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I dont have direct experience in this, I am not at that level yet so Im only repeating what other 'enlightened' or nondual teachers have wrote or spoke to me It seems that the beleve that there was a 'self' behind the eyes controlling or doing anything is permentnatly gone. The context change from duality to nonduality. The energetic/emotional contraction/pain/traumas accumulated since a child and attributed to a self completely gone I guess if I could sum it up: they are claiming that the negative emotional states of conciousness are gone, the contractions associated with that are gone, the pain associated with it are gone, the escapisms/compulsions associated with it are gone, the sense of identity creaitng the personal linear self is gone, and along with the default mode of time has changed to non-linear etc etc To what degree do you corroborate this? Can we expect pscyhedelics to help achieve this if it is achievable?

@Osaid good points. I find the following thought experiment interesting: Imagine that all it would need for Enlightenment (realization of True Infinite Being instead of being a separate-self/human) would be taking psychedelics. Truly realizing Infinite Being means understanding that each and any identity and thought is just an object. No character/ego-element not made from subject into object arising in Infinite Being in real time. If psychedelics don't deliver that (which they apparently don't do, has been tested many times), and yet would cause a permanent blissful nondual state, that would mean nothing else that ego and its normal occupations with I/me/mine and all its endless needs Maslows pyramid up and down, not to talk about being soooo special (a brief look at current state of the world suffices) would at least partly survive untranscended. And then we would have permanently blissful non-suffering (and hence NON-CHANGING) super-egos running around, established in blissful nonduality, doing its remaining turbo-egoic-thing. . Not for the faint of hearted... So, there is and will remain an entrance price for staying in blissfull boundless impersonal nonduality: The transcendence or seeing through each and any separate-self I-feeling and I-thought in real time. The death of the little self, understanding it never existed, and only Infinite Being IS and apparently played the game of being something separate. And what would a Roshi say to Water by the Rivers telling his little pet theory and thought experiments: Empty your cup and back on the pillow! And he would be right. Oh well... Singing "If I can Dream..." by the River

No, not human logic. Basic laws of duality when Infinite Being splits itself apart and plays hide & seek and return to the source. How do I know that? Well, there are Awakened states where that is blatantly obvious what separate-self arisings that hide/cloud True Being are (separation= a spectrum of evil, from very mild to very very dark), and how they they literally contract the original Infinite Blissfull Being just with their arising into duality and separation. And contraction IS suffering, it is directly realized and felt that way, a cluster of sensations and contractions assembling a localization and center, most often in the head. And if one is able to cut them off fast enough, the Infinite Field returns to its original state: infinite and groundless and nondual without a center again. And full of love and bliss. True Being is boundless infinite Nonduality and (your much absolutized) Infinite L-O-V-E. Sat-Chit-Ananda. and anywhere were that Awakening and love (when the clouds of ignorance is removed) is not and where it is clouded by separation, there is just necessarily suffering (in cycles and various degrees) and the self-contraction. It is totally obvious and infinite/absolute that it is a no-brainer. And that realization my friend, that is absolute. There is no realm where that is not the case, because you know, Infinite True Being. Nothing outside of It.Either nondual and infinite and mere appearance and love, or duality and out-thereness, and fear. Somebody ought to make a youtube-viedeo about it. “Reality unfolds like a fractal divisions within divisions reunions within reunions. Consciousness polarizes and depolarizes it expands and it contracts back it diverges that it reckon verges and it keeps doing this forever eternally and that is the dance of consciousness or Infinite Mind” Aha. And now lets think that to the very end. And again, I am not talking about animals, nor rocks or bacteria. But higher level beings and their evolutionary lines, starting on a certain level of complexity. A molecule can not be evil, but the game of Karma/souls and return to the source starts at beings/perspectives with some level of self-awareness. But thanks for commenting, I understand you and your behaviour a bit better now. I assume you think that something like a (relative, just appearing, but appearing nontheless) soul "storing" in a higher dimension all this self-contraction or openess/love, and other lessons and the impact it had (on others, and oneself), from life to life, doesn't really exist, even in a relative way. Or is subordinate to hey, its all imagined anyway. Which is true, but forgets the power that suffering and/or love still holds for a separate being to either be awakened in sobre states or not. Including you my friend. I have a bit the feeling that you believe yourself to be a bit above the game of cause and consequences, or in other words Karma. You still are not telling why you stopped doing psychedelics and what happened, and write more about crocodiles. If you don't just want to escape via psychedelics (spiritual bypassing) and want to find genuine happiness and sobre Awakening in daily life, I wouldn't consider myself (or my relative being) to be in any way above this game of cause and effect. How about this view? "Although my view is higher than the sky, My respect for the cause and effect of actions is as fine as grains of flour." Padmasambhava If newbies take over this way of thinking (like lets go into a haunted house and try some DMT to meet something really evil, or blow up your relative life & values and just do spiritual/psychedelic bypassing, and I don't know what other less-than-smart-irresponsible stuff)... all these a bit less than funny posts in your forum where people somehow go for spiritual bypassing, although you write in places that is a no no?) and follow their idol, and then wreak their lifes... Ever considered its actually YOU in just another form suffering that? Literally You? Not metaphorically, not only true in some way out psychedelic states, but literally, all the time, just Absolutely True. Is that intuition and resulting love and compassion still so far away from your sobre life? You think that Infinite Intelligence will not give you some "less-than-positive-credit-points" on your Karma-Bill for just letting that happen? Where are your clarifying comments when a 20 year old again writes some irresponsible stuff that anybody with some more life-experience will see will f*** u* their lives? And what does Infinite Intelligence have in stock to finally correct such tendencies? Crocodiles. But is that really necessary? Although the law of cause and effect and the crocodiles are just imagined, their imagined bite creates very painful imagined sensations. As we are all probably quite aware of. Ok, that was the sermon for the sunday at the imagined church of Selling basic cause & effect by the River

I also believe using both is best and most efficient. At the final stages of meditation, one can dissolve these last and very subtle lenses. When taking for example the Mahamudra-system, which I consider as the most sophisticated system on the planet (together with Dzogchen), the Yoga of One Taste (advanced practice, 3rd stage in Mahamudra system) makes the visual field boundless, infinite and mere appearance/lucid. Basically the effect that many psychedelics have. And no, that is not yet Enlightenment. https://www.actualized.org/forum/search/?&q=yoga of one taste&author=Water by the River The final lenses of deception/illusion are not yet dissolved at stage 3. But here we are already on very trippy terrain, visual field nondual, boundless and infinite and mere appearance. And now comes the kicker: stage 4, Nonmeditation Yoga automizes the techniques done at stage 3 in such a way that even the meditator can be dissolved. There is no longer a separate-anything doing anything, the meditation does itself. Awakening, or Awakened Awareness (nondual, boundless, infinite, groundless, and impersonal, or not only personal), does the meditation. As long as someone does the meditation, the illusion with the dream-character is still well and alive, even if its nondual and what not. A nondual dream. https://www.actualized.org/forum/search/?&q=Nonmeditation Yoga&author=Water by the River What happens at stage 4 Nonmeditation Yoga can no longer be fully described. But it can be understood what happens or happened once it happens. And it takes a loooong time at stage 4 Nonmeditation Yoga, at least for most, until crossing over to Enlightenment happens. No other. No you. Just Infinite Consciousness/Reality, an Infinite Ocean of Awareness, its essence forever unchanged. Eternal. Always having been the case. The former separate-self just an illusion. And until one gets the hundreds or thousands of hours (if one is not a prodigy) in these states to make it to the big bang, if one tries to do that with psychedelics, one has ones brain fried long before. And a God-complex on top if one doesn't start on the humble side from the beginning (which few do), since the ego projects itself already busily on the nondual infinite field, see stage 3. And if one has bad luck, ET comes along and gives a seductive smile... But that is another topic. And the limitations/problems of meditation practice: Getting to Nonduality, stage 3. Takes a looong time, and many things can be implemented incorrectly. Then, meditation practice NEVER leads to Nonduality,boundlessness-infnite and mere appearance. That happens to 98%+ of meditators, because the meditation techniques used are so inefficient that multiple thousand of hours of hardcore head-against-the-wall meditation would be needed... Few are made for that. Mahamudra on the other side can be used efficiently in daily life if done correctly. Without Mahamudra Pointing out the Great Way style I would have gotten nowhere, and even with that I read the book 15 times over 10 years to get it. To get a nondual state take enough shrooms et voila. To experience Infinity take some 5-MeO et voila. It prooves that its real. Most meditators without psychedelics give up before that. One knows if one does something correct with meditation if these psychedelic-induced awakenings happen from meditation. Hope I have answered all your questions. Selling Water by the River

Whenever I think about nonduality, the movie American Beauty always comes to mind. Especially this scene... and this scene from the Sopranos... The Sopranos hinted at it a few times in different episodes. Anyone else have any that come to mind?

I wasn't asked, but since that didn't prevent me from commenting ever since, please allow me my musings... So, here is the Ultimate Crocodile. Or Trap. Since it is pretty close to Ultimate Truth: The problem (or rather near impossibility) in realizing Ultimate Truth/Full Enlightenment (not even to talk about realizing & keeping that on a stable basis in daily life) with mainly/only psychedelics (vs. a combined meditation and psychedelics-approach) is that the separate-self/ego is never fully seen through, and happily hijacks all insights gained and projects itself onto them. Like nondual merging with the visual field, aka non-dual-Unity-states of a still separate-self merging with the visual field. that the visual field is mere empty appearance hovering in Nothingness that this Nothingness is "IT", is Infinity, in all possible dimensions, is boundless limitless nondual Consciousness/Suchness "God-Realization" (aka that pretty much everything which appears is imagined to fool oneself into a false-body-mind-identity. That includes past&future imagination. Which is true, but still there is a subtle separate-self-something left and not seen through having all these insights, and proclaiming "I am God". It is not truly impersonal yet, and Absolute Reality is impersonal. Yes, True You is totally impersonal. Shocking, but true. But only shocking from before the Gateless Gate. After the Gateless Gate, it was just one more trap on the path/maze to Infinite love&liberation&freedom). That is pretty much the development Leo has taken, from nondual, to Infinity, to "God-Realization". And then some ETs (which is of course just more appearance/mind-stuff/content consciousness) since the God-Realization didn't went any further from there. And then after some psychedelic-substance-fallout-crocodiles ET said not permanently in this life darling, but maybe permanently in the next life in the 7th heaven, and the message was heard, and the phone was (increasingly) hung up (for now). Ultimate Truth is beyond all of that. Contains all of that. Unchanging. And eternal. All the rest mentioned above rolls "before" and "in" your true formless Infinite Being like a show. Waking/dreaming/deep sleep/normal life/nondual/infinite/God-Realization/ET/crocodiles: All these states roll before your True Being like a show, never changing anything real even for a moment. All just appearance. What is watching all of that? What can never not be here, even in Deep Sleep? And btw., the essence of the frog is completely understood by throwing it into a mixer and looking what it is made of (Suchness). That is how the frog gets truly impersonal. And the essence is all that stays, eternally. The rest is just changing appearance, an illusion, a show. Including any "understanding", which can be dead&gone&forgotten. The essence never can go anywhere, ever. That is what each being truly is. And realizing & embodying that is true freedom and liberation. And why is this kind of psychedelic "God-Realization" not stable? Psychedelics: The filters/lenses of the last subtle separate-self illusions don't get disassemled/transcended/cut-off in real time (aka impersonal, or "not-only-personal-awareness,"). Because of lacking strength&speed of Awareness in cutting all of that off in real-time. And that is why Infinite Nonduality/mere appearance/Awakening states break down after the trip: Unearned wisdom/states. Not impersonal, but still personal/separate-self/ego. In "God-Realization" there are still remnants (although subtle ones) of an ego/separate-self too much left alive & hijacking the insight/state. Meditation: Transcending separate-self/ego-elements (speed and strength/knowing each and any separate-self-arising illusion/I-feeling/I-thoughts/...) leads to nondual/infinite/mere appearance states: stable & personal transcended (aka impersonal), "earned". Psychedelics: psychedelics lead to nondual/infinite/mere appearance states without transcending all (subtle) separte-self/ego-buildings-blocks: unstable &"unearned" & can hijack the states: "I am God/-realized, whatever". The True Being of every being (Infinite Consciousness/Reality, impersonal or universal Awareness) is always right here, eternal. Can never change. It can only appear to be clouded. Looking out for less-than-impersonal-crocodiles by the non-personal River

I know, I said this to Razard also. When we talk about paradoxical subject with words, we are bound to contradict ourselves. Youve probably heard spiritual teachings that contradict themselves. This is not a conversation for minds, you agree that male and female are different? You want to be both? Separation and diversity is natural part for Life. All united under consciousness. Duality is the creation of nonduality, opposition, play of form. The creation is not the creator. If there is no creation, there is no creator. If the creation is the creator, then was anything really created?

Just to understand my point, I equated mind to male and heart/being to female, because mind is duality and the other is nonduality, the exact polar opposites. Mind Is Duality, you can't have nonduality in the Mind. Mind is a tool designed to divide. It is useful to divide, I am not saying to scrap the mind, im saying its not the Absolute.

What do you think about NDEs and OOBEs and what are their similarities to enlightenment and DMT experiences?

Just the fact that this whole thing is you expressing yourself, building a new relationship within yourself within infinite options. That you are playing all the parts and that you are you are becoming aware of all that whilst you're in it! You're in the matrix, yet realising there is no matrix. It makes no sense and I love it. I love the moments of enhanced clarity (maybe only a few percent above "normal consciousness") where I just look around and go: "What the actual fuck is going on?" Haha :D! These moments seem to be increasing in frequency, which feels like a "good" thing.

You realise every time you separate duality from nonduality you are creating more duality? Its you, the enlightened who know the truth vs them, the egoic newbies who don't know what is going on. Ah, they are soo ignorant right? So much for nonduality being Absolute Truth then, if it has an opposite in the face of duality. You need to work on being inclusive

Perception never changes. İt is nonduality = love. There is no such thing as world. You are in heaven.

Hey Leo, and others Have you looked in IFS, which is the latest, most formalized version of Shadow Work? I feel a lot of people involved here can benefit from this framework. It's as close as psychotherapy can come to nonduality and still be practically useful. It'd be great to get your perspective on it.

That's true... you are right. Nonduality, sad, and funny at the same time hehe...

Hey guys I was sniffing through the bible in search of some holy wisdom and I came across some great quotes about ego death so I thought I'd share. Luke 17:20 The Coming of the Kingdom of God 20 Once, on being asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, Jesus replied, “The coming of the kingdom of God is not something that can be observed, 21 nor will people say, ‘Here it is,’ or ‘There it is,’ because the kingdom of God is in your midst. Luke 17:30 It will be just like this on the day the Son of Man is revealed. 31 On that day no one who is on the housetop, with possessions inside, should go down to get them. Likewise, no one in the field should go back for anything.32 Remember Lot’s wife! 33 Whoever tries to keep their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life will preserve it. 34 I tell you, on that night two people will be in one bed; one will be taken and the other left. 35 Two women will be grinding grain together; one will be taken and the other left.” [36] [e] 37 “Where, Lord?” they asked. He replied, “Where there is a dead body, there the vultures will gather.” Add to ur commonplace book

Not sure if someone have posted this before but it's a nice illustration.

Context for what started this. Quotes from the person I was conversing with: "no you wont. spare us from this demonic wisdom. eastern mysticism=divination of the self. the same old trick. same as nihilists/atheists. same as marxists/anarchists. same deception as in the garden of eden. God is not subject to nature or nature itself. and certainly is not in us. we can become Gods in Christ, but thats a totally different thing. it requires humility, the underlying spirit of the east is pride. its sad that people arent gifted with the dicretion to discern all that. i guess thats why today eastern religions and new age are so ppular in the west. people want self divination not a relationship with a personal God and a concept of sinning/obligations." "calling it demoning is exposing it for what it is. demonic, luciferian, satanic, the spirit of pride, the spirit of revolt, the spirit of misotheism. it is what it is. same underlying principle. i'd advise reading the wonderful autobiographical book of klaus kenneth "born to hate reborn to love". he got very deep in your easter "spirituality stuff". so deep that they even made him a guru, had out of body experiences, travelled through walls and whatnot. and yet he sadly discovered all these were not of divine origin because they came from a spirit of pride and "self help". read the book, it will be an eye opener." I said to explore eastern spirituality as a starting point over western spirituality because from what I know, eastern culture got a lot closer. Reading the summary of the book, there seems to not be any conflict. I'm honestly posting because I am so confused and the person isn't really being helpful to me to understanding this. I've also had numerous occasions of people calling this kind of stuff satan and demonic before. The line of thinking really boggles my mind.

Also the whole idea of the "true self" and the "false self" seems like another duality, under non-duality isn't the false self also the true self (or at least within it?)

I already did. He told me that from now on I don't ever have to worry about being late again, and that I can just relax and stay home tomorrow, and the day after that, and also the day after that. Nonduality ftw!

Were the Greek gods just a concept or metaphor to allude to the divinity of all things much like in Hinduism and all their different gods? We know looking back that there are enlightened people from that time such as Heraclitus also with the Eleusinian Mysteries.

Nice. This is exactly what many of our fellow Duality-denying spiritual bypassers on here are missing. Untiy expresses itself through (the appearance of) non-unity. Without the appearance of form/division/contrast/multilicity, the unity of the whole could not be experienced and recognized. Duality and nonduality are simply two sides of the same coin. And they are both perfect, beautiful and divine.

Leo, and guys, have you ever attended this conference? What do you think? Are you going this year? Leo, will you have something like this in the future? When are we going to meet you in person? Thanks for your feedback https://www.scienceandnonduality.com/sand18-us/register-sand18-us/

So, I don´t know how this happened but I got seriously "spiritualy" triggered (if you can call it this) by last week video "Skepticism & Nonduality" which was posted on the blog. Once it happened I had to turn on the lights and go do something to distract myself because I experienced a change in perception (i got scared). In the minute 27:30 to 28:00 Leo talks about how when you doubt about fantasy and real world, you come to a point when you realize there is no real criteria to diferentiate between real world and fantasy. Well once he said this (he said it so fucking serious) , I suddenly experienced a change of perception, I suddenly got a "fear of perception"( that I like to call) which i tend to had sometimes when I used psychedelics the first time and I dont know what was happening (but was happening something that it seemed real but couldn´t be). I also had experience this a couple of times with meditation, but definetely in a much more "soft" way. Also, I dont know why but when I watch "mind-fucking" staff at night, I am a lot more sensitive to it, like a 400% more than If i have watched this video in the afternoon at 16:00. Well, something very similar happened this time, but luckily I was able to distract myself fast and turn off the video. I dont know what would I happen if I watch this on drugs (by the way, I had not taken anything recently, not even coffee :D) I want to congratulate Leo for this, holy shi** you are a great "communicator" of mind-fuck stuff dude. I can watch hundreds of related videos of spirituality etc and none of them has literally triggered me fear just "talking" in any way ever, this is something to be valued. Be advised to everyone else if you haven´t watched the video yet xD.

Yes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahamudra "literally means "great seal" or "great imprint" and refers to the fact that "all phenomena inevitably are stamped by the fact of wisdom and emptiness inseparable". Aka mere empty "imagined" appearances, not existing "out there" but within the Infinite vastness of True Being/Universal Consciousness as mere appearance in this nondual field, not as external objects "out there", aka duality. There is a lot of cultural lingo in Buddhism, especially Tibetan Buddhism, that I didn't understand in the beginning, like why they called it Great Seal. Or Emptiness. Or dependend origination. Or Middle Way. Or No Self. Proto-Mahamudra was imported from India around the 10 century, so the term comes probably from India and is used there also. Daniel Brown once said Mahamudra (for example in his book Pointing out the Great Way) is best for Awakening, and then adding Dzogchen-Methods (the books he translated later, kind of a collection of best of Tibetan Buddhism selected by 33rd Menri Trizin. Mahamudra as explained in Pointing out the Great Way = a nearly mathematical step by step method towards Awakening (Nondual Infinite Field at least temporarily seen by impersonal Awareness itself, but some very subtle processes/filters/lenses still clouding full realization). Before that comes Nonduality (or One Taste), or a separate-self (or ET) merging in Unity with the Infinite Field (of earthly or alien form). Dzogchen = Great Perfection, or the path that completes path to Enlightenment. Or fully ripened Awakened Awareness/Awakening, no clusters of separate-self arisings not transcended/seen through/still clouding Impersonal Infinite Being/Awareness. In my perspective the by far most sophisticated and fastest meditation methods (Mahamudra+Dzogchen) on the planet. Nearly all other methods/systems/techniques/traditions are found within these methods one way or the other, but not the other way round. Selling the Great Seal by the River

Feels like coming home, doesn't it? Or like drowning in the River, killing "me" softly... Forgive me some comments, but here are some practices that helped me a lot at that stage to make that Nondual Awakening nice&stable: The only missing ingridients are letting these states of Infinite Nondual Awakend Awareness ripen (they ripen by themself since the illusion has become instable. The path starts showing itself to itself now). Yet, one can put a blow-torch (Nonmeditation-Yoga in Mahamudra for example, see below) on the remnants of the illusion, to evaporate them faster... At some point, the only illusion still arising is the "one" of the one realizing all of that ("realizing" Nonduality and mere imagined appearance and so on). Then, the Impersonal Infinite Totality can wake up to itself, exactly when the "one/personal individuality/being separate/former separate-self" is seen through as mere concept/persistant illusion, a bundle of ideas/concepts/I-thoughts/I-feelings, and never having been anything more than that - and then the illusion drops away, being replaced by the Infinite Vastness of True Being/Reality, realizing itself as it truly is. That happens when every thought/feeling/and appearance of the "outer" world is realized as mere appearance hovering in Infinite Nondual Vastness/Being/Nothingnes/Emptiness. Then IT can be realized. And realizing that despite the illusion of separation has been appearing (as illusion), THIS Infinite Being/Reality/Universal Mind has always been the case, despite being temporarily been covered by coulds of separation-illusion/ignorance. There are teachings for speeding up that process (ripening from Nonduality (Yoga of One Taste in Mahamudra) with remnants of a separate-self to true impersonal Infinite Being/Reality (Nonmeditation Yoga in Mahamudra). I found these very helpful. https://www.actualized.org/forum/search/?&q=Nonmeditation yoga&author=Water by the River Pretty sold out by the River