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I'm utterly overwhelmed by the nuances of all the different paths ,and I just want a direct experience before I get lost in concept. I already do a practice, but would just doubling down on self-inquiry be better to get me my first glimpse? I just want to know what's True so fucking badly, but I'm just totally lost. I self inquire, and I find nobody. I have no clue who I am. But I've got no experience of this abiding non-dual awareness/ Nothingness/ God/ no-self/True Self/ Ain Soph/ Brahman/ Absolute Infinity/Cinnamon Toast Crunch.

You can pursue things that are external. Just don't be attached to them. Do things you love and turn it into a life purpose. Your thoughts are coming from the nothingness - the oneness. It will tell you what you love to do when you do self-inquiry. Becoming a monk is not the only option. But, if that's what you want, go for it. If you tried being a temporary monk and don't like it, your life purpose is a backup, and not all monestaries are the same.

@Extreme Z7 This would help. He adresses the fear of nothingness. What you experienced is resistance from the ego. It's very normal. Just observe it, aknowledge it as being resistance and go forward. Fear is ok.

I really need help with something. For the first time in my life, I experienced a strong surge of fear near the end of my meditation session. This was, by far, one of the most concentrated and focused I was during a meditation session and I reached an almost non-dual state near the end. But after a few seconds of being in that state, I felt strong sensations of fear from the lower portion of my body then it rose upwards then I was basically just covered in it. It didn't even feel like I was scared of anything outside of me, it was just pure fear arising on its own. Has anyone experienced this before? I really want to get to bottom of what this was and what this means for my meditation practice because I sure as hell want to avoid having more experiences like these.

I used to be a massive video game addict and now I barely indulge in traditional entertainment bbut I still have other addiction though. But the main thing that got me to quit was two things. Life purpose and death Find something that just the mental image of achieving makes you cry, take Leo's life purpose course. Also realise the fact that your life is really short and there is literally barely any time left until it is ALL OVER. Complete nothingness in around 60 years... To me that's worrying so I make every second count, by doing the things that I ACTUALLY want to do. Leo had a video on this, but I'm on my phone so I can't link, just look up contemplating death and you might find it.

@Dan Arnautu Look at it this way Dan. When you play a song on your guitar, it's not only the audible notes that make the song, but the silence between the notes. And a silence put at the right moment can be very powerful in itself. Silence is like a canvas that you paint a picture on through music notes. Silence/stillness/nothingness is always around us. Nothing could exist without it, including a beautiful song.. BTW- I picked up a 3 string fretless cigar box. Tons of fun!

This might stem from a threatened ego, but I still need to do these readings for my school work (philosophy). It's hard for me to take or read about a really deep, profound concept, treat it objectively and work with it in my essays, like most academics do. Almost instantly I get emotionally triggered by the information and can't go on with it for a few minutes until I calm down. Concepts might include: the nature of the universe existence and nothingness itself the illusory nature of language etc. what is at the end of the universe Some readings sometimes throw me into mild psychosis or existential crises. Any tips? How do I treat all the information without emotional backlash? I try to treat the ideas as just ideas but it's very hard.

What I've always found interesting about Sam is that he understands the uncertainty principle, understands that the fabric of everything is also him and in this sense the ego is illusory, and he see's that this one thing is also him, but he does not connect that he is the uncertainty principle. If he did, it would, in turn, reveal his 'accurate understanding of the nothingness' to be a mere ignorance of his own collapsing.

@Leo Gura I'm making my way through your book list and read God Is Nothingness and Mastering The Core Teachings of the Buddha, currently on Enlightenment, the Damndest Thing, and one thing that is conflicting me is the difference between Enlightenment and spiritual insight you get from state experiences. On one hand, I can see how experience as a whole, even the mystical ones could be just a distraction from Truth, on the other hand, it sounds like they might be worth cultivating. Do you think developing high concentrations states like the eight Jhana or profound samadhis are worthwhile, or should I not worry about attaining those and put more emphasis on just insight practice? I'll keep going back and studying more carefully, but right now I don't know. Daniel Ingram seems to think it can be worthwhile but not necessary while I'm getting the impression Jed McKenna argues that all experience is just a distraction and mysticism may lead to delusion.

I guess emptiness ....just nothingness and the vastness of space and time.

@Simon Håkansson Enlightenment doesn't come upon motivating yourself. The ego needs motivation mainly. You need to learn to fully surrender and let go of the control you think you have. This denotes that you are trustworthy to The God within you, and only then the peaceful Love that you are in essence will shine bright within you. Enlightenment is Love. Can you force yourself to love me more, a stranger on the Internet, more than you love your mother? No. You need to let go of stories, personal justifications, egoic ambitions, in order to see the fully loving nothingness that you are. Once you're there, attend to your soul's core desires and wounds, as you'll begin the awakening of the heart. Good luck!

First, I tried to answer what is Nothingness?: 1. I can't because it is simply nothing. 2. Impossible because all thoughts and and answers are just labels and pointing to something-ness. 3. The question doesn't really make sense, because questions itself are just words created by thoughts. Second, I tried to answer who am I? then lot chit chats happening , rationalization that I am my body , my brain etc. But my question really pointing out to the 'sense of self', not really to the physically body so it just flash me back when Im trying to answer What is Nothingness? So the sense of self is totally an illusion, and what is called your True Self cannot be questions or answered because it is simply Nothingness. And the most interesting that came to me was that , for a second I can see my arms and legs moving by itself same thing when I see a table -there is no sense of self attached on it. It's freaky you know, but after a minute here I am back again. note:sorry for my English:)

@Annetta I have provided the link you can download it for free, you should know perspective of an enlightened master too. Excerpts from the Book : We enter on a rare pilgrimage. The Ten Bulls of Zen are something unique in the history of human consciousness. Truth has been expressed in many ways, and it has always been found that it remains unexpressed whatsoever you do. Howsoever you express it, it eludes, it is elusive. It simply escapes description. The words that you use for it cannot contain it. And the moment you have expressed, immediately you feel frustrated as if the essential has been left behind and only the nonessential has been expressed. The Ten Bulls of Zen have tried in a single effort to express the inexpressible. So first, something about the history of these ten bulls. Basically, there were eight pictures, not ten; and they were not Buddhist, they were Taoist. Their beginning is lost. Nobody knows how they started, who painted the first bulls. But in the twelfth century a Chinese Zen master, Kakuan, repainted them; and not only that, he added two more pictures, and eight became ten. The Taoist pictures were ending on the eighth; the eighth is emptiness, nothingness. But Kakuan added two new pictures. That is the very contribution of Zen to religious consciousness. When one moves on an inner journey one leaves the world, renounces all that hinders the path, renounces all that is nonessential so that the essential can be searched, sought. One tries to become unburdened so the journey can become easier, because the journey, this journey, is towards the height, the greatest height there is – the very pinnacle of human possibilities, the very climax. One leaves the world, one renounces the world; not only the world – one renounces the mind, because the mind is the cause of the whole world. The world of desires, the world of possessions, is just the outer part. The inner part is the mind: the desiring mind, the lustful mind, the jealous, competitive mind, the mind full of thoughts; that is the seed. One renounces the outer, one renounces the inner, one becomes empty – that’s what meditation is all about. One becomes totally empty. But is this the end? The Taoist pictures ended with nothingness. Kakuan says this is not the end – one comes back to the world, one comes back to the marketplace; only then is the circle complete. Of course, one comes totally new. One never comes with the old; the old is gone, gone forever. One comes totally renewed, resurrected, reborn – as if this man had never gone; as if this man is coming totally fresh and virgin. One comes back to the world and again one lives in the world yet lives beyond it. Again one becomes ordinary – chopping wood, carrying water from the well, walking, sitting, sleeping – one becomes absolutely ordinary. Deep inside, the emptiness remains uncorrupted. One lives in the world but the world is not in your mind, the world is not within you. One lives untouched, like a lotus flower.

I know there can be nothigness. Peter Ralston describes it here: "get that you could be a snail, right now, you could be a snail, so you have no eyes, no visual perception, nor any idea of such a thing. Create this idea for yourself. What that would that be like? You're a snail, see. So, I exist, but I have no eyes, no visual and no idea of such a thing. Create a world in which that's true for you in your experience. Ehi, now, how about a single cell organism that has no perceptive organs at all, be a single cell organism, has no perceptive organs at all. What's that like? Without perceptions or any memory of perception. Without language, without perceptions or any memory of perception and without language, can you think? Try. [...] Try harder. [...] You can't think? See now, that tells you something about thinking, does it? [...] ... close your eyes. Now, what you have in your experience? Darkness is vision, you have hearing, sounds, feelings, sensations, smell. Now remove all of these. It could be done. You know, we could destroy your smell, we could destroy your ears, we could destroy your eyes, we could destroy your nervous system [...] whatever. See, it could be done. So, go ahead and do that, remove all of these, even sensations. It's possible, so imagine doing it. So you remove sight and sound and sensations and smell and taste [...] remove perceptive faculties of any kind. Now where are you? What are you?" So, if you're saying that there is a nothingness that is the most fundamental "thing" and that precedes and follows every sensory experience and it's the essential "I", I could believe you, it makes sense. But that would just be another "experience" (I know that technically it's not an experience) in a series of experiences. It wouldn't be always there. When attention "arises" from that nothingness that nothingness disappear. But if you're suggesting that nothingness is always present, I don't follow you.

That's basicly what he said in the video that i posted ! ( I start to realize the importance of space between my body and a object. Nothingness which play the role of air is the energy that causes enlightement because air is by nature empty, it is but it is not ).

I'm making it complicated? You're the one making all those complicated distinctions and rules about right and wrong. My version is extremely simple: Absolute Infinite Nothingness. Total freedom. Anything goes. It couldn't be simpler or more beautiful.

@Dodo The glass of Nothingness is so full it's infinitely overflowing More than your heart can ever stand.

Glass half full: It's grounded on nothingness ?

@username Ah, that's interesting. Of course just capitalizing the word still fails to address a distinction that rarely ever gets made. The thing that people often refer to "nothingness", small "n", isn't an absence of anything, it's the presence of all things undivided, it's the all of everything in unity manifest without any delineation in the state of it that exists before any separation takes place in existence. The "Nothingness" with the big "N" is another distinction that can be made but it's the type of understanding that comes from experience in awakened awareness of a personal revelation. Without it there is no way to describe the understanding to another person, it's actually possible to conceive of but it likely is impossible to communicate.

@SOUL Yeah, I maybe should have clarified that in the post. You're spot on and the book covers that as well. Calling it Nothingness is just a necessity for communication, but no idea I have of Nothingness is it. The author covers this by making a distinction between "nothingness" (which is our conceptualized nothingness) and "Nothingness", which is impossible to conceive and is the predicate to all things.

Well, "nothingness" isn't quite accurate either but it's close enough, that's part of the illusion, the mind thinks it understands it's "nothingness". It's just the paradox that we will take on this journey with a destination which cannot be charted because all we can conceive of is merely a reflection of what we think we know and can understand. So in calling it "nothingness" it is just another concept that our minds think we can understand and search for it with. The reason I say this is because while the concept of "nothingness" may be useful to sort out some of the confusion when observing from a more dense "physical substrate", as you called it, eventually to continue on the journey with no destination we have to abandon all concepts in the mind...even the ones that have served us well. There is a reason so many fruitlessly seek enlightenment with thoughts of nothingness in their head, they refuse to give up the attachment to the notion that their minds have perceived it accurately.

Because happiness is nothingness and nothingness is happiness Accomplishment is nothingness and nothingness is accomplishment Pursuing is nothingness and nothingness is pursuing Love is nothingness and nothingness is love Development is nothingness and nothingness is development Creation is nothingness and nothingness is creation I hope that bridges the divides Nothing trully is God Ps: Everything is nothingness and nothingness is everything.

I was going to put this in the book review section, but I wanted to put it in the main consciousness forum since the insights from this work have been so quickly actionable in daily practice. God is Nothingness by Andre Dolshim Halaw shattered a lot of my conceptions about the path. I was shocked when I came to the quick realization that I had still been grasping for something, as if the Nothing I had been looking for was a some sort of a physical substrate, despite the fact that I had been told hundreds of times over that this was not the case by a variety of spiritual teachers. Whenever you think you've found yourself, you are not that. I can't really explain why, but when I really internalized this, I felt a reflexive amalgamation of existential terror and pure frustration. It was awesome. I'm going to be referring back to this quick read MANY times throughout my journey. I've noticed that putting the wisdom here into action has also brought about immediate tangible (no-pun intended) results in my practice. A lot of my stumbling blocks in self-inquiry have been resolved. I'm still yet to have my first awakening experience, but a lot of my confusion has been alleviated.

Allright, I'll share an old poem of mine called Excerpts of unwritten letters: Getting choked up over nothing really Barely able to hold back my tears to stop them from streaming down my face in lonely rivers dripping from my chin to fall into nothingness Just like you I have a million questions but no answers - not even a bad one I would tell you everything will be okay if I could just believe it myself Dearest, don't torture yourself Be silent no longer and get out of your hole Say what you want to say do what you want to do But don't feel and act like a corpse while life still flows within you You think I know nothing and you are right But I do know that I miss you I surrender myself to remember the imperfect perfect moment when your eyes met mine when your lips kissed mine My thoughts of you are all too hauntingly touching and if I could only permit myself to truly reveal them I would tell you I love you But instead I remain silent and feel the fever rising and hear my heart breaking

Just got back from a WHM Workshop. It wasn't held by Wim himself, but rather somebody who has been trained by him. The workshop was split into three distinct parts; Yogic breathing and retention cycles. Yoga postures. Finally more breathing with an ice bath, as well as a presentation on the health benefits and Q&A. Seekers may be interested a lot in the breathing technique, as an exploration of consciousness can be possible with this technique. One girl said that she felt as if she was slipping into a nothingness, and that she had a thought, that perhaps death is quite a nice and liberating experience. The ice bath was great as it requires a lot of one pointed concentration, and once you get in there, the monkey chatter slows a lot. I even went back for an optional second go in the bath. Once you do the ice bath, you feel confident and empowered, because it isn't easy, as well as really alive and awake. Anyway, I would recommend you guys to do it, if you are new or at least fairly new to it. If you've done the full online course I can't see there being tons of value. I enjoyed it anyhow.