I'd like to become selfless, a mere vessel of love and compassion. all of that to serve; I want to heal and help others like I did with myself. I've managed to drag my poor soul out of self hatred and victim mentality. I would like to share all the bliss and love and empathy I've experienced since then. am I tricking myself there? is that ego searching for validation, a sense of importance? I don't know at this point. I hope not. it doesn't feel like that. my desire to share and to reach out feels genuine and deep. and if not, maybe it will become along my journey. to change the world one must change herself. I shouldn't feel guilty for spending so much time on myself and my inner journey. Matt is right, sometimes awareness can become quite toxic. when it's tinged with judgement. the answer? love. I want to deepen my self love <3

But what if you take away being? Do you have nothing? If god truly was nothingness, how is existence possible? Is infinity the same as nothing?

By transcending knowing, into being. You don't know that. We're not demonizing ego. Ego is not bad. It's just an obstacle to seeing that God is Nothingness.

@Aaron p the dream would cease to exist along with the dream consciousness. But the Absolute nothingness, the very fabric of existence can never cease to exist. All ideas of existing and non existing happen within it.

During my last trip on psychedelics, I had a strange insight about the purpose of the physical body. It's very hard to explain, but I am going to try. Also I wanted to post the this here, to see if there is someone else who had some similar insight or experience. So to set the context, I was laying in my hammock, eyes closed and legs crossed. I don't know what brought me there but at some point, I felt that my consciousness had expanded and was looking for THE answer to life. There was no thought there, just pure awareness. I kind of went full circle inside of myself and then I had this amazing insight : What if the physical body is here to retain a portion of the infinite consciousness inside of a "life experience"? What if this life experience can only take place at the meeting point of the cosmic dualities? And finally what if the purpose of having this solid feeling of physical matter is simply to hold those dualities together? Because if the energy would be free it would just go back to the Source and stay there in complete stillness, eternal nothingness. I know this sounds all a little bit confusing, but I couldn't find any better words to describe what I think I discovered about myself. Finally I felt like there was a non-dual center in-between the cosmic dualities and that I was afraid to get there. To get there would have meant to let loose all those energy knots that I had build up to stay alive. I then realized how much I was identified to all these knots and how wrong I was about my identity. I then discovered my true nature, or at least a glimpse of it. I really cannot talk about because it is far beyond words ! What do you think ? Am I delusional or did I really discover something here ?

@Leo Gura it’s shoking how Plotinus, whose biography you recommended in the book list, is only at LOC 674. What is all that absolute, nothingness crap you mentioned in the booklist under his book ?. He’s only at the level of no self.

So this journal starts in a train station, as I'm waiting for the train to come by I'm thinking about nothingness. Which in itself is not thinking. I want to hear my old patterns that are running my psyche. Wishes are fuzzy as Jae Mcpherson said in his quote vol. That includes 50 lessons from his life experience. As in of finding new friends, I'm sitting in the train station to go and meet this person for the first time. A person who has more experience with psychedelics, who meditates more than I do, who lives on his own head, doing courses, shooting videos. I feel like I'm not worthy of doing the same as he does. Which is not true. But the iliusion feels real as the ego seems real. I don't know what I'll get out of this, what will come out. I believe I'm looking for my own gain most of the time. Though it doesn't make sense. I want to be selfless, but whenever I try to be one, it's not what I expect it to be. Maybe because when I'm selfless I go off my way to help a person with a seek of return. That's self-sabotaging. What I should do is I should help a person not because there's something to gain, but it's the right thing to do.

When you had a dream of falling down. Did you were aware of your body ? No. What you were aware of ? Nothing. Well that is kinda what it is. But you woke up sweating and in terror and had to come up with conclusions in order to fall asleep again. But you had this moment of nothingness right there in a fall.

Very good question...and a very hard one to answer. So far, I would like to know what I don't know. How can there be an answer to this if I don't know what it is, right? I came here because Leo presented spiritual enlightenment and nothingness in an excellent way, which led me to looking at Shinzen Young's clips. I think I would like to read a book on, "Top 10 Unknown/Profound Things to Humankind." Well, these type of spiritual books are already written. But, the question is, how can I apply it to my own life? An answer to this question is going through a process of self-discovery. While we are living in our egos (body/embodiment), we are here to learn stuff and make life better. Yes, for the better is the goal because by nature no one wants to suffer or see others suffer.

Hey, guys i am wondering since we Humans have endless desires and needs and if you think about it, we achieved greatest miracles, we are blessed to be born out in this world in 21st centurt where wars are few and localized. Human rights, safety and needs are fulfill easier at this time than before. We can go to the hospital for almost all ailment, we have cars. We are so priviledged. We can travel almost everywhere now. We have planes. We have plastic surgeries if you are physically not aesthetic. The absolute infinity gave us everything, my question is what price do we have to pay for the extreme generosity of the nothingness or absolute infinity or god has bestowed upon us? How do we appreciate god or reality?

How is your journey so far? Were you able to find that kind of love from the nothingness delivered to you from you by you via singularity? Were you able to apply it in this life in some way? Yes, if you are totally satisfied, that is fine. That's what it is. We all have different paths. It's not anyone's job to coerce someone else to walk their spiritual path. If something doesn't make sense to you, forget it. Maybe it's not your time to understand whatever the other person said. It's not meant to be. Each info presented in the world is only meant to be a pointer. Shinzen Young said it beautifully. He's very articulate.

I don't support MGTOW because they are not healthy group. I am man as well. I was tricked into them thanks to youtube recommending videos to my homepage. I now completely accept and approve and appreciate them as well as feminists and all ideologies in the world because this is what absolute infinity(allah or nothingness or Brahman or Consciousness) wants. It desires everything, it desires peace, it desires chaos and we cant change a damn thing about it. We can only turn inwards and this path is less travelled and rewarding. I am just enjoying the world as big drama screen seen via my goggles or 3d glasses called eyes. My question was elliot hulse caught in his symbolism trying to comfort MGTOW guys and trying convince the. of doing inner work?

Afaik, there is a sort of final awakening when the ego is just dead and self-consciousness is destroyed, so complete spontaneity/no fear, but what strikes me as particularly interesting (as a 'not fully awake person') is that literally every glimpse I've had, sober or drug (or dream) 'induced', roughly 22+ of them, idk, is that all of these (semi)egoless states were all completely and utterly unique. Though I've had only one of what was a true stillness/nothingness, don't know how much uniqueness can be experienced there. Really neat.