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If your focus is on your health and your state of mind, it doesn't matter how deliberate you think your decision of focusing on that is, it isn't your decision. If your intention, isn't to control, guess what? It isn't your intention. Ok, you seem to be contradicting yourself; do you allow thoughts to pass right on through, or do you not think at all? In any case, if you allow thoughts to pass right on through, you couldn't do otherwise, and if you managed to do otherwise, again, it wouldn't be you doing it. Now, if you don't think anything, that means you know complete stillness, nothingness, emptiness, and you are enlightened, in which case you wouldn't be claiming to have free will, because, who would have it anyways? What? Sorry, again I don't understand what you're trying to say with this. Are you saying either I follow the logic of science or I make use of free will? Why would you even distinguish between those two paths? Just contemplate for a while on the fact that if there is no you, then there is no one to control anything, and leave science aside. I'll watch that video tomorrow, I like that channel... but now, it's time for me to go to bed.

How do I let my true self be aware of itself? It's utterly wild. It does not know itself at all. It's my biggest nightmare. If my true self is nothing in existence, then I must reside outside of existence. Maybe we are the outside of existence, the nothingness that is eternally here. Now.

This is my recount of my first experience with psilocybin mushrooms. I took psilocybin mushrooms for the first time in late June 2017. I woke up a bit after 4:30 am in the morning. I made sure to go to the bathroom and get a bottle of water before the trip as I did not want anything to interrupt it. I retrieved my psilocybin mushrooms and weighed exactly 5 grams of dried Psilocybe Cubensis mushrooms. Before I ingested the fungus I took about five minutes to sit in silent meditation. My room was also in complete silent darkness as psilocybin preforms best in this environment. During these five minutes I listened to some calm music and mentally prepared myself to completely let go of everything. I got into a mindset in which I was ready to die; right there and right then. I was ready to be completely obliterated. After this meditation of complete surrender I turned off all technology around me. I paused out of respect for the fungus, I then looked at the mushrooms and said “I will go wherever you take me, with grace”, and then I ate the mushrooms. They actually tasted quite good. After eating the mushrooms I then got into lotus position and meditated at the edge of my bed. This was one of the stillest meditations I had ever had. It was almost as if my body knew the profundity of what was to come. After about 20 minutes of silent meditation in darkness I felt the first effects of the psilocybin. My body began to feel heavy and I felt a tingling all over my body especially in my spine and in my head. I then leaned my back against the wall as I meditated. I began to feel nauseous as well; I was prepared for this as I had a vomit bucket next to me. As the effects intensified I then had to lie down flat on my back. The effects became more intense. As I laid down I immediately got in a bilateral symmetrical position. Somehow I knew that this was going to be very important. I remembered listening to interviews with Martin Ball and the importance of bilateral symmetry during psychedelic experiences. Then the weirdest and most profound experience of my life began. As I laid in the silent darkness of my room on my back with my eyes closed it was as if my ego structure was sucked right out of my mind in an instant. Through no volition of my own my body began to contort into various bilateral symmetrical poses very similar to the ones that martin ball discussed. It was an extremely strange yet beautiful experience. I had no control over these movements and it felt like the psilocybin had possessed my body. My nerves were tingling the entire time this happened. I could feel my nervous system trying to balance itself as the psilocybin entered. As my body continued to contort into these various poses they became more wild and intense, it felt as if the psilocybin was testing the waters. It was entering my body and trying to see how it could take control of my nervous system and guide me. It felt to me that it was trying to get accustomed used to being in a human body. My perception of time dissolved as well. When I opened my eyes I saw intense visuals in a grid like pattern overlaid on my vision. At this point I could see the light from the sunrise through the blinds in my room. As I peered out it was so bright. Brighter than anything I had ever seen yet so beautiful. The bodily contortions slowed and I heard an intuitive voice say something along the lines of “ok, that was your introduction, now are you ready for what I have to show you?” There was no ego present however I knew that this was about to get very intense. At this point I don’t really know how to describe what happened as there was no ego and no sense of time. But I will do my best to recount. My consciousness / awareness was then catapulted outside of space and time in a void of complete nothingness. I then heard the intuitive voice say something along the lines of, “I need you to understand the profundity of the things that I am showing you.” “People rarely get to experience things like this.” In the nothingness a light formed and I was that light and the witness of the light at the same time. The ego then tried to ask questions to try and understand, label and interpret what was occurring. The psilocybin did not like this at all. Immediately as the questions of the ego arose the experience began to turn negative. In the void I saw red and black vivid colors emerge. I saw hundreds of psychedelic demons come into existence and general chaos ensue. Keep in mind that I was the colors and demons and chaos. The ego of Thomas roger became concerned at this and tried again to ask questions and understand. But it was as if the psilocybin said “NO!” “You will wait until I am finished showing you what you need to see before you begin to intellectualize any of this!” “Simply sit back, experience and observe this.” After the psilocybin said this, the ego of Thomas-Roger was obliterated in a sea of destruction and chaos. I felt the pain and agony of being completely ripped apart in every way possible. The ego was screaming at the top of its lungs. The ego screamed out into the void and was abruptly silenced. The ego was dissolved and transmuted into the chaos that had annihilated it and the immense pain was turned into infinite bliss that I had never felt before. Now that the ego was not going to be a factor anymore in this experience I was now the light in the void. However even after this there was still a witness of awareness. At this moment I felt as if I was everything in existence. Then the psilocybin said “ok, great, now we can continue.” As the experience went on my awareness/ consciousness began to traverse the multiverse with the psilocybin as my guide. I was shown the intricacies of our illusory concepts of space and time. I was shown that all is absolutely ONE. Next even more strange occurrences ensued. I was shown a massive psychedelic “city” made of pure light that existed outside of the multiverse, space and time. This “city” of light was large enough to make Earth look tiny in comparison. The psilocybin guided my awareness through this place. I saw technologies made of what I can only describe as light. I saw technologies so inconceivably advanced that they would make the greatest human technological marvels look like less than stone age tools. All throughout this “city” were beings of pure light. Some of them were humanoid in shape some of them were so alien in appearance that I can’t even begin to describe them. These beings could bring things into existence simply by thinking of it. They could travel anywhere in the multiverse by teleporting. They created worlds for fun. The psilocybin told me that I (awareness/consciousness) could do this as well. I saw many other things here that I can’t even begin to describe with language. All I can say is that this was a beautiful place of love and light. The most memorable thing that I saw in this place was a vast library of all of the knowledge in the multiverse. It was like a cathedral and a library made of pure light. It was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. I lack the vocabulary to describe just how beautiful it was. After seeing this beautiful place of love and light at one point I was shown a nexus of information in which streams of information were pouring out at an extremely fast speed in all directions. This information consisted of every way that we humans use symbols to communicate information. This included but was not limited to all forms of language and all forms of mathematics. I felt at this time that I knew all languages, all modes of communication and all relays of information. Information was everywhere. From the sub atomic to the molecular all the way up to the multiverse. I saw information in DNA helixes, plants, animals, myself and everything else. I (consciousness/awareness) literally knew everything. At this point I experienced the most intense and breathtaking part of the experience. I felt like I experienced everything that had ever happened in all of existence simultaneously in less than a second. It was so powerful that the witnessing awareness/ consciousness was obliterated. The witness was the last vestige of anything resembling duality at all. Now there was only the happenings of existence and I (pure nothingness) was all of those happenings. It was as if I had created existence and decided to experience existence in every way possible. From bacteria to entire civilizations spanning light years, every life, every breath, every experience was one. And I was that one. It’s very hard to describe with the limits of human language, but I will continue. I felt like this experience lasted hundreds of millions of years. It was so vast and visceral. I lived as thousands of people, plants, fungi, bacteria and animals. I saw entire alien civilizations rise from the stone age to type three civilizations and fall. I lived as various men, women and children. In all of these experiences there were vast, various things constantly changed about them but one thing remained the same. The consciousness that was experiencing life remained. I don’t really know how to describe that. I experienced childbirth from both the perspective of the mother organism giving birth and from the perspective of the child organism being born. I experienced sex from both the male and female perspective simultaneously. I felt both masculine and feminine energies as ONE. I felt how integral sexuality was to existence and just how profoundly divine sexuality is. Sexuality is not simply a bond between a male and a female. Sexuality is a vector in which novelty can be introduced into the universe and existence as a whole. All of the millions of experiences and perspectives were happening so fast and it was impossible to keep up with the experience. It was moving so fast that it was overwhelming it was a sea of chaos and yet I was this sea of chaos. After all of this profound stimulation everything returned to the void. This void felt like infinity. I was in this experience for eons. It was unborn and undying. I was this void of absolute nothingness from which everything stemmed and I was that void. After experiencing eternity in the void of absolute nothingness standard reality began to form. Thus commenced the comedown phase of the experience. The witnessing consciousness reformed. I came back into my body. My body felt extremely heavy and difficult to control. My mind went from states of being conscious to unconscious. Slowly my perception of reality shifted from that of cosmic consciousness to that of human consciousness; however my perception was still nondual. I felt all of the information that I had witnessed being embedded into my nervous system. My whole body was vibrating as I began to come back. My head was ringing/buzzing for the entire rest of the day. This headache did not go away until the next day. As I slowly came back to physical reality all of my bodily senses were very sensitive. I felt everything so vividly. It was very intense to even feel my body lying on the bed. Feeling the air being pulled into and pushed out of my body was also very intense in a way that I can’t really describe. I was so immersed in tactile sensations that I began to feel the bed very gently. It felt like this was my first time touching something. As I tried to get up I fell several times over a dozen before I was even able to get to my knees. As I looked around my room I felt completely in shock. The best way I can describe how I felt at this time is I felt l how the character David did at the end of the movie, 2001: A Space Odyssey, after he had come out of the stargate. My room looked like an alien environment to me. I felt like I was seeing it for the very first time. I had not felt like this since I was a baby. As I looked around I thought it was VERY strange that anything was happening at all. I thought that it was very strange that we humans could not simply do whatever we wanted whenever we wanted. I then looked at my hands and I was blown away. I saw the complexity and strangeness of the biological machine that I was looking at. It was very amazing. I struggled to get to my feet. After falling about 6 more times I finally managed to barely stand up. I was amazed at how my body was working. I was amazed that I even had a body. I looked at my bookshelf and I was almost in reverence for it. I nearly cried when I looked at it. Reason being, after seeing that library of light during my experience, I have a newfound respect for information. I had to use the bathroom afterwards so I slowly walked to the bathroom. Walking wasn’t easy after the trip. When I entered the bathroom and saw my reflection in the mirror the first thing I thought was WHAT THE FUCK?! It was so strange to see a body looking at me. It was so strange to see a body at all. Again it was like I had never seen a human body before. On my body I saw visuals like patterns and glyphs moving all over. However the visuals were the least of my concern. They were cool and interesting to observe but I was more mesmerized by the fact that I had a body at all. My body looked like an alien organism to me. After using the bathroom I asked my trip sitter what happened to my body. He said that for the most part after the contorting poses I was passed out. He said that at one point that I began flailing, grabbing things and swinging them around and making incoherent noises. It surprised me that I was not screaming at the top of my lungs at one point during the experience. This is because when the ego was being obliterated I could have sworn that I was screaming at the top of my lungs in complete agony. After learning from my trip sitter that most of my trip consisted of my body simply lying there I was ok with that. I walked around my home feeling like this was my first time seeing it. I decided to walk outside in the backyard and when I did it was a bit overwhelming. I marveled at all of the lifeforms outside. I simply sat in the grass in awe of the planet I had just returned to. All in all the psilocybin experience lasted for nearly six hours. It was the strangest, deepest, most profound and most beautiful experience of my life thus far. This experience forever changed the way I look at reality and it has supercharged my existing meditation practice. Psychedelics are really an amazing tool for learning, consciousness exploration and enlightenment work. They can lead to many beautiful things if the student is ready for the lesson. Here is a video explaining the positions that my body was contorting into. Skip to about 5:25 in. The grid visuals I experienced during the come up portion were very similar to this. https://nexusoflife.deviantart.com/art/Thermodynamic-Horizon-76214599 This is what the "city" of light was similar to. https://nexusoflife.deviantart.com/art/ET-Contact-676996115 This is what the visuals overlaid on my body looked similar to. https://nexusoflife.deviantart.com/art/Vitis-Animae-264377166

@Visionary The nothingness is not scary, that is the self's interpretation. There may be an initial stage were fear comes up, this is to be expected. Why? Its very simple the Self or ego is designed to survive. The fear arises as a manipulation to move the self away from perceived danger. But actually the self is not a concrete entity as it seems, but rather a activity, like a current or wave. The ego isn't real. If you don't want to face the truth then dont, listen to the fear that YOU create. But just remember your body/self will die one day whether you are ready or not. Better to surrender too it now.

God/reality is absolutely terrifying guys. Its overwhelming presence crushes you (ego) to tiny motherfucking bits if you're ready. I wasn't. I could not physically die. I couldn't let go. For 5 minutes i have been suphocating and panicking. But eventually I could not let go. If you're progressing and being Aware of Awareness becomes somewhat easier... Then try this out: Feel that connection with Nothingness. Follow your heart. Literally. Feel God in you. Like a deep deep priar. Feel what you were before you were born, after you're dead and what you are now. Follow your heart. That deep intuition that you already know your true nature. I have the feeling that its our hearts that lead us to god. Our true nature. This here is extremely helpful. Very very powerful.

I've come to same conclusion as well. ABSOLUTE nothingness, and ABSOLUTE infinity. It's the same thing.

Wonderful video. It's nice to see two people talking who are on the same level. I woke up this morning and it's still here. Right now it's hard to imagine this will ever go away. It feels like losing this state is like forgetting how to walk. How to find it: I believe there are many things one can do to create an environment where it's easier to find. One thing that really helped me: Zoom out on everything you know. Visualize some kind of container that contains everything that makes up your life: thoughts, feelings, emotions, memories, sights, sounds etc. Now visualize this container floating in an infinite sea of nothingness. You are that sea of nothingness. I might make a video out of this and post it here. Why do people don't find it? Because it's so ridiculously simple, it's very easy to overlook. The mind cannot help itself to think it must be something extremely difficult and creates all kinds of concepts and gets lost in all kinds of methodologies. That's how to mind works. So the mind needs to shut the hell up. But how do you shut the mind up? You can't force it to shut up. That's where meditation comes in. The more you meditate, the higher chance you have to wake up.

The ultimate in the journey is the point when there is no experience left—neither silence, nor blissfulness, nor nothingness. There is nothing as an object for you, but only your subjectivity. The mirror is empty; it is not reflecting anything. It is you. Even great travelers of the inner world have got stuck in beautiful experiences, and have become identified with those experiences, thinking, “I have found myself.” They have stopped before reaching the final stage where all experiences disappear. Enlightenment is not an experience. It is the state where you are left absolutely alone, nothing to know. No object, howsoever beautiful, is present. Only in that moment does your consciousness, unobstructed by any object, take a turn and move back to the source. It becomes self-realization, it becomes enlightenment. I must remind you about the word “object.” Every object means a hindrance—the very meaning of the word is “hindrance,” objection. So the objects can be outside you, in the material world; the objects can be inside you, in your psychological world; the objects can be in your heart, feelings, emotions, sentiments, moods. The objects can be even in your spiritual world. And they are so ecstatic that one cannot imagine there can be more. Many mystics of the world have stopped at ecstasy. It is a beautiful spot, a scenic spot, but they have not arrived home yet. When you come to a point when all experiences are absent, when there is no object, then consciousness without obstruction moves in a circle—in existence everything moves in a circle, if not obstructed—it comes from the same source of your being, goes around. Finding no obstacle to it—no experience, no object—it moves back, and the subject itself becomes the object. That’s what J. Krishnamurti, for his whole life, continued to say: that when the observer becomes the observed, know that you have arrived. Before that, there are thousands of things in the way. The body gives its own experiences, which have become known as the experiences of the centers of kundalini; seven centers become seven lotus flowers. Each is bigger than the other and higher, and the fragrance is intoxicating. The mind gives you great spaces, unlimited, infinite. But remember the fundamental maxim that still, the home has not come. Enjoy the journey and enjoy all the scenes that come on the journey—the trees, the mountains, the flowers, the rivers, the sun and the moon and the stars—but don’t stop anywhere unless your very subjectivity becomes its own object. When the observer is the observed, when the knower is the known, when the seer is the seen, the home has arrived. This home is the real temple we have been searching for, for lives together, but we always go astray. We become satisfied with beautiful experiences. A courageous seeker has to leave all those beautiful experiences behind, and go on moving. When all experiences are exhausted and only he himself remains in his aloneness… no ecstasy is bigger than that, no blissfulness is more blissful, no truth is truer. You have entered what I call godliness; you have become a god. -Osho From The Hidden Splendor, Chapter ten

I ran into some info on how a cat can be spiritual. If we live on earth, and everything on earth is a phenomenon, there are other phenomena / dimensions too. Of course, focus on no-self/nothingness, that's the ultimate.

I tend to use awareness and emptiness myself. These terms have the sense Leo provides, with some modification due to my idiosyncrasies. But all in all they mean what you think they mean. Consciousness is more of a layman's term. Nothingness is a term I like less than emptiness. A bottle may be empty, but it is still something. Paradoxically, I am empty, but I am still something. I would never say I am nothing. Others might contend that they are nothing, and that's their prerogative to do so, but that ain't me. I'm pretty sure. Emptiness is when you are standing in the middle of your input portals watching the content float in -- it's the space in which the inputs arise. Awareness is your noticing of these inputs, or not. Maybe you lack awareness in a moment. But just because you lack awareness in a moment doesn't mean you stop being empty in that moment. You are always empty. So, I do not believe that emptiness and awareness are synonymous.

I have read several books on spirituality and enlightenment and I have also been meditating seriously for the past three years and have had a few unitive experiences. And in my experience all of these labels are essentially pointing to the same thing. However I would like the perspectives of others on this topic in order to gain a more integral understanding of this as I have much to learn.

Okay, if we want to get right down to the bottom, let's just cut to the chase in how this discussion or whatever will probably evolve. I've had it enough times on here with people to somewhat narrate the usual steps. It's most likely going to end up being we agree to disagree if it stays civil, or I'll somehow piss you off with the way I state things and it'll devolve and completely derail the thread I "believe" the world exists beyond the observations of my mind, that there are actions you have to take, nuance you have to sense, and resistance you have to face to adapt, change, create synergy, gain influence and then exert influence. Just sitting there, believing whatever, thinking everything is nothing or an illusion, can impact your rapport with the world or how you relate to it, but it does little beyond that. We have to be more physical, active, and involve our senses as well as our mind in order to spur change within us and outside us. Maybe you "believe" differently and will then say something like well prove it in some absolute sense. And then I'll say, static absolutes violate dynamic integrity via the uncertainty principle and also add that humans are overly attached to that paradigm because of an emotional extremism and rigidity of thought on an electromagnetic level (a mental tensile resiliency most people lack). All the proof I personally need is in it's consistent repeat-ability, stability, patterning, and the strength of change I create and success I enjoy by adapting and having the very tools to form and become whatever the hell I want in ways most of the world doesn't seem to have the same access to. Basically, I've had way too much success and growth and experience validating my approach and view to give any credence to the philosophy of nothingness or the primacy of consciousness or whatever you want to call it. Most people on here are coming from a place of scarcity and the consciousness primacy stuff sounds great to them, compared to what they currently have, but I've got way too much personal abundance to find such a position attractive. I mean it's not like I'm just dismissing it out of hand. I've investigated it, but have out-grown it years ago, and moved on to even deeper and more real things (in my estimation and deep experience).

This paper serves a fourfold purpose 1) To confuse the reader 2) To obscure what it should illuminate 3) To enhance the self-esteem of the author 4) To kick your ass further Honest looking brought me here and what have been seen is: 'I' is a thought. Thought arise from memory (intuitive archetypal or individual). Memory arise from experience. Experience arise from perception. A thought can not think, and perception cannot perceive. There is no 'you' to perceive. Just perceiving happening. No you to be aware. Just awareness. And here in this honest looking, is where the 'I' or 'ego-structure' instantly collapse and the illusion of self is seen.The fact that it has been seen will stay as true and change the viewing perspective for good, and forever make this insight recognizable. It can't be unseen. When you have seen a giraffe in reality you'll have no trouble recognizing it , and see the difference from imagination of say the Capricorn or Donald Duck... The difference of reality and thoughts about it. The impact varies. For some people the collapse of the ego is permanent, and they are 'done' and have no trouble with letting go, trusting and resting in the pure creative intelligence of life unfolding. But for most the 'ego-structure' just don't give up so easily even though it has been seen to be an illusion. To die, or a complete annihilation of the 'I' as a fixed foundation, is very scaring on deep levels of the mind. And it fights back afraid of loosing grip. The 'I'-thought is like a cannibal living on other thoughts in an attempt to survive. Due to long time habitual functioning of the mind the 'I' or ego will hide in the background behind every thought (most clearly in communication) and create some form of identification. And that's why a forum like this , and those branching from it, can be very helpful tools. As can meditation (effortless non-judgemental awareness) and Satsang (Sanskrit सत्सङ्ग sat = true, sanga = company). Honest looking is just as important in what is happening after seeing no self. Having passed The Gate all that is left, is to keep looking at the depth of the implications of no-you . So, Looking is the only technique you'll ever need, provided honesty is your compass. Being aware of our own fantasies/beliefs tend to dissipate the unconscious power of it, loosening its hold on us. This is why consciously examining the ego loosens much of its grip. The principle of the ego is unconsciousness . Whereas the power of conscious awareness enlightens what is unconscious in us, and thus frees us from conditioned compulsive necessity to cling to it. Post gate some part of the ego is able to develop a sense of direction and function as 'guide' for questioning beliefs and thoughts arising from conditioned and habitual mind, exactly as direct pointing initially did, and make way for seeing 'no-you' again and again and again. In a loop out in 'investigation' back to see no-self. In this looping , apparent separation engenders the searching. When there is no one, there is no loop and there won’t be any questions. No agent. Not here, not there, not anywhere is an agent to be found. Progress is paradoxically possible because things are seen to be empty with no inherent 'foundation'. It simply just gives action/reaction a new dimension. So mind is not your enemy it's just the way it works. This will automatically make the functioning of the mind change as it sees that its conditioning has nothing to cling to but the illusion of and 'I'. And as the fear of annihilation is overcome 'you' or 'self' or 'separate entity' becomes more and more transparent before identification disappears totally. 'You' is dying but there's still living....( Note that this does not imply 'being like the animals', cold nothingness, nihilism or lack of motivation or initiative.)...This doesn't mean depersonalization, just that the persona is seen not to be a inherent fixed entity (in fact nothing is), and seeing this is liberation from clinging to it. It is not disappearing but clinging to it ceases. If to be or not to be is the question, to be and not to be is the answer. The process, or work after the Gateless Gate, will therefore be different for the apparent individuals, though following the same pattern of less and less resistance. Only reluctantly the mind will admit that it hasn't any clue whatsoever of what is going on, and shuts up when all expectations, ideas, believes and concepts must be rejected. In this silence a transcendental revelation happens that can not be conceptualized and understood. There is no 'understander'. There is no 'you' back there making it all happen. There isn't even a 'you' back there watching it all happen. There is no entity back there that is aware of what is going on. Awareness is simply arising because the right conditions are in place for awareness to arise. Then recognition happens that there truly is no separation between awareness and the object of awareness - they are one and the same. There is absolutely nothing left to identify with. Do not suppose that what you realize becomes your knowledge and is grasped by your consciousness. Although actualized immediately, the inconceivable may not be apparent. Its appearance is beyond your knowledge. This doesn't mean that you give up thinking. Imagination and abstract thinking is very useful and not a feature to avoid. It just means that the idea of a self is seen as an idea , and not identified with. It is indeed possible not to have self-referential thoughts at all, and no thought at all when not needed . But non-self-referential thoughts used for planning and problem solving are are showing up spontaneously. Self-referential thoughts, are emotional and "sticky" while planning/problem solving thoughts are not. Stillness is the base so to say. Same goes for stories. Stories are the human way of expression. The perspective from which it is viewed is crucial to the way action takes place, and seeing through the illusion of self changes the perspective radically. However, do not be fooled by the conceptual paradox that such gradual development or evolution implies cosmological or psychological distance to be covered. The direct path is in your face all the time. There is no 'you' to be enlightened. There never was. BUT BE AWARE: This is just words picked up in the flow. And they are like shadows from a visitor carrying a torch behind his back. There is a danger of regarding words as names: for then they create forms or images which perpetuate ignorance while creating an illusion of knowledge (grasped by a knower)!!!!! From wherever and whenever this insight is communicated, it has no connection with end-gaining, belief, practise or process. It cannot be taught but is constantly shared. Because it is all that is, no individual can lay claim to it. It needs not to be argued, proven or embellished, for it stands alone simply as it is, and can only remain unrecognised and rejected, or realised and lived. This morning a blackbird was sitting in the top of an apple-tree singing , and expressed the simplicity of awakening , far better than words. It is indeed a gateless gate. Bon voyage.

I recommend to look at "Law of Attraction" as more of a law of mirroring. Basically, life will attract to you whatever your "vibration" dictates. So, if you have a lot of inner turmoil, then life will attract to you lots of situations that mirror that turmoil in order that you may become aware of that turmoil and address it. So, the Law of Attraction is already happening to you and it's happening in a way that's perfectly designed for the expansion of the real self (aka God/Universe/Nothingness/etc/) So, the best thing you can do with the LOA is to use it as an awareness tool for things that you need to address. Then, as you become more and more aware, you will flow more effortlessly through the life you're meant to have. And no matter what the circumstances may be, you'll be far more at peace and fulfilled than if you tried to simply manifest whatever you want from where you are right now. Most times, people think that we know what we want, but can be very mistaken. So, to try to attract this or that into your life without addressing what LOA is mirroring to you right now is just going to manifest more of the same problems until you address them.

The ego is the process and product of false identification with things that are not the real self (nothingness, God, etc.). It is what gives us the illusion that we are separate from all other things in reality, when it's really all one unified thing. Monkey mind is a product of the ego-identification process which is designed to solidify and maintain the false identification with the ego-self through constant rebuilding and fortifying of the self-concept and our identification with it.

Replace the word "NEEDS" with "WANTS" in your statement above and that is what I see as spiritual purification, Nirvana, enlightenment, liberation or whatever word you want to call it. I think what you are confusing here is needs for wants. What I think you are really getting at here is craving and grasping. Liberation is freedom from wanting, craving, grasping. It doesn't mean you'll never crave or want, it means you'll know how to deal with it. Most people can't "deal" with it, we either suppress it or give in, we'd rather not ever notice it all. But if we step back and notice it, name it, we can observe it from a distance and watch the craving ascend, peak, descend, and disentegrate into nothingness. The craving always comes back though right? Eventually I always give in, but I'm practicing this technique. A cool quote for you bro: “Those who enter the gates of heaven are not beings who have no passions or who have curbed the passions, but those who have cultivated an understanding of them.”

@Nahm I'm not sure. I can't believe Leo's concept of enlightenment until I experience it for myself though. But I have had an ego-death experience where I lost the concept of myself as a thing. And I do practice being in nothingness and watching my input portals (thoughts and senses). But I have not experienced the crack that Leo talks about where you lose your sense of self entirely. And I'd be interested in hearing from anybody on here who has actually achieved Leo's sense of enlightenment fully.

@Nahm I'm definitely not a fan of nonduality. I don't accept duality either or the idea that one or the other has to be true (this is an example of a false choice fallacy). But I have had an ego-death experience in the sense that I no longer cling to a notion and feeling of myself as a thing, and I do practice being in nothingness, meditation, and watching/monitoring my thoughts. I do not believe all is one. And I don't think Leo's concept of enlightenment is possible. You can't lose your self entirely. That's a fiction. Maybe 85%, but not entirely. And I would never believe that or espouse that unless I experienced it directly and firsthand myself first. Otherwise it's a pipe-dream at worst and hypothesis at best. And I don't mistake hypotheses for truths. Until I experience the crack for myself, as Leo has referred to it as, I will continue to believe that Leo's concept of enlightenment is a fiction. Nobody else's testimony is really persuasive to me because I can't really climb into their mind and verify it for myself. But I still keep an open mind and welcome testimony, naturally. I never stop listening. To believe it, I must first see it for myself firsthand, especially with something as radical as Leo's concept of enlightenment.

(Note: I haven't watched Leo's 2c-b video, nor have I ever tried any type of psychdelics, but I got really interested in what Leo is suggesting here.) Ok, so my main question is, if while we're alive (what we normally understand for being alive, that is) we don't manage to get enlightened, then when we die, we (our mortal sense of "we") will simply dissapear forever, and if we do manage to get enlightened our bodies will phisically die, but consciousness will be conscious that it is still there, that actually nothing changed. It's like, if I die today (definitely unenlightened), then... my ego completely shuts off and it doesn't have the opportunity any longer for noticing that it was a total lie. It died believeng it existed! So in my case consciousness won't be conscious that it is still there... right? Or is enlightenment just a cool thing to notice whle you're alive, but after we die, ist's the same if you were enlightened or not, because everyone becomes nothingness anyways? This is what really got me thinking. Do you mean by this, if you must kill yourself, then choose the method of becoming enlightened so that you can appreciate (while you're still alive) the fully glory after-death?? "get enlightened before you die", as some wise master once said???? Finally, in this example that old man starting to have an orgasm on his deathbed at least in his last moments he started appreciating that something cool as an orgasm existed, but... what are the odds of that happening? Like if you don't start working hard on achieving enlightenment soon enough, it's very unlikely to happen magically on your deathbed just like that, don't you think? That old man is much more likely to die not knowing of orgasms, or in other words, he is much more likely to die thinking he is actually dying forever. Bam! gone, and he really is gone, because all there was, was an unconscious ego who is dissapearing. I think about this because my grandfather recently died (91 y/o just in case you were interested) and as he was lying on his death bed, I would sit next to him and think... how the fuck do I let him understand that he is not going to die! he isn't going anywhere because he doesn't exist!!! And as weak as he was, just lying there, suffering, I also thought how sad it was that it was impossible to get him enlightened at that point. Some day I really thought of telling him, but then I just thought silence would make more sense for him at that point. Ok that was a very long and confusing post, I hope you can make some sense out of it.

That is what I do whenever I am having low energies. I expand myself out to become aware of the infinite reality and see what a gift this life truly is. Sometimes I will imagine I am in nothingness and imagine how consciousness made reality and started with sacred geometry. I love getting lost in these imagination adventures, often times it leads to some kind of new awareness, curiosity or wonder.

I just watched the latest video of Leo's interview with Peter Ralston. Therein he talks about distinctions. Everything is a distinction. You are a distinction. The moment the process of distinction stops everything is gone and what's left is only the pure potential of the infinite nothingness we call God. You are a distinction machine collapsing potential into experience. Not all distinctions are conscious thought. The fact that you perceive a thought is a distinction but not a conscious thought. Maybe we can see distinctions that are beyond thought as the unconscious mind. With every distinction we create (e.g. concepts, ideas, thoughts ..) we expand the manifoldness of the universe. Awakening is the work of looking beyond distinctions. Any further thoughts?

An intuitive knowing means more than every word I can use to describe that intuitive knowing, I'd say. But, let's put it like this. In the normal non-integrated state of egoic consciousness - still lovin' that phrase - you are deeply rooted in the belief that you are a person. It feels like that. When you reveal that this person is a self-image that is kept up and when you remove the attachment to that self-image, it mostly dissolves - or let's say it integrates. It's still there when you need it, but it isn't your point of reference any more. Then automatically, your identity flips inside out, because it was centralized to this finite self-image and now that this is gone your identity becomes everything that there is. But that happens unconsciously, like your prior identification with the self-image also happened unconsciously. And then, when you are in an integrated state of consciousness, it's obvious to see that you are everything. Then you begin to investigate what this everything is and you see that it's endless surfaces of reality that are hiding the nothingness that underlies it. But these are all metaphors, so I don't really know what to tell you. Sit down and just realize that everything that you ever perceived is yourself. That is true. Because how could you perceive something that is not yourself? it's not possible. Realize that you were never born then, because if you once did not exist you could have never come into existence in the first place. The one who would've done that then would be you now. But how can that be if you once did not exist? Then realize that everything you know happens in one still moment. That there only is this one still moment that pervades all your experience. Just realize that right now. Then realize that in that one still moment, everything happens. Realize that even you perceiving this one still moment happens in it. Realize, that the forms in that one still moment always change. Then look at that. What is color actually? What is sound? How can you tell the difference between sound and no sound? What is that? Where is this coming from? And then just realize that all of these are endless surfaces coming out of nothing. And that nothing underlies all these surfaces and that you really are that. That's basically a direct route to your awakening. One of them. Hope, that helps.

Lol, I had read your previous answers, but I guess I didn't read them with enough attention One more question if you don't mind. I get how nothingness can be known in its pure form. Rupert Spira put it like this: "it’s the sinking and sinking and sinking and sinking of the attention into its source and as the attention sinks into its source, it is divested of all the limitations that thought and feeling have superimposed on it and at some point it stands completely undressed. And attention undressed, attention divested of all limitations is pure consciousness". I've already had a taste of the process Spira is describing when I did Leo's guided letting go meditation. So I get that if I let go of everything (my self included) pure awareness will remain. What I've never understood is how it's possible to be aware of nothingness merged with content! I've heard Shinzen Young and Rali (Naked Reality on youtube) say that it's like an intuitive knowing, but this doesn't really mean anything. Could you please help me understand?

nothingness or letting-go-ness, these are just labels, don't let them confuse you, what you can expect in spirituality is always more vitality, more energy and more happiness. that's what this comes down to. spirituality is not something outside of ourselves, it is a part of us; it is natural to us. labels can make things confusing but the feeling of ''nothingness'' is native to you, when you're trying to imagine how something feels always imagine it feeling good and joyful. if you feel like letting go will let you lose control realize that's an ego trick. spirituality will always empower you, so imagine that letting go will make you feel even more in control, if you like to feel in control , letting go will give you that feeling of control in a way you never felt before. it is fear to trust that makes you feel like you will be weaker, fear of the uncomfortable, there's always a tuning period when you try to let go and trust where you're sorta uncomfortable and seemingly at the mercy of things,but it's a normal transition, you always end up more powerful then before. never believe in a weak spirituality, spirituality is here to please you, to make you comfortable and more joyful. how powerful is it to let go and still rock at living life? realize that perhaps you're afraid of your own power. I've had times when I felt scared of how the world felt,I felt scared of others, till I realized I was afraid of my own power, my senses were so intensified that I almost didn't recognize them, and almost felt like I was living in an hostile world. when I realized this was my own power, that I was afraid of my own intensity, all the power came back to me and I felt at peace with my surroundings

@Leo Gura Do you mean that the net "amount" of consciouness in the universe can change? Is a planet full of rocks somehow less conscious than a planet full of humans? If everything is made out of consciousnes, how can this consciousness "grow"? How can nothingness expand?