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I m far away from englitment but I had a weird experience. So 3 weeks ago I had the following experiences. I felt like I was awerness itself an awerness is nothingness, its like a "negative space" where you experience everything in your life. Awerness it's like a invisible bubble that it's around you it's the only thing that it's constant in your life. Right now in my head it's like this. The body is a pc and awerness it's a program when you look at the pc you can't see the program running on components but the program it's there. What do you think guys? Is this an insight or just dissociation?

What do you think spirituality is all about? It's liberation from this kind of pain. Self-inquire. Who is experiencing this pain? That is the ultimate solution. But in addition: a) write, draw, or otherwise artistically represent your feelings in as much detail as you possibly can. do not stop till you feel like you have captured how you are feeling exactly b) try, with the above, to understand what exactly you want to do about the situation... maybe you want to take some action. try that c) as I always say, get therapy Yes, first understand your true nature through Ramana Maharshi's self-inquiry, and then you will be in the best position to understand how to help with the problem of physical pain. It turns out that physical pain cannot affect your true inner peace. The enlightened may yell and shout and scream just like anyone else when in pain, but their inner experience is different. In truth, they are untouched, because they know who they really are. The world seems terribly unjust. When you understand your true nature, you will find out that all this pain and suffering and injustice is only an appearance. Your true nature cannot be affected by it. And if you do want to help the world, there is no better way than by finding your own peace -- then your mind will be in the best position to help the world find it. There's only one layer of the matrix. Don't confuse yourself with distinctions between so-called "nothingness" and "non-duality." The question is simple: are you in a state of clear, calm, peace even with your eyes open and you go about your life? If so, then stay there, whatever you want to call it. And if you leave that, come back to it. That's it. That actually is your true nature right there. Some day you will stop leaving that -- at that moment you will understand you actually never left it and never could leave it. As above. If you feel dissatisfied in any way ("Is there still an I?") then that is not peace. Continue the "doing nothing" or else the self-inquiry till you get to that vast, spacious peace that can be maintained with open eyes. Then don't bother to leave. 1. This is a misleading question and it'll be a misleading answer, but: 20 years that I was on the path. There is no longer a path. 2. Yes, it seemed that way. 3. Another misleading question. There is no "becoming" enlightened because we are all already that. The mind stopped searching, you could say, last year, after those 20 years. 4. After months of intense self-inquiry, and before that, decades of spiritual and psychological work on myself. 5. It is not possible. 6. Aligning myself with my true desire. Ramana Maharshi's self-inquiry.

@winterknight Am I right in saying that enlightenment is about this nothingness that I don't think I've been aware of yet, rather than non-dual being? If it's true, how do I then go from non-dual being to nothingness? Do I just bask in the non-dual being until the shift just happens? Just like it happened when I went from dual to non-dual. I see this as a first and second layer of the matrix.

Since my not-punching bag is getting upset, I'll publicly admit that the limit of movement is stillness, not touch. Touch is an inner movement that is confused for stillness. The Ego's wet dream therefore is: Darkness Silence Saliva (tastelessness?) Air (smelllessness?) Stillness Nothingness (non-existence) The inner and outer spheres of the gross senses are what I call the inner and outer world. Subjective and objective. The boundary between subjective and objective is the "-lessness" : the paradox. The sense of being is, however, problematic. I can approach it in two ways: Treat it as a gross sense and claim that there are 'private' and 'public' beings. That I can agree and disagree about the existence of things with other people and treat it as the basis for experience. Observe that the very partitioning of senses into inner and outer is grounded in the sense of being. Subjective and objective worlds themselves are entities that form relationships with other senses. This way, I can see that the sense of being itself cannot be partitioned into inner and outer, because the possibility of partitioning is grounded in it. The first option creates one stable conceptual system in which there is "I" and "other". I will call this conceptual system Egoic perception. The second option creates another stable conceptual system in which there is "I=you=we". I will call this conceptual system Nondual perception.

Boom, progress. I was wondering about this question right here: and it got me curious and a little bit depressed. That is because everything that is obvious is unitary. There is nothing inner and outer about it. In fact, innerness and outerness are beings themselves so they have to somehow point back into the sense of being. This got me depressed because it ruins all of the beautiful dual symmetry of the 5-simplex. (Or maybe it doesn't? I just figured something out). Anyways, here's another clue: That thing right here is the Ego's wet dream. Paradoxes in the gross senses seem like manifestations of nothingness.

All of the senses contain paradoxes. What is the 'paradoxical experience'? Darkness Silence Saliva (?) Air (?) Touch Nothingness Isn't that basically the experience of death? The total sensory deprivation?

I wonder if nondual perception is a category? All senses seem to have singularities, which are the points between inner and outer spheres: inner sight / darkness / outer sight inner hearing / silence / outer hearing inner taste / ??? / outer taste inner smell / ??? / outer smell inner movement / touch / outer movement inner being / nothingness / outer being ??? - there seems to be no obvious word for these singularities. They are like the taste of saliva and the smell of air. I'm still having difficulty talking about the sense of being. I can only describe its short-circuits with other senses. From the point of view of short-circuits, it is the ability to recognize entities out of sensations. When the phone rings, I move in such a way that I can see the phone. Sense of being is what 'glues' the sound of ringing, motion of the head and shape of the phone into what I perceive to be the entity called phone.

If you are to know then know this. It's not that you should stop asking questions when there are still questions to ask. But to speed up the process of self-realization you just have to be that process of self-realization. Instead of seeking the right path up the mountain, stopping at every turn to contemplate which way to go, take a seat mentally and listen to the birds on winds of mind. In every moment of your every day the answers that lie between you and You are presenting themselves when you point your conscious attention the right way. What is the right way but the way that begs your attention? What keeps causing you unrest is naturally what bothers, moves, drains you the most, and when you embody stillness it is what is naturally drawing your attention out of meditation. Be honest with yourself as you inquire into what is going on, why you are caught up in whatever you are caught up in doing whatever you are doing contemplating whatever you are contemplating. Self-inquiry is crucial for finding one's way back through the maze of mind as it was self-deception that caused one to get lost in the first place, but as it is part of the self-same structure that attempts to keep itself alive by perpetuating itself it can easily lead one further astray. I am amazing at deceiving myself so better listen for signs. Some times I may believe that something is something it is not, and so I fool myself and suffer by going in circles or separating myself further from the truth into wider, wilder circles. If you recognize non-duality, although you may not have realized its depth(and isnt there always more to discover ?), then you realize. in some way, that the world as you experience it is one side of the coin of I. Letting go of those things that doesnt really matter and solving those that do is a form of re-allignment of the self. If truth is one that is nothingness then you are as of now truth hiding from itself in itself by itself. You are that you are looking for. In a way it does not matter where you look, but if you are to look in a certain way, be it with honest eyes, stillness of mind and purity of heart. It is a process of letting go. You are not climbing a mountain as much as returning to your resting position, holding on to whatever you cannot let go of on your way down until you are ready to let it go. Let go of anything and it returns to rest after having carried out whatever energy was put into it. As of now you are holding on to something keeping you stuck till you figure out what you need to figure out on this part of the journey. Depending on who you are, you may believe to find most use of either self-inquiry or surrender. One is primarily masculine energy the other feminine energy, but really they are one, and choosing one over the other leaves out half the fun. Secondly, if the 'problem' that keeps you in unrest is that you are separated from your authentic self, from truth, then how can you know that you are not fooling yourself into chasing down the wrong road? By listening to whatever presents itself and inquiring upon it you can unriddle yourself of your unrest and become one with truth once again. As soon as you start picking sides, you always leave something out, and ignoring certain parts of I that keeps calling for your attention is what separates you from truth. Any road is the way, so if this sounds like gibberish just toss it out the window. If something sounds like bullshit it probably is, and if you are on a nice flow in a direction that feels right, then don't let this alter your course. It is easy to get stuck believing in fancy words just because they sound fancy. Or discard wisdom by its strange appearance. Some times truth hits like lightning from a clear blue sky. Or it can be building up like a storm for a period of time until the pressure is released. Trying to single out a lightning in a storm shelters your attention from all the rest, and believing there are no lightning to be found when the sky is clear shelters you from the possibility of it arising. While you are busy taking notes on what the teacher is preaching at the board, the truth is smiling at you from across the room. While you are looking down at your phone on public transportation truth flys by the window but you are too preoccupied to notice it, let alone catch it. If you can embody stillness in action and search without searching then you are already there. If you believe truth to be found in some specific places and not to be in certain others, then try to be attentive to the road and look for signs of going in circles.

Thanks for your info, feeling much more calmer now. I have had ego dissolutions before (one on 5-meo-dmt and one on lsd), but the dissolution came in naturally and without friction, there were no negative emotions, just peace and nothingness, and plain awareness of it. So yeah, yesterday took me by surprise. I am glad it happened tho, I needed this scare.

When I was done dying, my conscience regained So I began my struggle, a nothingness strained Out a flash made of time, my new form blasted out And it startled me so and I burst out a shout At which my legs ran frantic like birds from a nest And I ran until drained, leaving no choice but rest So I fell asleep softly at the edge of a cave But I should have gone in deeper but I'm not so brave And like that I was torn out and thrown in the sky And I said all my prayers because surely I'll die As I crashed down and smashed into earth, into dirt How my skin did explode, leaving only my shirt But from shirt grew a tree and then tree grew a fruit And I became the seed and that seed was a brute And I clawed through the ground with my roots and my leaves And I tore up the shirt and I ate up the sleeves And they laughed out at me and said "what is your plan?" But their question was foreign, I could not understand When then suddenly I'm ripped up and placed into a mouth And it swallowed me down at which time I head south I said hey ya ya hey ya ya hey ya ya hey ya ya hey ya ya Well I woke up to see them, these two mighty steeds With their mouths grinning wildly expressing my needs As they stood there above me, being flanked on each side I felt no need to fear them, no reason to hide So I reached up to touch but they faded too soon Yet their mouths still remained and stacked up towards the moon How that ladder of mouth waved so soft in the night And I looked up in awe at that beautiful sight And I dreamt about climbing into the night sky But I knew had I touched them they'd mouth back "Bye-bye" So I got up and walked down the path in the dark And there deep in the distance my eye caught a spark Of a crab twice my size with incredible strength Oh, it greeted me kindly and then we all drank And we drooled out together right onto the ground And the ocean grew up quickly right up all around And the earth looked at me and said "Wasn't that fun?" And I replied "I'm sorry if I hurt anyone" And without even thinking cast me into space But before she did that she wiped off my own face She said better luck next time don't worry so much Without ears I couldn't hear I could just feel the touch As I feel asleep softly at the edge of a cave But I should have gone deeper but I'm not so brave I said hey ya ya hey ya ya hey ya ya hey ya ya hey ya ya

@Samra that’s a very difficult question. how do they feel for you? maybe they just describe different relations you have to nothingness, voidness emptiness or however you want to call it. like the inuit have different words for white. if you look long enough you’ll see there is not much difference.

Can anything be separate of any other-thing? Can there be anything other? Can there be otherness but illusion itself behind is oneness? EDIT: I had talked somewhere in the forum about the point(S ,separate points) are merely an illusion of one point. It can even be described with mathematics and we can generate a function where we can iterate on illusion of points i.e. f(x) would yield you a Y where you can start building your points (y, x) and there recurse this function to itself to generate many infinite dimensions of points. actually at the bottom, there's only one point that has many illusions of itself. Now the thing is, when we have one dimension i.e length, i.e infinite many points, i.e 1 to 1000, or to inf, yes there exists many unique f(x) that would map x to y, and another g(x, y) that map (x, y) to z, etc etc... the question you might ask is how one would go backwards from one dimension to one singular point? Answer: simple, there exists a function that would always yield z(x) = 1 + a.x where a is not 0 but illusion. The illusion is the functions itself, functions as human thoughts. One point is being observed as to create illusions of many. F, G and many dimensions are just illusions that exists. EDIT: Oneness is when existence of illusion of A in z(x) = 1 + a.x discovered hence now whole reality collapses into nothingness a.k.a zero in math. If one takes illusions granted then there exists many A that will create the illusion of first dimension. There you can generate any OTHER thing.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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