Search the Community

Another aspect of the common discussions here, that physics explains now, is the idea of emptiness. There may be some importance in incorporating empty space into our vision of reality. We are conditioned to focus on labeling what is there, not to think in terms of what is not there, and all of this has an effect on our consciousness. Now science says there is way more empty space between subatomic particles than particles ,if I remember correctly they compared it to the distances between objects in the solar system. So we are literally more empty space than stuff in their opinion. Then there is darkmatter and antimatter. Everyone knows that the sun has a huge effect on our lives, it heats the planet, keeps us in a stable orbit, is the energy used by plants etc. Now if we look at black holes, they are massive they suck up galexies full of suns whole, but we never think of how this nothingness effects us or is a huge part of what we are. If we shift our focus the the empty part of reality we see it differently, and feel it differently, maybe more relaxed. I bet there are lots of master musicians who could tell you every note in every song written by mozart. But none who could tell you what all the spaces between the notes are. We dont study the imperceptible but if we want to experience true reality as it is maybe we need to experience this balance too.

Does anyone else find the language in Joseph Campbell's famous book to be really pretentious? Each page filled with annoying academic language? To me some parts of the book almost read like that episode of friends where Joey translates something he wrote using a thesaurus to make it sound smarter Most of you will probably tell me to check my ego and give the book another try but to me his ego seems ginormous throughout.. Especially when he gets to talking about nothingness and God. It feels like he drifts into academic language to escape the fact that he doesn't truly know what he is talking about.. Anyone agree? Or is this all my pathetic ego...

The thoughts appear from the causal body, which is sometimes called "the unmanifest". Some non dual religions say that the causal body is also the "deep sleep state". Western psychology terms it the "subconscious mind". But it's just a model, no need to get attached to the model, it's just to show us how to navigate samsara. Every time you complete an action you condition the causal body and you to repeat that action again. Thoughts, feelings and behaviours come from the causal body and are "dumped" into you without your say so. In this respect you have no free will because the causal body is much subtler than you and you are unable to directly manipulate it. You can manipulate a football because its a gross object, but you can't manipulate the causal body. There are two types of causal body, and they merge into one another. One is the personal causal body, and the other is the macrocosmic causal body. When Carl Jung speaks of the collective unconscious hes speaking of the macrocosmic causal body. So this is the special nothingness where the thoughts come from. You cannot control the collective shadow, but you can control your part of it. I'll show you how here Follow this method of burning in new habitual thoughts into your part of the causal body and you will be fine. You cannot get enlightened without doing this kind of work anyway. Hope this clears is up.

So if its zero sum and in the end there will be a black cube and a white cube merge into nothingness, that means you can now choose which side you want to be on. They are both right. Both black and white is right. Everyone chooses, or do they. Dive deep or swim shallow, its all good. Its all bout having fun right???

For sure mate. I love the concept of acceptance. But i can be accepting and still crying for help at the same time, because that is just the divine will (no free will and free will at the same time as both the ego and the god). From my point of view you're talking about infinity, which could be both positive and negative. For example lets label negative infinity 'The Devil ? '. And positive infinity we can call love ? Love and devil, good and bad etc put together /all possibilities/ make up Everything. And yet there is no good or bad at the same time - the other side of this coin, which says... Nothing. 0. Zero is infinite truth. Nothingness is the only thing that can never not exist and yet doesnt exist. Its the reason there is never an end. The reason for infinity is nothing. The reason for infinity is the text i did not write. And since 0 is infinite itself and you are 0 compared to infinity, the only conclusion is that you are that nothingness that is pretending to be a human so you can grow and flower up to the best version you can. Or you know, dont be the best version you can, but i would follow the live infinity, because it seems preetty pleasant. If you are nothing you are already god, you cannot fall. Even if you dont feel like it, just like me. By being nothing you are allowing for everything to exist, including the self. Marvellous peace of work you masterful beasts of nothing. High five. Now we tripping and think we are something.. Shitting our pants sometimes.. Well, infinity generates. It has to, otherwise wouldnt be infinite. Allow because you're nothing hahah I love writing about this topic. Ps: Currently reading the book Fermats last theorem and it has a lot of gems imo about nothingness and in general about truth seeking. Alot of stuff that are garbage ego info too, but come on. I should stop writing cause nobody will ready this. Hhehehehe i said nobody! If you read it congratulations, you graduated to nobody.

@RossE Firstly, it takes time and consistency. Doing neti-neti once a week, it will take you 50 years. Try doing 100 hours of neti-neti straight in a row. That's more like what you need to break through. And even then, that's just newbie work. Secondly, you're never going to find yourself. Even after 50 years of neti-neti. All you'll realize is that you ARE the thing you're failing to find: namely, NOTHING! There's nothing to find cause you don't exist. That's what's to be found! You have no attributes. You cannot be seen, hear, smelled, tasted, felt, or thought. What you are is the absence of all attributes. AKA, infinite nothingness, AKA God. It's right there! Look! There is nothing to find.

Well, I would say that acting out of ego is the hell that Christians refer to. When you live an egoic life, there is suffering - hell on Earth. However, heaven is what occurs when you become the infinite field of nothingness that you metaphysically are. And that happens when ego death occurs. And Leo said that the substance he used creates this ego death in his recent video.

Paradox In language, there is lots of paradox. You are everything; you are nothing. You are emptiness; you are form. You are the witness but also the witnessed. Experience is fleeting; the Truth is everlasting. It's so confusing sometimes to stay in the muck and mire of words, isn't it? And yet, there you go, continuing to read someone's journal post for hope that some more words will be the key that allows you to discover your true nature. Only thought-stories/language contain paradox. In direct experience, there are no paradoxes. See if you can drop all of your conceptual baggage for a sec. All of it. Being and not-being, everything and nothing, Infinity, Absolute Nothingness, the Self and not-Self, the witness, kundalini and samadhi, arisings in experience, inside and outside worlds, awareness as the container, whatever the fuck spiritual malarkey you hold onto. Forget it for just this second and return to the no-paradox simplicity of direct experience. You already know that you are. And that knowingness IS all of experience. There's no difference. Knowingness = experience experiencing itself. Even thought is this knowing quality. When has this knowing ever left you? Can you ever experience anything outside of this knowing? Or is that question/thought just a part of this knowing? Now, what were you looking for again...?

I think, as has been mentioned by others earlier in this post, that attributing qualities to the self is not possible. As @abrakamowse noted, attributing ''I'' or ''Nothingness'' to that which is the recipient of perception cannot be done, for the self is outside of linguistic conception. The only thing one can truly say about the ''perceiver of perception'', is that it's there. It's of such a nature that you paradoxically locate it when you realize that you cannot point at it, or describe it's qualities. It is basically the empty, eternal space (properties attributed to it for illustrating intentions only) to which neurons send their message. In the tradition of Advaita, as well as in the field of Indian philosophy as a whole, one of the main presumptions is that ''that which endures, is ultimately real'', or, more precisely, that that which is ''longer enduring'', carries a higher ontological status. Seeing as nothing in the manifest material world is permanent, and that the self allegedly is eternal, indivisible, unexplainable etc. It is revered as that with the highest ontological status.

Dear Leo First please accept my deepest gratitude for all your work... there is a gap , massive gap, there is theory, that can be interpreted in milloins of ways and the applications are not straight forward, and then there are the enlightened masters who speak in symbols (if they do speak) so what happens in between it seems that nobody wants to talk about... Nobody that i came across with , nobody but you, so far that i am grateful and certainly many people who folow your videos and have signed up for your book list (for which also i am so grateful, it would have been taken me ages to stumble upon all these books individually) share the same gratitude i think... I have been pracitcing meditation but not on regular basis, for several years now, and only in the last few months started dedicating more time and doing it daily, following your self-enquiry and strong determination seating... i am also in process of doing 3-4 times a day one hour seating.... Something happened to me when i did the neti neti with you ,,, i dont find many words to describe but there was silence the kind i have never known before, deep, veyr silent silence, silence that felt like i needed and wanted so much, perhaps my mind stopped thinking for fraction of a second, in any case, it rendered everything else i have experienced so far a bit pointless, so that now i am less and less focused on what i would pursue in the past... ?.. My mind keeps going over your words, and yes i know you may say that the mind cant comprehend this things, but for now thats the only tool i have and thinking is the only thing i know... You say i am nothingness.... that contains space and time.. . this means me and you and everyone else is the same nothingness so there is no distinction between me Lily and pretty much everything else around me ... and that the nothingness which is constant was there before the body as i know it and identify with started its existence,,, so why is the nothingness linked/attached to this particual self/body/entity? why is it that the nothingness that i am is perceiving things through this particular Lily the person ? if i am to my body the same as to a coffee table, then why is it that an assigning/identifying to this particular body took place? ... i am trying to keep my mind open for this possibility and just contemplate or go in silence with it... what helps is that i go back to moments from childhood, something very vividly stuck with me, in kindergarten when i wasnt allowed to go out of the balcony there was this overwhelming sense of ability to hover/fly/disperse in space but frustration that i was somehow contained in this body, the first time i looked at my own legs, as i was putting on a colourful leggings i was given, i have realised that ohh so these are my legs, this is me? it felt scary and alien and ver often as a child i would look in the mirror and not buy into that this is me.. perhaps these are just childish nonsense, but it helps to present to my mind an alternative scenario that i did have some 32 years ago of what i was, and the no identification of the body.... Apologies for the long post, please , pleasee kindly make a video of where you share your thoughts on the WHYs which nobody addresses, i know that the masters generic answer is somethign along the lines of - the WHY isnt important or that the WHY is created by the ego, or that knowing the WHY will not give me anything, but these sound more like people avoding to share their thoughts, afterall theres no harm in contemplating and trying to understand why ... and yes sure understand is the wrong word again... PLease tell us why do you think the nothingness that is our true nature, gets assigned/identified into the little individual small letter selves where each one is different but in reality everything is one and the same? Thank you so much for your time and for everything

I had an enlightenment experience about 4 months ago. Although I'm calling it an enlightenment experience I don't really know what it was. A few times after that I had the same experience. But here I'm going to talk about the first time. I had it listening to Leo's guided self inquiry. And only once I had it when I was doing self inquiry by myself. The first time I had it I was scared. My hands were shaking. It felt like nothingness or maybe everythingness. It was strange. At the same time I felt pure joy. I wanted to stay in that state forever it was so pleasant. After being in that state for some time it was gone. It lasted 20 to 30 minutes. I went outside and I was looking at the world as though I saw it for the first time. It was new and bright. I felt a lot of energy in the body. I was grateful for being alive. I wanted to share this joy with others, wanted them to feel the same way. It was enough just to be. I really saw that there's something more to life than we normally would think. I can't force myself to have this again. The more force I'm using the farther away I'm from the actual experience. I know that but it's still hard to let go of desire. A lot of times I was close to having that but desire did the work to prevent that. What did I have there? I'm not sure if I want to know what it was. Because you kind of can't name it or explain it with words. Maybe someone out there had something similar to what I had? Maybe even listening to the same guided self inquiry? Just share your thoughts if you’ve got some.

Do you feel identified more with the idea of a separated "I" or with nothingness? Just curious. It happened to me and now a shift in the way of thinking is appearing and I wanted to know. I used to feel very identified with the identity and I couldn't think of reality as myself, that I AM everything and nothing at the same time. Maybe is there some pointer? I don't know...

I've never found a perceiver and I don't see any reason why there would have to be a perciever. The perception is just 'there'. It fills nothingness, just as matter fills empty space. You cannot experience the nothingness directly, but you can get a sense of it. Look down at your body and trace it all the way up to where your head should be, what is there? Nothing. I think the confusion comes when we try to put it in words.

And what is that nothingness? Who perceives? or what is being perceived by who? Is it possible to have perception without a perceiver? How consciousness perceives itself? Nothingness is another word too... in my opinion that Nothingness is the I AM, the one that Buddhist call it Buddha Mind or Big Mind. and they call our perception or wrong idea of I am this or that as Small Mind. I feel there's a lot of confusion on this topic.

It's all a wonderful mystery. I mean, who can really say for sure from this perspective. What is awareness? What is the I am? what is nothingness? What is this? Why does existence happen at all? What happens to me when I pass? Is there anything that remains of the "I am" after the body falls away? These are questions that can't be answered by the mind. I have heard many different answers to all these questions. Which would be truth? There are so many inspirational teachers out there. There has always been for all of time. But so many differ too from each other too. My gut feeling is what it has always been since the first day I realized that there is more to us than meets the eye as an individual self. For some reason this universe (existence) wants to experience itself through awareness. It does through the entirety of the universe. Through different expressions of itself as different organisms that best suit it's environment. Imagine the diversity out there. The human organism being just one of a countless number on different planets. But one thing remains the same, awareness of the surrounding environment. When that organism dies, it's individual experience of awareness comes to an end. It's cycle is complete. But awareness is unstoppable, it continues without missing a beat through producing a new organism that continues that cycle of awareness that the previous organism physically produced ( the children of the human organism for example). So do I think there is an I Am? I think " I am that I am" answers that best. As long as the "I Am" remains within the awareness of reality- there is an "I Am". After that, it's lights out. If there is anything of the "I Am" that continues after my mind and body drops away, that would be an extra bonus. But I'm not counting on it at this point. At the core of the individual as a separate self there exists the I Am or beingness. As Mooji has said, "The I Am is not the final state". I wonder what that "Final State" could be and what of the I Am will remain if any? Who really knows what happens???

I understand I AM is just words. The truth cannot be really named because it's not a concept and not an object. Having said that, I don't understand why people tend to say I AM is just words but Nothingness is the truth. The same thing happens with nothingness. So what is the point saying this is the real way to call it, there's nothing and if you say I AM is wrong is a concept. The concept that we have of I AM is wrong, we as a separated being are not the "I". There's no I in that sense. But we are one with reality, that's is what I AM. I AM = Truth = reality = everything = nothing. But is there a perceiver?

From what I can see, there is only perception, other than that; nothingness.

How do you define the I AM? I ask this because I see that a lot of people like to say "there's nothing", "nothingness", "the void". That all this is true, but in my opinion it can be a bit deceptive, because the ego is always going to extremes. If it's nothing the other possibility doesn't exist. That's not how reality works. In reality all the possibilities are there, in one. The I AM (or the self) is nothing, and everything. It doesn't exists and it exists. So I see like confusion when people ask me what is no-self. I tell them that you can't find a self. "I" when is identified with the body, with impermanent things, like thoughts, feelings, skills, etc.... that I am doesn't exists, is fake. But there's pure awareness, not identified with nothing yet it is everything, that's the I AM I talk about. I searched some information about it, mostly from two of my favorites Advaita teachers, Nisargadatta Maharaj and Ramana Maharshi. Maharaj wrote the book that in my opinion is like the Bible of Advaita called "I AM THAT". And that is what it says about them on wikipedia: "The South Indian sage Ramana Maharshi mentions that in the Hindu Advaita Vedanta school, of all the definitions of God, "none is indeed so well put as the biblical statement 'I am that I am'". He maintained that although Hindu scripture contains similar statements in the Mahavakyas, these are not as direct as given in Exodus. Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj explains the "I am" as an abstraction in the mind of the Stateless State, of the Absolute, or the Supreme Reality, called Parabrahman: it is pure awareness, prior to thoughts, free from perceptions, associations, memories." I wanted to post this question several days ago but I was always postponing it so I wanna thanks because we were talking about the topic on another thread and what he has to say got my attention, even when we don't agree in this point. But he was very respectful and I really like to change opinions with others, that's how we grow. Let me know guys what do you think about all this thing, does the I AM exists??? Or there's nothing at all??? How do you define "reality"? In my opinion reality and the I AM are the same. What is not the same is the thought that I AM this body, I am a loser, I am ugly, etc... the identification with a separated self, that's not real. The self is one, and is the I AM, is nothing and everything. Is non-dual. It has both characteristics, is a self and no-self. Is there a self, a no-self, awareness, reality, I AM that this or those, I AM not, etc etc etc...??????? And yara yara yara as Leo says.

Haha I've reread my answer and I realized that there was no point to write it. It's a fun thing to attempt to rationalize, but it is an ineffable thing to explain. You will not understand it by reading explanations, even from those who are truly awakened, and it's pointless to seek definitions to explain it because nothingness is a very abstract thing. It's like attempting to recreate the feeling one has in a new country they visited for another person. It simply won't work until they have been there and experienced it for themselves.

I gave up on the nothing-less method of meditation as it was something I did without any success when was suffering with insomnia for over a year. During that time I mastered the nothingness technique of meditation for hours and hours at a time. A few weeks ago I was talking with a friend about meditation who has also had insomnia , she spoke of how she had mastered the nothing-less technique and like me without benefit. Think nothing get nothing It was at that point I switched my meditation to the focused technique for its reported benefits. To expand on the method I have begun doing sessions where I meditate to visualize a goals successful completion. Focused attention meditation Focusing the attention on a single object during the whole meditation session. This object may be the breath, a mantra, visualization, part of the body, external object, etc. As the practitioner advances, his ability to keep the flow of attention in the chosen object gets stronger, and distractions become less common and short-lived. Both the depth and steadiness of his attention are developed. Examples of these are: Samatha (Buddhist meditation), some forms of Zazen, Loving Kindness Meditation, Chakra Meditation, Kundalini Meditation, Sound Meditation, Mantra Meditation, Pranayama, some forms of Qigong, and many others Types of Meditation – An Overview of 23 Meditation Techniques http://liveanddare.com/types-of-meditation/

Very beautifully poetic, Dodo! Although I'm not asking for more bullshit stories in your catalogue of bullshit stories. I'm asking you to actually look with no preconceived notions in your direct experience. Any question I ask is a focus point to confirm in direct experience, not an opportunity to spew logical proofs, quotes, or something someone else told you. Forget about "unmanifest nothingness" for a second. The I-thought. Is it not just another thought that arises? Just the same as "the sky is blue" or "chicken is for dinner" or "Jesus said ____"? If so, it comes and goes like all thoughts. But what you really are is still there, is it not? That which knows experience, without the need for logical knowledge?

So beyond the I am thought, there is the unmanifested nothingness surrounding it, that the i feeds itself new thoughts from? And if the i thought becomes aware of itself and starts looking in the darkness conciously, it shines its light on the darkness, like a ray of light? Is the I the light of this world as Jesus puts it?

@comp13 It's really quite simple. Thoughts just love to complicate it. Surely there's an I-thought. But it pops out of nowhere, just like all the other thoughts about there being a "thinker," a "chooser," a "doer." You can discover this in direct experience. Once you do, you realize furthermore that the I-thought that claims ownership over any aspect of experience is just another thought, and really, nobody can own experience. The ego never existed in the first place. There is no central experiencer, only experience experiencing itself. Enlightenment is actually your present experience, just overlayed with thought-stories appearing out of nowhere (all false) such as: How can I attain enlightenment? Surely there must be something outside of experience? But science says _____! But Advaita Vedanta says I need to do Karma Yoga for another year so I can become enlightened! I experienced this vast loving openness, so I must stay in that openness and re-experience it to become re-enlightened! But everyone says I'm going to die! Look at all the bodies dying around me! I must be the body! Agh! I need immortality or else my experience is incomplete! But Leo says I'm nothingness! So I must look for that nothingness as if it were an object of experience! There must be such thing as objects. Otherwise I wouldn't exist! Maybe Mooji will have the answers... I'm so unhappy! I'm so upset! I'm so angry! Ooo Benhito Massaro talks about manifestation! That may be of use for ME. They say "Find out who is experiencing," but of course I'm experiencing! And on and on and on...until.....

Thanks, I found your reply very helpful! I can now see how awareness might be the fundamental form of existence that doesn't need anything. I suppose the problem is that it's not possible for science to explain this. It's something that can only be experienced. What if this experience or aware nothingness is an illusion created by the mind in a meditative experience? What if it's just the most basic part of the brain being experienced without all the thought and sense perception parts? I don't know, I just have a lot of doubts. Sometimes I intuitively feel it to be true and I totally get it and don't even doubt it and other times I'm totally unconvinced and skeptical.

I understand that it's not supposed to be something in the brain and that it transcends physicality and rationality. I've watched Leo's videos on it closely. However, I'm not even sure that consciousness isn't produced by the brain. I'm open to the possibility, it would be much more interesting after all but I need to do more research (research includes meditation and so on as well as reading scientific books etc). So if nothingness has no qualities at all how can it be aware? This is where I'm stuck. Surely awareness is a quality of SOME kind. I mean, if it wasn't a quality we wouldn't be talking about it. Or is the word nothingness misleading in this case. Surely it's not actually nothing as it does exist.