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I'm fairly new to the no self concept and a couple of question I can't get my head around are as follows: If I am limitless nothingness then why do i feel localised to this body and not other peoples? Is this something that occurs when enlightenment happens? You can become every other person? Also, what if an ego completely identical to mine was constructed? Would I feel as though I was in two places at once?

You are Carrying your Wound You carry your wound. With the ego, your whole being is a wound. And you carry it around. Nobody is interested in hurting you, nobody is positively waiting to hurt you; everybody is engaged in safeguarding his own wound. Who has got the energy? But still it happens, because you are so ready to be wounded, so ready, just waiting on the brink for anything. You cannot touch a man of Tao. Why? - because there is no one to be touched. There is no wound. He is healthy, healed, whole. This word whole is beautiful. The word heal comes from the whole, and the word holy also comes from the whole. He is whole, healed, holy. Be aware of your wound. Don't help it to grow, let it be healed; and it will be healed only when you move to the roots. The less the head, the more the wound will heal; with no head there is no wound. Live a headless life. Move as a total being, and accept things. Just for twenty-four hours, try it - total acceptance, whatsoever happens. Someone insults you, accept it; don't react, and see what happens. Suddenly you will feel an energy flowing in you that you have not felt before. - Osho; from 'The Empty Boat: Encounters with Nothingness'

I went too far this time. I really got myself in the deep end. Let me present to you the biggest ego backlash to date! This is what ego's rant on everything looks like. After being blissed out and up on cloud nine thinking I actually got somewhere, reality showed up and decided to wake me up to the biggest degree yet. I have no idea what to do with the realizations that initially created endless joy, later existential terror; like these: I actually thought reality was real and solid. I thought I knew what reality was. Why did I ever wonder about death if I don't even know what life is?? Doesn't make much sense. I thought I knew who I was. Even after having so many moments of clearity and insights about no self, I've always had the story of me back in my mind: " I'm sure I'm somewhere here" I thought mystical states and positive emotions meant I was moving forward towards this thing called 'nirvana' lol. Looking back, my first enlightenment experience was very important to get me started, but from this new perspective, it was an utter delusion. " I became a chair, wow, I'm nearly self realized now" I thought I was pursuing enlightenment and not the other way around. I thought I knew what I was getting myself into. End of suffering sounds nice, right? Here's a bit of unconditional love to get you hooked and a whole new belief system to serve as a complete denial and an escape from truth. I had no idea how serious this was. I signed up for my death. I thought I knew things about life in general. All of it is complete fiction. I've reached the point of ultimate doubt in everything. The doubt is so huge it feels like it will annihilate me. I used spirituality to avoid death, but spirituality = death. It's funny how all my so called problems seem to disappear when I come into contact with the truth. Because then my survival is on the line! And let me tell you, I'm in the process of dying. It's not some abstract death, it's LITERAL. The realization I saw is something that every human being is running away from and it has sent me into full on panic mode. I started to run again with others, full speed. Due to the constant fear of nonexistence and insanity, I've made my way back into comfortable lies. I did my best to distract myself as much as I could. Tried the usual sensory pleasures: junk food, music, movies, reading and all of that. When that didn't work, tried with other people, with working out, with yoga and with meditation. I can't even meditate anymore. It's too painful.I get heart palpitations, feeling like I'm going to pass out and be sucked into nothingness just 10 minutes in. Naturally, I stop and distract myself with something. And I come here, writing being my last straw, and it fails too. As I'm writing this, I know exactly what I'm doing - postponing my death. All I ever do is try to prolong this illusion of existence. Resistance is futile. Distractions are futile. Thank you Morrissey. Thank you Jed. I'm almost ready to die now.

@tsuki the meaning of silence lies in the context of nothingness. wisdom, is refer to the real nature of you (or to the real nature of reality in this context), to the one that does not change, to the one that was never existed, does not exist, nor never will.

In fact, they go together like two halves of a whole, although western civilation is indoctrinated as science being the totality. This is an incorrect assumption, ONLY in the respect that it causes suffering. The science we are thereby educated is only one half: the science of the "observed" or the "third person." Our civilization is missing the other half, the science of the "observer" or the "first person" which is foremost and utmost in the epicenter of truth, the one reality, and the only authority for the truth. Douglas Harding, who I'm channeling here, I'm a huge fan of, and he refers to these subjects as Science 1 (observer) and Science 3 (observed). The two seem so contrasting, but if you really look hard at the evidence of both worlds, they truly confirm one another, they cooperate and verify an immense amount of confusion. First bold statement: The earth is flat. But.... It is also a sphere. Because it all depends on the position of the observer. Einstein's genius shines as relativity can help tie in both what we see and what is seen. The first person perspective, the only one true nature of reality, in this place, and this position, from my point of view, sees the world as a flat plane, that can roll up into hills, mountains, bounding streams and lakes and rivers, deep canyons, and eventually terminating at a vast ocean which eventually resolves into nothingness. Even if I managed to walk in a straight line, and ended up in the same place I did before, I might have a hard time convincing myself of roundness, because my experience would still be of flatness. It is only science 3 that would confirm that from some great distance, the flatness of the earth is now seen to be in fact not flat at all. Now I never have, but I imagine if I took a rocket and burst straight out of the sky and looked back over my shoulder I'd see what resembled a sphere, and further still a pale blue dot, and even further still a tiny blip of light, and eventually nothing at all. It's incredible to see that indeed science is not an enemy of spirituality, but rather a part of the sum total. The issue in today's society is that science is seen as the totality of reality. For example, I see the sun move in the sky, and I wouldn't be wrong for seeing it. From the observer, it indeed moves. From the observed, it is indeed stationary. Neither is right or wrong, it's all a question of what perspective you take. It's only when either party takes the side of righteousness that we run into problems. If someone insists the world is flat, and only flat, they'd be only be looking at half the picture, and it's the same for the opposite. Science 1 AND Science 3 together, and only together, not apart, have a sane perspective. The two are actually one whole. So, in my opinion, both are valid perspectives, one might have a more practical application when it comes to manifestation, but we can no longer ignore the first person as just a fluke or passerby, it's really ground zero for reality. You could argue, and might be correct, in saying that it is the only reality possible. I would start with the assumption that you have a head and face, if you're really honest with yourself you might find you have no face, no head, no eyes at all, but a seemingly clear, colorless, empty capacity for the entire world to appear in. After all, the idea that the world is stuck inside a skull is just insane, but that seems to be the belief of society at large.

yin and yang. Nonduality: There is absolutely nothing I need, ever. The Dream: As a video game character in a simulation-less simulation, I have many needs. A good idea is to fulfill them. Gives me something fun to do while I'm waiting to die. Nonduality: There is absolutely nothing to seek. I am that I am. Tat tvam asi. The Dream: I can spend my entire life seeking and still not find everything. How cool is that? Nonduality: I am Nothingness/God/Brahman/Consciousness/Awareness/Einsof/Abyss/Allah/White Whale/Flying Spaghetti Monster, and I just sit there, being myself. The Dream: I am a unique video game avatar, with quirks, strengths, weaknesses, and apparent free will. I can spend my entire life in the dream discovering myself. That involves lots of suffering, but also lots of peaks. The cool part: I can learn to make suffering just as meaningful as the peaks. As mah neighbah Nietzsche once said, "He who has a why to live for can bear with almost any how." Nonduality: In order to discover myself, I have to die. The Dream: In order to discover myself, I have to live.

If everything is "God's" will and not our will so we don't have free will but we are "God" then we are the one who chooses yet is the divine no one of misperceived awareness of nothingness illusion.......hmmmm

Well, except there is no one that reaches the misperceived awareness of nothingness that is only an illusion of truth.

@Torkys This resonates with me so much! What I will add from my perspective is that by trying to understand anything at all we make a symbol out of it and create a different real thing out of it. This is what the world is made of! Nothingness! I would rather state that as: All analyses are true! The funny thing is that it means exactly the same thing as yours for me while explicitly stating the opposite. Insane!

bulls-eye. you've gone all the way to nothingness, all the way to the the one and only truth that there is, and there is nothing more to say about it. it is no one but you to say that you have reached the nothingness.

Mary had a little lamb (masculine) Whose fleece was white as snow (feminine) Woman, the everchanging life force aka motion. Men who are dead in the depth of nothingness. Rhythm is an art of variation, stopping and continuing. Could it be that the masculine is like the stable rhythm that ends and the Feminine is the unstable rhythm that continues?

Yo im getting back on topic. I had lsd experience where there was a gap bettween me and floor, there was additional layer. I was confused since i was expecting oneness and that was wierd. I contemplated about non duality and is life is a dream and i had some really shaky ego experiences. Weeks after going through contemplation leo put out a video and i was high on cannabis and could easy go with what he says. Then I "realized" that the gap was nothingness. Still no sure if its true experience but Im open towards deeper experience of it. It can be easy to trick yourslef into believing that but the only thing you can do is open yourself to a possibility that it can be true.

Hahhahaha! But don't touch my nothingness bro, im serious.

To start off I must say that I am not enlightened anymore and therefore extremely prone to misconceptions and mind traps when talking about this subject. Background: I was always a very skeptical person throughout my life. Have been an atheist for my entire life and was also extremely deep into physics but also loved philosophy. With that said, for someone who has never experienced any sort of awakening before all this meditation and spiritual growth all seems like new-age hippies bull. I had not studied this concept before and even watching Leo I would avoid any spiritual video because they seemed so far off. How it happened: I have a very special connection with music, I play the piano and the guitar and have meditated (without realizing what I was doing) pretty much my entire life. I have had visual hallucinations before, euphoria and bliss using only music, no drugs or anything. So this particular time I was listening to my favorite song and was doing this extremely profound and deep meditation with it (again without even realizing it's meditation) when I just caught myself not existing anymore, I was so into the music that I had literally forgot about my own existence, I had killed myself without knowing. I open my eyes, looking at a white board and was extremely confused. Then it hit me as an spontaneous insight: "The self, what a preposterous concept" Still confused a bit, repeated it to myself once more and it was at that exact moment that I had awoken. What happens next the lower self cannot explain or understand, but I'll do my best to share as much as humanly possible on this strange subject. I was everything in that room, literally, physically speaking. The floor, the dust, even the sounds. I didn't exist at all. I was nothingness, also literally. It was a moment of infinite bliss, a pleasure that is beyond any sensation a human can experience. Take all the good feelings in humanity's entire existence and it would still not even be close to this feeling. Awareness is everything that exists. Not as in consciousness, as that concept is too deeply enlaced with brains and human minds, but literally awareness. It is all that exists. It's funny because on a day to day life whenever we try to think of "god" and such metaphysical, airy ideas, we always approach it with flawed concepts like time or physical presence/influence or even with science that strives for perfection and evidence cannot find awareness for it is not a physical phenomena. My awakening experience was very profound, but was far from complete. I saw some facets of the truth but not all of them: -I grasped what reality is, I became aware of awareness (which I guess is a must for any awakening experience) -I understood nothingness -I felt infinite "love" in lack of a better word- -I did not understood the infinite self part. I knew I was everything that existed but I couldn't see it infinitely, I did not see it as finite either, couldn't really grasp infinity no matter how much I tried -I knew it. I simply understood life. -I was confused about other people existing, I knew for a fact I was literally them, but shouldn't have I become omniscient of their feelings and lives? Very confusing -I was in paradise, so when I came back I got a bit depressed I wasn't there anymore -I laughed so much thinking back to all my humanly problems or anyone's problems really. Even though I have no idea why (since I don't see the truth anymore) I still remember many insights and not a single problem exists. The devil exists though, and Leo understood this very well, it is you, who reads this that creates all the issues in the world. (I can't grasp this truth, it sounds super bs writing this but I believe my enlightened self's memories and notes) -Also ultimate certainty of what I saw. Some people are afraid of illusions and traps or scared that once they see the truth they won't know it it's just another trap. It's impossible to have this experience and not understand it's legitimacy. If you think you had an awakening and had the slightest of hesitation then your ego is creating a very sophisticated trap. There are so many things to write. This changed my life and it's so strange because I don't even believe in life or death anymore. I'm sharing this, and also asking for help attaining this experience again. I feel cursed with the ego now that I have been in paradise and I'm desperate to see reality again. Thanks for reading, remember to be open-minded and kind, I'll be sure to answer any questions presented here.

From what I understand of the video, @Leo Gura is basically saying that idealism (the belief that all of reality is fundamentally a form of experience/consciousness) is true, because reality is groundless. What kind of leap is that to make? So we agree that reality is grounded in nothing, where anything is possible. Then why is it suddenly such an obvious thing that physical reality is an illusion and that brains do not generate consciousness? If literally ANYTHING is possible within this nothingness, why is a physical reality — where dead things eventually merge to become what we call awareness or consciousness — suddenly not possible in this context? Leo uses unfalsifiable inductive reasoning of the kind you see solipsists use ("you can't view the brain outside the brain") to claim that human consciousness is not generated by the brain, and that's just not sufficient to constitute a logical conclusion. You only have to refer to the "Russell's Teapot" thought experiment to prove how unfalsifiable claims are insufficient by themselves. Even if we grant Leo's assertion that what we call "our universe" is physics within consciousness and not the other way around, we now run into some problems: What happens after death? After all, the idea of death as the end of experience only makes sense in a physical context; if consciousness is generated by the brain. If we were to take seriously this extreme skepticism to what our "minds" tell us, we would have to go through life completely agnostic about what happens after death. Suddenly reincarnation seems plausible — if reality is a groundless "dream machine" that just churns out one groundless experience after another, as Leo also claims. A terrifying scenario, indeed. I have always found comfort in the fact that I know my existence is finite. Becoming an idealist completely shatters this notion. Is this what Leo is suggesting, or have I missed something? Believe it or not, there's an even bigger problem with dismissing all of physical reality as an illusion grounded in experience: Suddenly, everything can fall apart any minute. Why doesn't it? What reason do we have to be shocked if a UFO comes landing or the moon suddenly develops a face that talks? I imagine that the response would be: Because it would all be a dream and it wouldn't matter outside that context. But what about those "dreams" in reality that never end? Dreams featuring infinite lives of suffering? Surely the existence of such "dreams" is unacceptable? I know that my moment-to-moment suffering — whether in a dream or in waking life — is undesirable and would be unacceptable if it were to last for an infinity. This is the reality Leo seems to believe in, and I find it to be not only an amazing leap of logic for an otherwise smart individual, but also a deplorable demonstration of apathy that he seems completely fine with this. He's effectively dismissing all forms of suffering, no matter how gruesome or everlasting, when he admits to believe this suffering actually exists.

I may as well ask this question here rather than create my own thread since it is of a similar nature to Joseph Maynor's question: If the dream allegory is to be used, then everything is to be seen as illusion arising within 'nothingness'. That is, things lack substance and innate existence to them. Why then, do people who claim to be in this 'state' speak to other people as if they're independent minds, whilst appearing to ignore their assertion that 'people' are nothing but paper-thin fleeting illusions? Please explain this to me.

It's all "you." Everything (from the nothingness)...Each spark is probably not a star but a universe that appeared. Going into an ego...embodiment with love.

That tells me that you don’t know your true nature. If you explore more one day you will wake up and realise that what you said is not true... see for yourself... the Truth is nothing exists and you are existence of this nothingness... that’s the closest I can get to articulating

@Patang thank you again! but how do I know that? We assume here that there is nothing behind me as in that "I" am an illusion and the next level is nothingness, like in: nothingness > I (i.e. that there is nothing between the illusion of "I" and nothingness) But how do I know that the relation is not: something so much greater than me that I cannot even imagine it > mind/electric current/neurons > nothingness > me (i.e. that nothingness is rendered in the mind, which then is another subset of something so complex that I cannot even imagine it) Imagine you are a cell in some body: You live in your world (=some body part) and do what you want / have to do (implying for this example that cells act consciously) => the cell might not be aware that it is just a tiny part of the superset (=the body in which it lives), which is again a tiny part of the next superset it resides in (=e.g. the ecosystem<planet<galaxy<galaxy cluster<...<nothingness) and so on, yet the cell lives in the body and imagines that there is nothing behind its existence on the micro level, but here that assumption would be false, as there in fact is something behind its existence (=the body in which it resides). In this example, the cell would do what it does without even imagining that it is just a part of a body, which is a part of the ecosystem and so on. => How do I know that the ultimate superset of my life is not electric current (or something else that is not consciousness)? For example when I meditate, I hear a very subtle background noise / rustling like probably everybody does in a quiet place => this sounds similar to a radio that is not tuned in correctly or the white noise that old TVs produce when no channel is tuned in = electric noise or electric current respectively. So when I sit in quiet meditation and do nothing, sometimes this noise comes to my attention and the way that it reminds me of electricity also makes me wonder if I am not just electricity and this might e.g. be the subtle noise of "me" being constantly created and re-created and maintained or in other words of my being.

1. If nothing exists, why should I care? 2. Does everything literally exist within the nothingness — from heaven to hell and everything in between? 3. Is there any escape from consciousness/experience if it becomes too miserable?

the most important thing is to understand what stops me from ending my life right now? when food, reproduction, love, heaven, fear, death, god, growth, nirvana and whatever else will eventually be exhausted what exactly makes me not to escape from this infinite cycle? when there is no more fear, death, me, you, god, no-god, nothingness, everything, love, humans. when nothing matters, and when you have zero fear and zero care for being alive. what that thing that makes me to doubt killing myself? I think to understand that is beyond knowing absolute truth (but maybe not) and beyond anything my best guess is that you have to commit urself towards fully infinite circle to understand how absolute created itself to realize how you created this infinite myth, this story with no beginning, no end to realize how you became god and created yourself it will take you infinite rebirths thats not some nirvana. not some truth. thats all relative comparing to understanding of how absolute, which never happened never begun, came to be. but u got to be Jedi and die infinite amounts of time thats you evolving from homo sapiens to homo conscious to homo immortalis and beyond, beyond over years that Earth still have thats you evolving your dna and your spirit. and whole humanity reincarnating over and over again. thats you surviving death of universe from heat. you saving humanity and moving to new planet, and to new planet and to new universe. its you eventually finding heavens, becoming absolute, achieving happy end and seeing how you eventually created this mythological universe and came back as a person in this very moment again. life and survival are one coin. when there's no more life, death, fear, love, you, body, soul, mind. what makes you to continue survival?

Nothing! I am just confused by how people describe enlightenment and what it entails. Sometimes it feels like enlightenment means giving up the ego completely, but I see the ego an integral part of non-duality to begin with. Otherwise, I completely agree with enjoying with what is doing. Good question! That is what I am trying to figure out. I would love a description of what absolute means. I can tell you what I have experienced via psilocybin mushrooms: My experiences are quite similar to Leo's enlightenment video that was just released. 1. I have experienced oneness 2. the temporary quality of feeling, sensations, and thoughts. 3. There being no other, because everything comes from within. "It's all me" 3. Deep peace and quietness of the mind as well as stillness that permeates my being. 4. Complete presence in every single moment. 5. Deep understanding and love for myself and others. 6. Loss of control, being awareness itself, not the body. However, my last trip (approximately 3 weeks ago) left me quite lost as I was very aware of illusory nature of my mind-body in comparison to absolute truth and I had trouble pinpointing or grasping deep Truth. I felt that I become conscious of nothingness, the invisible-conscious quality that a lot of people talk about. It's everywhere but nowhere and invisible but not because it was presence. but I did not know what to make of it, what to say about it, how to conceptualize it, as I felt anytime I had a thought about it, I had already lost touch with it. My last trip really exposed the illusory nature of my ego and taught me how important it is to have a empty mind to see what I guess people call the Absolute. The great thing about tripping is that I am very aware of how to get back into this state of mind because the psychedelics forces me to go through it, so I am aware of what it is to have a clear mind. If anybody has any guidance/evaluation regarding this experience and the topic of enlightenment, let me know!

1. If nothing exists, why should I care? This is only a definition of society about existence. 2. Does everything literally exist within the nothingness — from heaven to hell and everything in between? Yes 3. Is there any escape from consciousness/experience if it becomes too miserable? Master Air (green) and Earth (red) and everything will make sense.

The problem with referring to enlightenment as binary is reflected in so many “I’m enlightened now” posts. One can mistake the void, the nothingness, the meaninglessness, the visceral oneness, the “seeing” of relativity, the revealing of the illusion, etc, for “it”. The danger with this binary message is they go no further, because these experiences liberate from the material paradigm, and sure seem to be the pinnacle, never having actually experienced the absolute, the only self, the being, the love that all is. Then, sure, it is binary. But that verbiage is not worth the trouble it gives one on the path. And still, there are no ends nor beginnings, so all is an end and a beginning.

Nono, I mixed up my post before editing correctly When I talked about Adyashanti, he talked about different types of awakenings. You could experience infinite (heart) but no nothingness (mind) (or vice versa). The way he phrased it was that you could be enlightened from the mind for a long time (so you only see that reality has no substance and you are it), then you open your heart and experience infinity too (divine love and deep connection with everything you interact). It corroborate with what Rali from Naked Reality said in multiple videos. @Shanmugam Doesn't answer my question though