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" " – Nothingness

You are afraid to lose something implying you believe you have it, or you will have it. So long as you attach yourself to this belief I think it will be difficult enough to become enlightened. Motivation is lost when a mind tries to conceptualize nothingness. It concludes "if nothing exists then what's the point of doing anything" it's like paying for a movie ticket and then leaving the theatre because the movie will be over in a few hours anyway, what's the point in watching it at all? What you see as negative to your improvement is redundant. If you're afraid an awakening experience will change your mind, why would you want to do the thing your awakened self doesn't? Continue practice contributing to your growth and the others around you. Everything will happen exactly when it needs to.

spend some time considering the notion of infinity, like a philosopher would spend some time considering the notion of absolute nothingness what are their dimensions, what would they look like, what are their possibilities, what would the implications if they were real, where are they, how would they relate to your experience right now? can you imagine them, what do they feel like, can they be felt? can you touch it, can you imagine it, can you think of it, can you be it?

@Leo Gura That is the most explicit way to point us in the right direction! However, when moving towards the Nothingness, and becoming it, everything disappears. Yep! Struggling with wrapping my mind about the idea that Enlightenment vs Existence. Seems like paradox to me.

Nothingness I meant "Śūnyatā" (from wikipedia) Śūnyatā (Sanskrit; Pali: suññatā), translated into English as emptiness, voidness, openness, spaciousness, or vacuity, is a Buddhist concept which has multiple meanings depending on its doctrinal context. In Theravada Buddhism, suññatā often refers to the not-self (Pāli: anattā, Sanskrit: anātman) nature of the five aggregates of experience and the six sense spheres. Suññatā is also often used to refer to a meditative state or experience. Śūnyatā is a key term in Mahāyāna Buddhism, and also influenced some schools of Hindu philosophy.

Free will is an illusion, logically. You don't need to be enlightened to understand it. Your ego thinks the source (or nature, or the universe, GOD, the I AM, etc...) is just watching. He (the source) is doing everything. The concept of nothingness is not that there's nothing at all, it means that from nothing everything comes, and nothing and everything is all. So we are nothing and everything. But maybe I am wrong. I just wanted to add it so Leo corrects me if I am wrong.

I saw this video last night and I can't get my head to fully process the implications of the two parts of the brain acting without awareness of the other. Does this mean the nothingness we think we are is simply the other side of the brain? If so, does that completely undermine everything we have been learning with Leo as far as the nature of true self? And if that's true does it really matter as long as this stuff works anyways? I feel like my brain is a spoiled kid that packed up his toys and left; refusing to play anymore.

Maybe you came across this on the internet since it's kinda going viral. Beautiful short story. http://www.galactanet.com/oneoff/theegg_mod.html The Egg By: Andy Weir You were on your way home when you died. It was a car accident. Nothing particularly remarkable, but fatal nonetheless. You left behind a wife and two children. It was a painless death. The EMTs tried their best to save you, but to no avail. Your body was so utterly shattered you were better off, trust me. And that’s when you met me. “What… what happened?” You asked. “Where am I?” “You died,” I said, matter-of-factly. No point in mincing words. “There was a… a truck and it was skidding…” “Yup,” I said. “I… I died?” “Yup. But don’t feel bad about it. Everyone dies,” I said. You looked around. There was nothingness. Just you and me. “What is this place?” You asked. “Is this the afterlife?” “More or less,” I said. “Are you god?” You asked. “Yup,” I replied. “I’m God.” “My kids… my wife,” you said. “What about them?” “Will they be all right?” “That’s what I like to see,” I said. “You just died and your main concern is for your family. That’s good stuff right there.” You looked at me with fascination. To you, I didn’t look like God. I just looked like some man. Or possibly a woman. Some vague authority figure, maybe. More of a grammar school teacher than the almighty. “Don’t worry,” I said. “They’ll be fine. Your kids will remember you as perfect in every way. They didn’t have time to grow contempt for you. Your wife will cry on the outside, but will be secretly relieved. To be fair, your marriage was falling apart. If it’s any consolation, she’ll feel very guilty for feeling relieved.” “Oh,” you said. “So what happens now? Do I go to heaven or hell or something?” “Neither,” I said. “You’ll be reincarnated.” “Ah,” you said. “So the Hindus were right,” “All religions are right in their own way,” I said. “Walk with me.” You followed along as we strode through the void. “Where are we going?” “Nowhere in particular,” I said. “It’s just nice to walk while we talk.” “So what’s the point, then?” You asked. “When I get reborn, I’ll just be a blank slate, right? A baby. So all my experiences and everything I did in this life won’t matter.” “Not so!” I said. “You have within you all the knowledge and experiences of all your past lives. You just don’t remember them right now.” I stopped walking and took you by the shoulders. “Your soul is more magnificent, beautiful, and gigantic than you can possibly imagine. A human mind can only contain a tiny fraction of what you are. It’s like sticking your finger in a glass of water to see if it’s hot or cold. You put a tiny part of yourself into the vessel, and when you bring it back out, you’ve gained all the experiences it had. “You’ve been in a human for the last 48 years, so you haven’t stretched out yet and felt the rest of your immense consciousness. If we hung out here for long enough, you’d start remembering everything. But there’s no point to doing that between each life.” “How many times have I been reincarnated, then?” “Oh lots. Lots and lots. An in to lots of different lives.” I said. “This time around, you’ll be a Chinese peasant girl in 540 AD.” “Wait, what?” You stammered. “You’re sending me back in time?” “Well, I guess technically. Time, as you know it, only exists in your universe. Things are different where I come from.” “Where you come from?” You said. “Oh sure,” I explained “I come from somewhere. Somewhere else. And there are others like me. I know you’ll want to know what it’s like there, but honestly you wouldn’t understand.” “Oh,” you said, a little let down. “But wait. If I get reincarnated to other places in time, I could have interacted with myself at some point.” “Sure. Happens all the time. And with both lives only aware of their own lifespan you don’t even know it’s happening.” “So what’s the point of it all?” “Seriously?” I asked. “Seriously? You’re asking me for the meaning of life? Isn’t that a little stereotypical?” “Well it’s a reasonable question,” you persisted. I looked you in the eye. “The meaning of life, the reason I made this whole universe, is for you to mature.” “You mean mankind? You want us to mature?” “No, just you. I made this whole universe for you. With each new life you grow and mature and become a larger and greater intellect.” “Just me? What about everyone else?” “There is no one else,” I said. “In this universe, there’s just you and me.” You stared blankly at me. “But all the people on earth…” “All you. Different incarnations of you.” “Wait. I’m everyone!?” “Now you’re getting it,” I said, with a congratulatory slap on the back. “I’m every human being who ever lived?” “Or who will ever live, yes.” “I’m Abraham Lincoln?” “And you’re John Wilkes Booth, too,” I added. “I’m Hitler?” You said, appalled. “And you’re the millions he killed.” “I’m Jesus?” “And you’re everyone who followed him.” You fell silent. “Every time you victimized someone,” I said, “you were victimizing yourself. Every act of kindness you’ve done, you’ve done to yourself. Every happy and sad moment ever experienced by any human was, or will be, experienced by you.” You thought for a long time. “Why?” You asked me. “Why do all this?” “Because someday, you will become like me. Because that’s what you are. You’re one of my kind. You’re my child.” “Whoa,” you said, incredulous. “You mean I’m a god?” “No. Not yet. You’re a fetus. You’re still growing. Once you’ve lived every human life throughout all time, you will have grown enough to be born.” “So the whole universe,” you said, “it’s just…” “An egg.” I answered. “Now it’s time for you to move on to your next life.” And I sent you on your way.

If you are interested, you can read Bhagavat Gita "As it is" by Prabhupada. It is like Indian bible, but it has many interpretations. For example, Hare Krishna people believe that God is personal and beyond nothingness, which is was very appealing for me. But other issues of Bhagavat Gita see God as impersonal. Now I am fine, but I was very confused. I think most negative side affect was psychological suffering and social isolation also waste of time. But I try to be positive and learn from from my mistakes. Moreover, Hare Krishna movement is not that bad in other aspects. They don't use stimulants, live clean life and they could be bright and smart people, who want to help others, but the philosophy is very bad and close minded. If you have time and interest, you can study this material: http://www.ultimateselfrealization.com/ . You will get the idea.

Ahhhhh.. thank you Natasha! It becomes much more clear now. I wonder if the falling sensation I have in deep meditation is falling asleep or instead just the fear of nothingness. I'm done with this topic and know what to not-do. Thanks all.

i hate to be the one to tell you but you dont know about enlightenment or meditation, you just have a belief about it. forget this nothingness business, did you really expect to become self realized in two weeks. It is pointless because you dont understand it and if its pointless to you then it is because you have no desire for it. Based on what i have read from your text, your life is a mess, and honestly i don't think you are ready to except help for it from anyone because of your own belief system and a lack of desire to change.

@Extreme Z7 thank you but i already know abot enlightenment and meditation. i have started meditating then give up after two weeks, trying to grasp the nothingness and no realization happens. it just seems pointless...

A lot of people say a lot of things. The deepest truth I've extrapolated so far is Absolute Nothingness. Maybe there's something else to be found, I dunno, there's lots of different types of mystical experiences, but it doesn't seem that way from where I'm sitting. Things like soul, spirit, and even consciousness is not as deep a truth as Nothingness. Nothingness is beyond all mystical experience, beyond soul, beyond existence, beyond non-existence, beyond any thing whatsoever. And it seems like only the most hardcore and grounded people find it and speak of it accurately. But maybe I'm wrong. The problem is, that personal experiences of any kind, even if they are heavenly or otherworldly, are still experiences. And enlightenment is NOT an experience. Before you were born, there was no experience. But you were will still you. And you're still that you. And you will be that you after you die. But that you is nothing you can imagine or fathom. And it is not an experience.

You still suffer under the illusion that there is more than one it, nothingness, field of awareness - however you wanna call it. Think about this: How many things are in the world if you don't have your abstract thinking faculty to analyse it? If you just sense, just look. Without naming anything and without categorizing anything. What remains is it. The one big wiggle that is you, me, Jesus, Buddha, the door next to you, whatever. All these things were ever present and will be always here in one form or another. As your body dies and you go down, another body will grow up and trick himself into believing he is separate from this world. You don't have to prove anything here. Just observe. People die, people get born. That's the proof. So as long as there are people, there will be you in that form. Just like you are the wind, the dogs, the birds and anything else that happens. There is no soul to go from one place to the other. Show me that soul, and I show you the soul the reincarnates.

I'll let you know my thoughts on your questions 1. Enlightenment isn't really a state. It's the true being which has always been there, even when you are wrapped in your ego the most, the pure consciousness is still there looming in the background. But yes, one can be aligned with pure being while being awake and asleep all times. 2. No one should seek that state per se. But it's the end of all suffering and all, for most people there comes a time in their lives they are tired of the same loop of suffering/indulging over and over again. And it makes life so much more enjoyable being one with 'being' that there isn't really a reason not to become 'enlightened'. I think you are confusing thinking with ego. If you're enlightened does not mean you can't think anymore, yes it's our pragmatic use of symbols that differentiate us with wild animals, but a state of no mind does not mean there can't be any thoughts. It's just that the 'voice' is not your voice anymore. Thoughts just become thoughts, like the car you drive in is the car you drive in. You are not your car. And having an ego is not necessarily a bad thing, nothing is bad in the eyes of truth. It's just that being heavily attached to ego has the side effect of suffering, there's no escaping it. 3. When one becomes enlightened there isn't a 'you' anymore that wants anything. 'You' become nothingness/awareness/consciousness who is one the background being everything that comes into the awareness. That does not mean that the character you currently identify yourself as becomes a hermit that meditates all day in a cave. It just means that you release total control of the character and let it do what it is supposed to do. Whatever the outcome. there will be happiness guaranteed. Maybe the character becomes a successful businessman/yogi/artist/garbageman, it's not up for anyone to decide on this plane of reality. Really, there is no ultimate truth to 'Life purpose'. The purpose of life is just living it and trying to wrap that in one single purpose diminishes the exploratory and spontaneous nature of life. Life should be a constant flow of adventure, peace, love, discovery etc. all wrapped into one. But when you try to define life in a purpose, suffering and unhappiness will eventually ensue. 4. Why does it end? You probably haven't made the realization yet, it's not yet complete. Keep looking, you'll get it.

I had a conversation with my sister and we talked about philosophy and physics and that kind of stuff. And all of a sudden my sister she tells "she has it again" and she grasped (literally) the ground with her hands and her face made it obvious she had a scar eperience. And then she told that she sometismes feels that "she is nothing" and that she eperiences an "emptiness" and that it is really really scary and that she then always tries to focus on something different to stop this feeling. When I heard it seemed to match with wath leo tells about the "emptiness" and the "nothingness". And wich is even more, she tells it happens always when she asked "who am I"... She isn't into spirituality so to mee it seems like it is really a realisation she had and not a belief. She always suppressed it until now. So now my question is, whas this an enlightenment experience? And what should I tell her so she can expercience the beauty of it instead of the fear (from the ego). I already told her that such an experience could be positive because she becomes "one with reality" in that moment.. How should she deal with it the next time? What should I tell her to help her as much? I am pretty mind blown actually..

@Paul-from-France If you drive a car, you can look through the window as far as you like or can, but it`s not going to teach you anything about the power of the car. The senses are nothing but limited tools. To say because of that, we must be nothingness , is a short cut. It`s about making the distinction between the relative and the absolute; that`s where the neti-neti technique is about. So the proper questions are needed otherwise it`s a never ending story. A good example is astronomy. The further one looks the more complicate it becomes till one ends up with total nonsense. Same with the quantum mechanics. If you dive more into the senses the same will happen. It`s important to distinguish the relative and the absolute, the relative meaning everything that has a beginning will have an end also. The absolute being without beginning thus without end. And for the conclusion of being nothingness; I prefer being fullness!

Thanks Henri but enlightenment is not physics. I know it's a dead end street, this is just for the sake of argument. Still we can not deny that, hypothetically, if we had an amazing sense of sight acting in the largest spectrum for example, or even a crazier sixth sense whatever that would be, then there's no way to know what we could find out. Doesn't it sound too easy to say : we can not find ourselves through our senses (nor physics) therefore we must be nothingness ?

this is only another concept, but it might shed some insight into the nature of reincarnation. I think we as humans really underestimate our power. With the help of religion we are taught that we are simple beings under the control of a higher power which we have no chance of replicating. This entire existence is because of the contrast of nothing and something. The nothingness that makes up consciousness creates everything that we know. We are a creator. There was a study done in which people were told to think about a certain phenomenon (aliens, angels, god) before entering sleep paralysis. Of course the people that believed in UFOs and alien encounters were abducted and probed in a hyperrealistic experience. The people who strongly believed in God had a spiritual experience involving angels and heaven, or an image of Jesus. They all felt this was real, and that it really took place in real space. This is why there are so many different truths that are fought over, because something is real to everyone but not everyone can believe that everything is real. People become addicted to this world and their ego so much that if they leave too soon that attachment/manifestation has so much momentum that it doesn't end with the physical body. This is why suicide doesn't help people, the pain theyre experiencing doesn't end with the body. I think one of the benefits of enlightement allows you to break free of the physical and to experience it finally without attachment, which allows you to leave this existence when your body dies. In conclusion, we experience what we believe and create. These concepts might make sense and make me feel like I know these answers, but they are only that: concepts. I think reincarnation is just as real/not real as anything else you've created. All I know is it's fascinating to think about.

@All_Around_Me Don't worry, you will be Ok. I had an experience of no identity when I was waking up in the morning, and I was so scared because I never had an experience like that before. I was shocked, confused, I couldn't think well. I remember saying my wife that this was the worst nightmare I ever had in my life. I went to the hospital too, because I was so confused I didn't knew who I was for moments, and I forgot everything, then my memory came back, it was crazy... they gave me some pills, etc. Now I know what it was and I would like to repeat that experience, the ego gets ****ing scared of those experience of nothingness. Really you had a great experience, after you process it you will realize more and more things... you are going really fast :-)

Here an excellent one: All Of Religion Explained In One Video Summary Surpassing The Dogma So, the core problem here, between this religion vs. science debate, is that human beings are extremely, extremely dogmatic. Dogmatic, that’s the key word here — dogmatic. What does dogmatic mean? Dogmatic doesn’t pertain to religions, or to science, or to any particular thing. Dogmatic means that you cling to a particular world-view or belief. When you do this, you don’t tell yourself that you’re clinging to a world-view or to a belief. What you tell yourself is that you have the facts and that this is just a fact and it’s true. It doesn’t feel like you’re clinging to anything. But, in fact, what you’re doing is you’re clinging. And this closes your mind down and doesn’t permit you to do a very exhaustive, open-minded search, right? So, the trick here is not only — are we dogmatic? — but we lie to ourselves about being dogmatic. We don’t honestly tell ourselves that we’re dogmatic. We just behave dogmatically and we do this unconsciously. And we will defend, often to the death, our dogmatism. Deny that it’s dogmatism. So, this is not a problem of religion. This is a problem of the human psyche. Because, when the human psyche takes on a core assumption or a belief, no matter what it is, whether it’s a religious one or something totally different, it doesn’t really matter — you cling to it, you make it a part of your self-identity. You make it a part of your self image. And when you do that, you identify with it and you feel like you need to defend it This is a very common mistake that I see atheists making. They think that, just because they are an atheist, they are not dogmatic. Well, what I find in practice is that most atheists are actually very, very, very dogmatic. And this upsets them to hear because they like to use it as a separation between themselves and religious people. But, actually, you’re on the same side on that point. The difference you have with religious people is that you have a different kind of dogmatism. Ideas Behind Religions: Why does religion exist? Not just one, but many, many religions? They seem to have a lot of common elements and threads between them. Even though superficially they might look very different, also, from a big-picture point of view, they all sound, and start to converge, and look very similar. one explanation, you might think, well, religion is just primitive stupidity. Primitive cultures, thousands of years ago, they really didn’t understand life, they didn’t understand themselves, they didn’t understand how the mind works, or science. Nor do I think that tradition is a good explanation for what religion is and why it originated. Nor do I think that this explanation of religion as a social, political, controlling mechanism is a satisfactory explanation. while I think that that’s definitely been done in the past, that political leaders and religious leaders have used religion as a controlling mechanism for social engineering, and to profit themselves and other such things — to gain power, to maintain power over people — that certainly happened. But it doesn’t make sense that that was the origin of religion. there is an absolute truth and this absolute truth is accessible to human beings. And here’s the really nasty bit that you’re not going to like: it’s not accessible to the rational mind. It is not accessible to the rational mind. The scientific, rational mind, hates this. It hates this idea. This idea is not something it wants to accept. So, what I submit to you is that, if your mind is rejecting this idea and it’s not even open to this possibility, than what you’re being is dogmatic The Sense Of Self You’ve got a sense of self, of personal self. You believe that you are a body, and you believe that [you're] this mind and the brain inside the body. And you’ve got this personal story: you can remember the time that you were born and the way that you grew up, and where you are now. And you believe that you’re going to die, and yada, yada, yada, right? And that all makes pretty good sense. Except there’s one problem. And that problem is that, if you look really carefully and really deeply, what you’re going to realize is that this sense of self that you have is an illusion. And that there is no such thing as a sense of self. Thing that you call you, the thing that you think you are most certainly, when we say your name — the thing that points to — well, that thing is actually a big confusion and a big mistake in your mind. So, what’s possible then is that it’s possible to, basically, jail-break your brain. the self that you believe that you are, everything you believe that you perceive, is actually not being perceived by a “you” the true self is nothing. And this nothing is a very special thing. This is not something to be dismissed lightly. Nothing, here, I mean literally. You are literally nothingness. This cannot be believed or logically understood. It has to be directly experienced. You are the nothingness, so you are it. Once you realize it, you can actually be it. And that is, answering existentially: what is existence? Have you ever wondered about that? What the hell is existence? How can existence even exist? Ever wondered about that? What turns out is that you can have an enlightenment experience that will reveal to you the absolute nature of existence. And what that absolute nature is — is nothingness. Existence and nothingness are the same. They arise out of each other. Or, more accurately, existence arises out of nothingness. And that nothingness doesn’t go away, it’s always there. This is referred to as the Void in certain Buddhist traditions or, maybe, Zen traditions. They call it the Void. And the absolute truth is, basically, that existence arises out of nothing. This nothingness, this ultimate void, is God. The word “god” refers to this nothingness. Because it’s the source of everything, right? It’s not a personal god. It’s not a god with a beard. It’s not a god as “him” or “her”, but it’s god in the sense that it’s the source of all reality. And this nothingness is a unity, it’s a One. And it has no space, it has no location, it has no distance, it has no size, because nothingness doesn’t have any of those qualities. What we’re talking about here is not an idea of nothingness, which is something. But we’re talking about, literally, nothingness. And what you discover is that you are nothing, and God is nothing, and so, because of this — you are God. That right there is the core of every major religion. All major religions are grounded in the truth of no-self. Christianity is founded on this, as is Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, Zen, even Sufism and yogic practices in India and in the East. All of these different religions are, really, different ways, very roundabout ways often, to explain what I just explained to you. Now, there’s an additional, really big wrinkle in this whole thing: what I explained to you is just like a vague, vague, vague, story. Still a story, not reality, about what reality is. Different Approaches when you think about nothingness, it’s already something. What is the one thing that you cannot intellectualize about? It’s nothingness. You can’t intellectualize nothingness, because when you’re intellectualizing, that’s something. So, the problem here becomes that, if you want to get at the nothingness, you can’t do it through your conventional, practical, every-day logical thinking. You can’t do it through scientific thinking. You can’t do it through language. And, by the way, science is language. You can create a model of how reality works, and that’s what science loves to do, and that’s what we do with even non-scientific pursuits. We create models. Religion creates models, too. We create models in our everyday life. We create maps of reality and all this kind of stuff. It helps, creating these models. So, you can create models and concepts, and you can think about reality. That’s one way to understand reality. A second way, arguably even better and more direct, is to actually experience it with your own senses. First-person experience. Who can doubt what they actually see? any model that you want to create — otherwise, that would be a fairy tale — it’s actually a model that’s pinned down by experience, right? So, it’s limited, it’s constrained. There’s a verifiability built into it. So that’s really cool. And then what we do is we say, well, that’s pretty much all we’ve got, right? You’ve got experience and you got your conceptualizing of experience. That’s how we know stuff and that’s the end of the story, right? Well, what if it wasn’t? The Third Way Well, what if you could actually be the thing itself? Because, the problem is that, when you’re identified with yourself, and you believe that you are this right here, this body, this mind, and these thoughts, then you’re stuck. And you can only be this, you can’t be anything else. Now, though, if you jail-break your brain, if you really dis-identify from everything in your experience, including your body, and your thoughts, and everything else, this gives you the freedom to be everything and anything. I’m not saying this figuratively, I’m saying it quite literally. So, this sounds pretty crazy, and it sounds like, well, some sort of myth or something like that. But what I’m saying here’s that you can actually do this in your own experience. It’s not a myth, you don’t need to go read a Bible, or whatever, to do this. It can be done. Now, the trick, though, is that it’s difficult to do this. It’s not quite easy. And why is that? Well, because you’re extremely attached to your self, to your self-hood, to your self-image. And so, this process of jail-breaking your mind from the brain, this is a very serious physiological undertaking. This does not happen easily, because everything in your psyche resists. – so the only way to get and use this third alternative of being is to actually do the being yourself. See, the problem is that it’s so difficult to actually jail-break your own mind. When you talk about these things to other people, what they do is they construct stories, and they turn this stuff into belief systems, right? And then, those beliefs, they turn into myths. And a lot of times, the way that people talk about these things is true analogy, because that’s the only way you can talk about it. You can’t talk about it directly. To talk about it directly would be to be the damn thing yourself. For example, if you want to write about mathematics, you can write some formulas in a book, and you can explain everything, and then you can print a million copies of this book, and send it around the world, and create classrooms full of calculus books, or whatever, that will teach calculus . And problem solved. Now, how do you communicate the truth of no-self? Well, you can write it in a book. But the problem is that the person reading that book, just by reading that, that doesn’t jail-break his mind. So, he still believes he’s the self. And he’s so dogmatic he doesn’t understand he’s dogmatic. So, what he does is: he conflates reality with a belief system. And he thinks that just believing it is enough. And so, the only way that you can mass-spread the truth of no-self is by turning it into a belief system — which makes it necessarily false. You can turn it into a myth. If you want to stay true to the truth of no-self, the only way to do that is through silence. You can’t say anything. So, this presents a really big problem because it turns out, then, that you can’t mass-distribute the truth of no-self. This is one of the few truths that cannot be mass-distributed, unlike most of science and all the other stuff we know. Historical Perspective therefore, people resorted to mythology, and story-telling, to talk about this truth of no-self. Now, how did this work in practice? Well, you have some extremely, really fucking hard-core guys, maybe one in a million, or out of ten million, that will breakthrough and see the truth of no-self by jail-breaking their mind. These were the mystics, these were the yogis. These were the Jesus Christs and the Buddhas. These were the sages, these were the swamis. There are so many different names for these kinds of people, right? These were the Zen masters, before there even were the Zen masters. some of them remain silent and say nothing. But some of them want to share with others, because it’s like: “Oh, my god, you’re living in a fucking dream. You’re living in a fucking dream, you’re mistaken about how your whole life works and you don’t even know it. I’ve broken out of the matrix. I want to help some other people break out of the matrix.” And so, what I do, is I try to explain it to you in the way that I can. But again, I can’t explain it directly. I need you to experience it. But the problem is that it’s pretty difficult for you to jail-break your own mind. And if we tell it in Europe, it has to be told in a European way, and if we tell it in the Middle East, it has to be told in a Middle-eastern way, and if we tell it in India, it will be told in an Indian way, and in Africa it will be told in an African way, and so on. The Sugar Coating So, if you want to explain this stuff to them, you have to really tailor it in such a way that their mind, their limited mind will find it palatable. Palatable, right? It’s like giving someone a pill that tastes bitter, but to make them swallow, you have to coat it in sugar. Sugar-coating the pill. So, in a sense, that’s what religion tries to do. And also, in a sense, no matter what explanation you give of no self, it doesn’t really matter because every explanation is wrong. It’s not like there’s one right explanation. The only right explanation is to actually have the person become the truth themselves and get it for themselves. Everything else is already wrong. the truth of no-self is very radical and it’s very mainstream. You can’t mainstream it by definition. It’s completely individual. It makes the spread of religion impossible, it really does. That nothingness can’t be somethingness. That you can’t perceive nothingness because the perception of nothingness would be something and not nothing. When you start to learn about the problems with conceptualization and the fact that, to think about something, you have to use a language system to think about it, and that language systems inherent biases and problems and challenges. When you start to look at this stuff, you start to se from a very, very clear perspective: “Oooh, of course! Of course there are these religions! Of course they work the way they work! Of course people buy into them!” Of course. And the reason you say “of course” is because you recognize in yourself that dogmatism, that dogmatism that a fanatical, religious person has. That dogmatism is in you, it’s in you, you just deny it. Maybe you hide it a little bit better than that person. Maybe you don’t take it to some really far-fetched extreme. Maybe you don’t act on it as much, but it’s still there in you. And the way you can recognize it is just by actually feeling it, right? You can feel that dogmatism when someone starts disturbing your world-view or your beliefs, maybe with a video like this one. What starts to happen is that you actually experience emotions, strong emotions. Distaste, fear, anger, bitterness, feelings of discomfort, demonizing of the other person, burning the person at the stake, or whatever. Creating a straw man argument out of what they are saying. Closing your ears. Clicking the “off” button. Telling your friends how stupid the idea was that you heard. Or writing a nasty comment. Or whatever means you use to protect your world-view. You notice inside, though, that this is a like a dirty feeling. Sometimes, it’s hard to pinpoint it, but if you’re very self-honest, you can say: “yup, there it is, there’s that dirty feeling inside me.” It’s inside you. Atheism if you take that atheist and you actually give him an enlightenment experience for real, and you get him to feel directly, to be the nothingness, he is going to have a real difference of opinion. A real difference of attitude. A real difference of perspective. Things are really going to change for him. And it’s not going to be a typical kind of atheism that you see people talking about. there’s a really big problem at he core of science. Yes, science is very practical, but there’s a real big, core problem. And that’s the matter-qualia problem. And this is a problem that science has never addressed, it’s a problem that, really, science skirts all the time. And my current understanding is that science will never ever — ever be able to rectify this problem. science has nothing about our perceptions. So, the things that you are considering most real in your life: your feelings, your emotions, the colors that you see, the smells that you smell, the tastes and the sounds, and the qualitative aspects of all that — those things are not atoms, or energy, or strings, or quarks, or molecules, or anything else like that. If we cut-open your brain, we are not going to find the color orange in there. If we cut-open your brain, we are not going to find the feeling of love or happiness in there. And if we cut-open your brain, we are not going to find the sound of a guitar in there. And yet, these entities, these experiential entities are very, very real to us. The thing that science does with this problem is that is really skirts it under the rug, doesn’t like to look at it. Sometimes, it will deny the existence of qualia altogether. Or sometimes, it will come up with some ham-fisted way of taking matter and qualia, and somehow combining them together and explaining something away. But in the end, it doesn’t really resolve this issue. The Key Concepts Hell is where you presently live, hell refers to your current existence of being stuck and identified with your body. Heaven is the dis-identification of your self and your body, and becoming absolute nothingness. what faith is, is your ability to open your mind up to the third possibility. So, we have concepts, and we have experience, the third possibility is being. you can have the faith to take that leap of faith and try to go for the direct experience. And actually get the direct experience. Actually be the thing and then see what I’m talking about for real, for you. Evil is selfishness, evil is that identification with your body and all the actions that you do to live and perpetuate you ego. The devil refers to you. The way that you’re presently living your egoic life. So, you are the devil, right? Because you’re tricking yourself. The devil is deception. Good is everything you do from a selfless state. Good is when you become God, when you see that you’re nothingness. And therefore, you also see that you’re everything. And you start behaving in a good way. Why? Because, when you see that everything is you, you want to treat it well. afterlife means understanding the absolute truth of nothingness, because when you understand the absolute truth of nothingness, then you are in the afterlife already. Why? Because you can’t be destroyed, you’re untouchable. Nothingness lasts forever. Salvation means being saved from your wicked state. So, metaphorically speaking, if we say that you’re the devil right now. The people who are the most religious are the furthest away from God. That’s the whole irony of this thing. But, of course, that means that, if you just become atheistic, like the typical dogmatic atheist. That also puts you far away from God. So, if you really want to understand this stuff, and you want to be one with God, and you are God, then what you can do — because you’re nothingness — is that you can attempt to attain an enlightenment experience or two. And then, in that process, you will become religious, but in a non-religious way. In a very non-dogmatic way. You are not going to hold a single belief. You’re not going to need to have any theory. You’re not going to need to partake in any ritual. You’re not going to need to pray, or to meditate or to do anything at all. Because your absolute nature is nothingness. And that absolute nature is the same forever. And always. And it has no place, it has no space, it has no time boundaries, it has no problems whatsoever. And it’s the most beautiful truth that you can discover in this life.

Day 37 Had a 30 minute meditation session today. I'm trying to get rid of the notion of self. I want to experience the nothingness that Leo talks about. It's very hard to push through the resistance. I think I need to do a lot more before I can get the feeling of being nothing.

Insights into this work in the last week make me want to share & to see if anyone resonates with these thoughts. Do they hold any truth for you? Awakening, realising, becoming your true being. What a lonely, beautiful, fulfilling, selfish self-less way of being. It's the ultimate escape that the ego despises, resentful it isn't getting its ultra-humanoid way of operating. Giving up all that you've worked for, for nothing. Absolute nothingness. I see and continue towards this beauty of being, but the ego must bend under the pressure to let go, but also work with you to provide the life you're searching for. How twisted, it's magnificent.

@Mal that was beautifully written, and a much much better explanation. your post needs to be read by everyone on this forum that has issues with nothingness and enlightement. This understanding is so important while actualizing. Thank you!

What is true art really? I'd argue it's an expression of being. Everything is an expression of 'being' really, except it can be heavily distorted by ego. You don't need ego to create art. The ego can't do or create anything, the ego is a creation in itself, not a creator. Creation comes out of the void, or nothingness. Doing art or not doing art. It doesn't really matter in the grand scheme of things toward enlightenment because it's not the do-er that becomes enlightened. What you might try is to bring more spontaneity into your art in stead of trying to plot everything.