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@Dodoster Whatever your mind imagines Nothingness to be, it's wrong. Nothingness is not nothingness.

For realising everything is illusion one doesn't need direct experience- one can get there logically - if one Trully understands cause and effect, one will know something cannot arise from nothing - it is elementary left brain attainable knowledge. Nothing always was, is, and will be. At the same time left brain attainable knowledge is the fact that nothing is at the same time everywhere and nowhere, and is the only thing that doesn't change, and is who we are deep within. If we follow this logical conclusion that only nothingness is trully real and no one can ever delete nothingness or change it, we realise nothingness is the only thing that we can be. The Absolute Golden Middle that everyone has access to, because they are that. In reality we are nothing, but in the dream/illusion we are concious of it, so we can say we are conciousness, which is the 1 after 0, the initial illusion and bridge to nothingness or source or unmanifested. Nothingness is concious of illusions. How nice. Equivalent to there is no I, because the I is nothingness.

The mystic, Alan Watts, quoting from biophysicist Erwin Schrodinger's book 'My View Of The World', in his own book; 'The Book On The Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are'... "It is not possible that this unity of knowledge, feeling and choice which you call your own should have sprung into being from nothingness at a given moment not so long ago; rather this knowledge, feeling and choice are essentially eternal and unchangeable and numerically one in all men, nay in all sensitive beings. But not in this sense - that you are a part, a piece, of an eternal, infinite being, an aspect or modification of it, as in Spinoza's pantheism. For we should have the same baffling question: which part, which aspect are you? What, objectively, differentiates it from the others? No, but inconcievable as it seems to ordinary reason, you - and all other conscious beings as such are all in all. Hence this life of yours which you are living is not merely a piece of the entire existence, but is in a certain sense the whole; only this whole is not so constituted that it can be surveyed in one single glance." Alan: The universe implies the organism, and each single organism implies the universe - only the "single glance" of our spotlight, narrowed attention, which has been taught to confuse it's glimpses as separate "things" must somehow be opened to the full vision, which Schrodinger goes on to suggest: "Thus you can throw yourself flat on the ground, stretched out on Mother Earth, with the certain conviction that you are one with her and she with you. You are as firmly established, as invulnerable as she, indeed a thousand times firmer and more invulnerable. As surely as she will engulf you tomorrow, so surely will she bring you forth anew to new striving and suffering. And not merely 'some day': now, today, every day she is bringing you forth, not once but thousands upon thousands of times, just as every day she engulfs you a thousand times over. For eternally and always there is only now, one and the same now; the present is the only thing that has no end"

@Leo Gura Would simply not perceiving an entity be the same as it reverting to a state of nothingness? You know, the classic "if a tree falls and nobody hears it, does it even exist"?

@Dodoster Idd, good old J-Dog was a wise man. So what about emotional suffering? Which is happening on biological level just like physical pain. What about that one? Also, is there a purpose to it? etc. etc. You answered one question very indirectly. Now what is your direct experience? end of suffering? non-doer? Infinite nature of the self? Infinite reality? Nothingness? Non-duality? Or is it just belifes you took on, and attached yourself to? Now if it is the attachment case tell me. Is there a difference between being attached towards spiritual beliefs or other beliefs?

Everyone should stop seeking enlightenment like it just "ONE" life-changing experience that needs to happen during meditation/contemplation and then BOOM: You're enlightened. This is one big mistake to believe this will ever happen. A hoax. A biiiiiiiiiiiig trap. Truth is: we're all enlightened in our ground-state. Ground state = a innocent child not yet affected by the social loops/cultural egos/society. Then we grow up and unconsciously incorporate all that and identifies with all that. Now it's true: Our brain is more evolved when we are adults. Higher capacity for logical thinking. Higher capacity for abstraction. Higher capacity for "knowing stuff"... Higher capacity for awareness. All these "abilities"/capacties : they are there all the time and its with those one should start the road to enlightenment. What has to be done then? Unlearning. Unlearn/detach/stop identifying with all that has influenced you since your ground state (innocent child). How does one start on this journey? By first acknowleding that one is ignorant (= the beginning to true open-mindedness.) This is a proces. all i can say is read "the book of not knowning" by Peter Ralston. Next step? Contemplate / be alone with yourself / study yourself from this state of of pure 'not-knowning'. Next step? Now the magic happens, now the real enlightenment game has begun, as you can use your high capacity for logical thinking (causality), abstraction and awareness to study yourself (=the mind+the nature of your true self) without being biased as you have been whole your adult life til now (because now you have unlearned urself / acknowledged that you're an ignorant motherfucker). Tbh differentiating between "ego" and "personality" ... I don't like this. For me... "mind" / "personality" / "ego" ..it's words refering to the same: the complex constant stream of pattern of thoughts/sensations that create the false self. False self because the mind/ego most of the time very convincingly makes the True Self (awareness) feel like it is not awareness/nothingness but instead that body-mind-soul-thingness inside the head. So wisdom comes from "knowing" that you are ignorant and that existance is mystical as fuck. Some say enlightenment is all about getting rid of the ego. But as all that have the slightest understanding of non-duality/reality knows, then making such a big statement about something must also mean that the opposite statement: "Enlightenment is all about developing a ego with high awareness and lots of wisdom ("great ego") " must be just as true. Now think about that and how it can be that both statements are equally true

Hypothetical situation, a child is born and this child has a rare ailment that completely limits the five perceptions that people have. No vision, hearing, taste, smell, sense of touch, and this child is kept alive by life support. Question 1.) Is the consciousness hiding anywhere? Is the consciousness just hanging out waiting for input from this being? My thinking is, this child would have nothingness in the mind and it would be as if it was never born. This same ailment also happens to a 40 year old person, this person looses all 5 perceptions and is kept alive by life support, in this case the person has thoughts, this persons mind is not a blank canvas because this person has perceived. Is perception the number one aspect of life, if we never perceived in life we would never really exist? Is perception and consciousness possibly the same thing? Maybe I’m reaching here for something that is obvious, but I think this is a deep thing.

For the kitten to become a dragon only the realisation that it is not a kitten is needed. No time required. Purification comes after, if this realisation of no self is nourished. Give love to nothingness/conciousness , not to the false ego you are trying to transcend. This will get you deeper in the web of it and then you'll just have to jump down from higher up. Also dont underestimate the kitten, it can grow perfectly fine without you, because it is already doing it. We ain't doing anything, its all the kitten.

Bubble excercise Sit comfortably and quietly, still your mind, and become aware of direct experience. Notice that you seem to be in a bubble of awareness. Observe the visual field, what is behind the things you see? What is around the edges of that field? Observe the audio field. Try to listen to the farthest sound you can. What is beyond the farthest sound? Observe your body. What sorrounds the edges of the sensations of your body? Notice that you are that visual, audio, and kinesthetic bubble of awareness as well as the nothingness that is beyond it.

Be careful. The mind has no free will in itself. True. Just like the body in itself thus has no free will. The mind can be more than just a machinebox for pleasure and pain, though. It can be a 'box' for knowledge/wisdom. For Awareness to find itself. A box of attaining higher and higher degree of Awareness (coming closer and closer with one's True Self (= can never be fully reached)). Awareness in it's purest form (which is what you ultimately are, and which is that which you are trying to attain/become one again with (if you are spiritual in any sense)) naturally has pure, free will. Can you ever become 100% one with your true self (Awareness) during a human life? Nah. But just to throw some random numbers out, one could say Leo is somewhere around 5% while most others on this forum are at like 0,5% , and the average population is around 0,001%. (im just joking around here fun here, but to illustrate a point). Jesus or Buddah were maybe at 50ish% (:DD) Anyway. Permanent Enligtenment as something that just BOOM!-happens in an instant while meditating/doing drugs, -- now you are free -- is one big hoax/trap within true spirituality. Enlightenment is a never-ending path. No discussion here. Enlightenment is "basically" just about attaining more and more Awareness/True Knowledge/Wisdom of reality (= your true self)... which is the same as saying that it is about self-realization (because the more awareness you get, the more understanding you get get of the nature of Awareness (= your true self). " trying to become what you already are. " ... Well, you are currently not Awareness. You are governed by Awareness (God). And ultimately, yes your true self is Awareness... but currently no human beings on Earth can claim to be Awareness during their life, and none will ever could claim to be so. None can claim to be God during a human life. As long as you are governed by Awareness without understanding how it governs you, you will continue to have absolutely no free will at all, yes. The more understanding you can get of how the govering of your true self (Awareness), the less "no free will" you attain (:D) . What is the first rule one must learn of how Awareness works? The law of casuality. Every action/effect/happening has a cause/chain of causes. By then applying this rule (= pure logic) while observing your mind carefully, one begins to attain awareness. Nah, I disagree. Suffering stems from ignorance ... and ignorance only. Ignorance = not being aware of how casuality plays out, or even worse, maybe not even realizing that there is a law of cause and effect (every effect has a looooooooooooong (basically infinite) chain of causes, and our goal here is to a get a glimpse of this infinite chain.. yes then it will be a finite chain (not complete), but the longer the apprant "finite chain" is, the closer you are to being God, which you of course can never become fully). So ignorance is the root to all suffering. It's true that from ignorance often (almost all the time) comes false desire. False in the sense that you won't be happy by eventually getting what you desire (only momentarily, this is the great game of the the ignorant-lived life :D). What can only make you happy in the long-term is by attaining greater and greater understanding of the mentioned law (= higher, and higher degree of Awarenesss). Another law that is good to know is the law of change. Nothing is permanent. But you can sort of derive this law from the other law by just observing reality. It's true that the first step to attain true Awareness is by first acknowleding that one is indeed ignorant (=no free will=not in control of what has happened in the past=yes it's "God's"/Awareness' will that has happened). How does one get past this step as quickly as possible? My ego wants to say that one should read The Book of Not Knowing by Peter Ralston. Many times maybe. Then one realizes that one knows nothing by reading and applying what's taught in that book. Great fucking book. If one cannot first acknowledge that one knows nothing (like Aware in the science-forum currently can't acknowledge that he knows absolutely nothing about physics), then one will be forever stuck on the spiritual path to self-realization (of attaining true Awareness/knowledge). The next step is then to trust that the Universe and Mind/Ego functions in according to the law of casuality (to trust logic basically, as in fucking pure, pure, pure logic). That is to say, all experience is based on the law of casuality. The third step might be then to all see that nothing is permenant. Change is law. Fourth step? Now it's just an "easy" ride from here. Because one has now attained radical open-mindeness (by getting past step 1). One has attained knowledge of the law of reality functions. So now it's just to combine the two (--- I know nothing about this -- -> Let's observe without filter/ego --> And apply the law of casuality (logic) to what one sees). And in a sense, yes, one is really enlightened now, but now the REAL enlightenment-game has just begun. So basically fourth step is now just to combine Law of Casuality with knowning of being ignorant, and then true wisdom will come (higher and higher degree of Awareness will slowly but steady be attained, yet one can never reach it fully, only partly ... one has just shifted game from "The Game of Ignorance (stuck in social loops)" (or "Power games" as Aware calls it) to "The Game of Knowing one is Ignorant" (=true self-realization game) Shifting from the I'm-not-Ignorant-Game to the I-Am-Ignorant-Game can be described with this parable: You were born an eagle. But the eagle-egg was by God placed in a hen-nest. You are then born and believe that you are a chicken/hen.. So because you believe that, your whole life you act like you are a fucking chicken/hen. The first step to Enlightenment for the eagle-who-believes-he-is-a-hen would happen if the eagle one day questioned his own mind: "Am I really a hen..?" ... Next step the hen would then realize "hey, I don't know who I am" ... (there's difference in saying it without seriousness (Nah I don't know who I am) without meaning it really (one still thinks he's a body/mind)) and then with 100% seriousness saying "I truly don't know who I am fucking am, let's try to find out by using the law of casuality and self-observation). The hen would then maybe one day find out that he can fly. Then he will be viewed as the Jesus Christ-hen by the other hens ("LOOK IT CAN FLY!"), and the hens themselves will then continue to believe that only that hen was truly a son of God (= an eagle), while they themselves are just "human bodies/souls" walking around This is what is happening on this planet (Just believe and have faith in Christ, and you will come to heaven when you die, rofl-fucking-mao:D). While truly, all the other hens were also born from an eagle egg!! Most (99,99%) will just never realize it - SADLY! :< Now ... How come we as humans have the ability to even have knowledge of the the Law of Awareness (law of casuality) ??? No other animal has the ability to think in terms of logic (in terms of casuality)... Now, most people use this ability to think in terms of logic on the outside, physical world. "Rationalism" ... They never thought about the possibility that logic could also be applied to the self-study of one self ... This is where the magic happens Then one might also realize, that the physical world is not really physical, but just a fun little creation of Awareness to distract itself from seeing itself.:D But science is still fun. Awareness decided to create this big physical world (= apparant reality) just so it could get lost in it for the fun/love of it. Getting lost is fun. Realizing that you are lost = wisdom. Awareness is playing a game of hide and seek, really. It pretends it's a physical thing, while that physical thing in fact is something the Awareness created it self (it just forgot that it did, lol). So in that sense .. all human beings are sons/creations of Awareness/God. Eating the apple from the garden was like Awareness was running around in the garden (heaven/bliss/nothingness) like a child and just then decided to eat the apple. The apple is viewed as the apple os wisdom in the Bible... Well truth is, the apple was the apple of ignorance. Eating the apple, Awareness instantly forgot that it was Awareness, and instead it became ignorant and begin to believe it's a physical thingxD Guys and girls and friends... Life is one big game without any meaning... We are all running around confused and pretending we know stuff... while in Truth that which we know of (the physical world) is just one big hoax created by the True Self to distract itself (LOL) from finding itself again (LOL). But Awareness also decided to put some signs out there for itself.. Some signs that would lead its children (human beings) to MAYBE become aware of the fact that they are ignorant ... apparantly most people are not, though. Socrates... what a fucking wise motherfucker.. I'm gonna read something of him instead of just pretending I know who he was based on quotes from goodread.com LOL But let me repeat... Life is one big game without any meaning.. The physical world is one big distraction.. Why did Awareness create this game of hide-and-seek for itself to get lost in? Well, flip the question around: Why the fuck wouldn't it? Existence is all about ENJOYMENT, LOVE and HAVING FUN. That's ALL it is fucking about lol... Quit your fucking silly boring 8-17 jobs (the fact that some people have some jobs shows just how fucking ignorant they are: they actually believe it is important whether or whether not they will have food enough to survive the next day... Hey, why so scared about death? Death my just be the fucking greatest blessing of all for all you ignorant motherfuckers:D So again, why the fuck wouldn't Awareness create a big infinite physical world to get lost in? Imagine you were Awareness? WHAT THE FUCK ELSE COULD YOU DO THAN CREATING SOMETHING FUN? How can you NOT-CREATE anything? LOL So let me throw in a 4th thing... existence is also all about CREATION... That's why are all fucking programmed to fall in "love" with the opposite sex so we can reproduce these physical bodies, LOL. So CREATE SOMETHING my friends. Become artists. Write books about this fun life joke. Create music (FUCK I LOVE MUSIC LOL, as long as it doesn't have artifical vocals singing about the false life which I know is a joke), create paintings, create computer games. Fall unconsciously in love. Overdose on some fun drugs. Maybe die, so what? Yeah Computer games!! That is the best thing ever man...LOL .. Awareness already being lost as a human body-mind, a mind which is already COMPLETELY ignorant of Awareness, and that mind then proceeds to get lost inside a computer game (World of Warcraft for example) .. Now what the fuck do we have? We Super-Lost x2 .. YAY MORE FUN!! haha Actually just for the lulz guys, I may have more respect for a big, fat virgin nerd who devoutes his whole life to live inside a fantasy game (world of warcraft) than a workalcoholic dude that spends his whole life working 9 hours a day in a job he hates.. HAHA, at least the nerd is having fucking FUN within the game... Having internet sex with female gnomes and stuff.. killing big bosses and getting some fancy gear. No work, just fun!! YAY Guys, read my siganture. Alan Watts knew what's up. Combine Socrates, Watts, Buddah and Jesus into one big fat AI-robot, and maybe we have a physical thing that is actual 99,99% God. Actually -- just buy observing the nature of awareness (that it apparantly has created this physical hoax-game to get lost) one must conclude that this is also what we human beings like to do: TO GET LOST.. And that's also what one can observe everyone are.. Everyone are fucking lost, like beyond help of ever not getting lost. The fact that I'm sitting here and rambling about how it's all a big meaningless game... that might be a glitch of some kind... Like Awareness forgot something when he created the game.. Or maybe it was just a sign I talked about, so Awareness had a "lifeline", if things got too crazy (=too much suffering/pain inside the physical non-existing world-game) (like it is now: DONALD TRUMP is the world's president, HAHA WHAT A BIG FAT COSMIC JOKE :DD) ... Guys, I think I am a pessimist in regards to human life... This game has gone too far, just look around the world.. I don't expect the human race to sustain itself for more than a few hundred years. (or maybe I do, maybe I will do something about it, I might decide to use my "ACTUAL FREE WILL" to CHANGE something... maybe... haven't decided yet guys (because I'm a fucking ignorant fool lol).. So guys,, if you crave more money$$$$$$$$ invest all your money in virtual reality comapanies and live on the street for 5-10 years and become a billionaire in a few years Virtual Reality is gonna be huge man.. Lost humans not knowing they are lost then deciding for themselves to get lost inside a world inside a world , haha it is really funny man. okay guys, this whole post has just been a stream of thought, it started as a serious reply to dodoster and then i can see it turned out to a lot of not-serious ramblings (don't take me too seriously please, I'm just having fun). so in all seriousness... I've said that life is all about CREATION, FUN, LOVE, ENJOYMENT (FOR EVERYONE! NOT JUST FOR "ME" BECAUE TRULY I AM YOU). ... now the question is, how do one become content 24/7 ? how is one never NOT-filled with love/humour/happiness/desire to create/help ... and why is there deeply within all a feeling of joy when seeing joy/happiness in those close to us? To the second question, it's because Awareness inside know that It Is All. So when I see my mother being happy when she seems me and hugs me, the Awareness within me knows that that equals me being happy. When I see a picture in the TV of a sick, underfed African baby in pain, I feel pain, because Awareness knows it is the fucking baby just as much as it is the current bodymind that tries to trick it into believing Awarenss is that (lol). To the first question (to the how is one never NOT filled).. the answer begins where this comment starts... getting rid of TRUE Ignorance by acknowleding one is really ignorant (= false ignorance/true wisdom) , and then building from there. “Wonder is the beginning of wisdom.” “To find yourself, think for yourself.” “Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.” “I cannot teach anybody anything. I can only make them think” “There is only one good, knowledge, and one evil, ignorance.” “The unexamined life is not worth living.” (so fucking true lol) “The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.” !!!!!! The Book of not Knowing guys by Peter Ralston. Read it and then leave this forum and start living your life fully. hehe. (im lost guys, but im having fun while being lost). But basically life is all about understanding, communication, being in service for others (=Self), and then also having a lot of fun, creating more meaningless stuff (like this random post), loving and enjoying, and maybe reproducing some more bodies, which because you believe you are wise, you can then program a new body to be just as wise as you, which feels nice for the little awareness stuck in bodymind. ;D But Real Love, Real Creation, Real Fun (xD) can only happen when one first has began the journey of self-realization which starts by realizing one has been an ignorant fool all live (remember to also love yourself though)... So to sum it up.. Awareness/God has created this physical game for itself to get lost in only because of love (throw in some curiousity, infinity, infinite matrixes/games/realities, why-not-feeling, fun, too maybe also). Love (positive feelings) is the only feeling with any logical value, any other feeling (hatred, fear etc) have no logic behind them, if you become truly aware. Meaning of life is polarized: For some "incarnations of Awareness" it is to get as lost as possible and never realize one is lost (most of humanity). For other "incarnations of Awareness" it it so get as not-lost-as-possible by first acknowleding one is infinitely lost. One could say both are equally valid. Yet, one could also say that because love is the only logical feeling in the universe, then the meaning of life should be to get all beings to only feel love... and therefore one could say that true spirituality is a more meaningful game than the other games. And for most actually it is a constant mix of these two I guess, but very screwed towards the first, at least in regards to finding one's true self. Why is it so? Only God (True Complete Awareness) knows:p For both of these ultimate polarized games, there are smaller games of: power, attachments to the physical world, detachments, understanding (most important one, as long as it is purely based on first realziing one's own ignorance + law of casuality + law of change = True Understanding/attainment of awareness), service, communication, having fun, creating random meaningless stuff, enjoying what life has to offer and becoming unconsciously deeply attached to such things (drugs, food, sex, money, sleep, playing computer games, watching tv, reading, whatever man). Sooooooooo “There is only one good, knowledge, and one evil, ignorance.”

@Aware "Because it supports their big gravity hoax explanations. (I don't state its not a phenomenon, I state its just not in need for such an explanation as they have given). It gets rid of the random big bang we all are an accident that supports evolution theory, which must of course support a non-Awareness being. A nothing, that governs everything. We all came from a bundle of nothing that exploded in a big bang, that is their story. That in the beginning, there was nothing. And then came gravity, out of the nothing. " 1. The Big Bang theory DOES NOT try to give the picture that we (as our true we: awareness) comes from a bundle of nothing that exploded. It just says that that's how the observable universe -- we see today -- began and then it nicely describes how it evolved over time,, i say nicely because it's explanations are supported by massive amounts of evidence. So yes, in a sense, it describes how the human body developed (in a sense) but Aware, of course you don't identify with your body, do you? 2. The Big Bang theory doesn't try to explain what was BEFORE the big bang.. Because I agree with you, of course there was something, whatever that it.., I like to just call it "apparant" nothingness. 3. Also no theories try to explain WHY there is gravity (why space curves around massive objects ).. It just explains how it functions! Evolution doesn't explain, and doesn't try to explain why it even is so. It doesn't try to explain why there even is life in the first place. It doesn't try to explain why humans exist. It just _describes_ how the organisms evolved over time - THAT'S ALL it does! Same goes with big bang theory... it doesn't try to explain WHY there was a big bang... Why there is anything..... And it doesn't explain why we exist here right now.. But it explains how the universe evolved over time! And the explanation it comes up with fits very, very nicely with observations of the space. Same goes for evolution, just in regards to the observations we make of fossils, mutations, DNA, replication, divserity and much more. So what I'm trying to get along... Both big bang and evolution are just MODELS... But they are effective models that describe certain things very nicely, precisely in according with casuality. SO they are useful models to understand some parts of nature.. and a deeper understanding of nature is always fascinating to achieve, at least for me... and this applies both to understanding myself better (who am I) but also to understand how does the universe function ? ) Also, could it be, Aware, that evolution is just the way "Essence" is creating organisms/life? It sure seems so. (massive evidence based on casuality). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evidence_of_common_descent Could it be that general/special relativity is just a way Essence "decided" that "matter" should interact with each other? It sure seems so. (massive evidence based on casuality). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tests_of_general_relativity Could it be that the big bang is just the way that Essence "decided" how "this apparant external world" began/developed? It sure seems so. (massive evidence based on casuality). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Bang#Observational_evidence See, again, evolution doesn't try to explain existence/awareness in itself... Evolution just describes how the physical organisms evolved over time (and still evolve). Now, my friend, I hope you soon begin to appreciate the beauty of science. This is the famous Hubble Deep Field Photo taken by the Hubble Space telescope orbiting the Earth: All the light-dots you see are all galaxies which are similiar to our own milky way galaxy. Every galaxy has billions of stars, probably also stars with many planets. It's fascinating how insignificant the Earth is in the big picture;) To understand how science works on a methodological level (basically follows the law of actions leading to according results) you could start by reading: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_theory If stubbornly countinue to believe that all modern science is based on supporting the "Earth is ball"-scam/hoax/secret to keep the truth hidden from the public, then I'm afraid I can't help you anymore on this matter. All I could do then is to suggest to you to read "The Book of Not Knowing" by Peter Ralston . https://www.amazon.com/Book-Not-Knowing-Exploring-Consciousness/dp/1556438575 3 quotes from the great book: “Why are you unhappy? Because 99.9 percent of everything you do is for yourself—and there isn’t one." “Whatever we think of as “self” we will protect and maintain. If it’s a conceptual self, and likely it is, then we end up with mind protecting mind. This produces a rather “introverted” self-mind creating thoughts and perceptions in its own image. When self becomes confused with mind, and mind becomes seen as the self, the mind’s self-serving activities end up creating an experience of reality that is entirely self-referential.” “Knowing” can be useful, but learning not to know creates a powerful openness that is inconceivable until it is experienced.”

Entry 22 | Time and Productivity Theory: With a higher understanding of what time is and where it comes from, you can create as much of it as you want. Applying it: During meditation practice, completely forget about the concept of time and experience existence for what it truly is. Around this time last year, I decided to set myself a more strict self-actualisation routine. My routine way 4 hours a day for meditating, self-enquiry, visualisations and journaling. To be truthful, it only lasted 2 weeks. But this was because those 2 weeks were the most eye-opening weeks of my life. I remember feeling so joyful after having experienced the realisation of the true self. However, I think what happened to me was a case of Zen Devilry as I scrapped that regime and decided to go pursue some things that got me into trouble (I have learned from you, Leo!) During those two weeks, I experienced a slowing down of time that I had never thought possible. It was difficult to explain how or why this happened, but it happened. As I got deeper into self-actualisation, time got slower. It never felt like it was going painfully slow to the point of being bored shitless. Rather, it was like my days felt more thorough and consciously lived. Time didn't fly, it flowed. After recently reading The Big Leap, I felt satisfied when I read an entire chapter dedicated to 'Einstein Time.' It feels very fulfilling to make an observation on your own and then read it in a powerful book much later. It confirmed one thing at least: I wasn't going mad. Since I made the more successful long-term commitment to self-actualisation about a month ago, I can feel the effects of time once again slowing down. During my meditation today, I finally dissolved time into nothingness and appreciated existence without its burden. It didn't matter when my timer would sound to end my hour of meditation. As far as I was concerned, there was no such timer and there would be no such time. Additionally, I've been able to maintain peak performance all day with my work. For only about 2 hours, I managed to write about 2000 words on my movie project for university without burning out. I've also got some more work done creating my personal website for my music which I will share when it's finished. My concept of time is this: Time is illusory. The past and the future doesn't exist. All that exists is the present moment and, therefore, that is all that matters. Understanding the concept is easy. Embodying it is hard. For example, at the present moment, I'm sat by my laptop typing words into this journal entry. That remains true so long as it is in the present moment. As soon as I submit this post, however, the situation of me typing up words will be in the past. Therefore, the situation becomes an illusion and, as a result, it is no longer true. Another example. Here you are now, in the present moment, reading these words. That's true. But as soon as you click away and these words disappear, all you will be left with is a memory of these words. The questions you should ask include "Do those words exist now? Did that thing that happened a second ago even happen? If I visualised myself clicking off this journal, would that make it true if it's inevitably going to happen anyway?" There are ways to answer these questions and paradoxes which can transform the way you think about the concepts. I may make a post about that in the future. For now, I'll just say that by successfully embodying the concept that time is illusory, you can experience the smooth, relaxed flow of time through your body rather than the more traditional concept that says "we're running out of time!" You can be more productive with minimal time spent, giving you time to do what you know you've always wanted to do: SELF-ACTUALISE! Pick of the day: 32 Metronome Synchronization

He can't... but if there's a body it cannot "see" that there's nothingness. Maybe my question was bad formulated. Unless the body is nothingness.

@Aware Concepts. Traditions. Religion. Dharma. Supreme. Rebirth vs 'not coming for a rebirth' . Buddha. Buddhisattva. Karmic results playing out. This and that. Ideas. Concepts. It's all good if you use these things to understand reality. But never get caught in it or claim the concepts/ideas themselves to be the Truth. Concepts and ideas can only tell something about the Truth - they can never, ever, ever communicate the Truth itself. In fact to fucking 'attain', 'see', 'become one' with the 'Truth' , 'you' have to drop ALL ideas, concepts, beliefs. Drop it all. You can use them some of the way on your path towards Enlightenment - like to give you HINTS. But at some point it all has to be thrown away. Stop the clinging to ideas and concepts. Because , it's exactly that... It's ALL just ideas ABOUT reality. It is NOT the reality. Just like you say "walking the middle path of Awareness" ... This is an idea in your head that you're doing that. "This belief of being something or nothing is thus an absolute trap" Alright - first of all - you yourself claim to be 'one' who 'attains' 'Awareness'. That you belief to be that is exactly that: a belief. It has nothing to with reality. There are truly none what-so-ever within your body that is attaining anything at all. Secondly you can be both nothing and everything at the same time. In fact by pure logic (as in really pure, seeing very clearly) if you truly realize you are a no-thing (nothingness) then that fact alone implies that you also are everything. Yes, to be nothing is eternalism. And that's exactly right - you are eternal. You were never born and will never die. You are truly eternal and infinite. I'm not talking about you as a person/Aware. No, I'm talking about that which percieves all of your reality - that "no-thing" is eternal and it's exactly the same "no-thing" that percieves "my" reality. And truly you are this no-thing, you are not a person, you are not anyone who is attaining "Awareness". No, no, no. All this is truly just a story you are telling yourself. "However this is tricky because I could end as no longer coming for a rebirth, this I prevent and will prevent consciously, therefor, " You are very obviously contradicting yourself. You say we are all one. Yet you claim that there is something unique about you that makes it possible for you to not have a rebirth while most others will continue getting reborn. I mean, c'mon. You are very, very obviously stuck in an ego-illusion. You think that there is something unique about you that can either get reborn or for-ever-be-free-for-getting-born. Whoever you think you are, Aware, there is nothing about that there can ever be either reborned or 'not-reborned'. Because Truly you are Nothing, and Nothing is never borned nor not-borned. It just is. Happy new year.

@ClearThought For me the realisation of the causes somehow alleviated the pain around them. Then, I started to learn more about self-acceptance. It really helped me to stop beating myself up and criticizing myself for who I am, how I think, etc. I stopped judging myself. (OK, I still do judge or criticize myself on occassions, but I'm in the process of recovery). And one of the ways I did it (and still do it) is mainly through mindfulness. When some emotional pain arises I let it be. I don't distract myself from suffering when it happens. And I used to do it a lot with alcohol, drugs, food, TV, people, etc. This is actually an interesting concept because when I feel this pain inside me to the fullest and just let it be, after some time, the pain stops being negative and undesirable in itself. It is just a feeling, a sensation, deprived of any negativity. Only the thoughts make it negative. If you let go of them what is left is just a feeling. Then it may get dissolved into nothingness cos it is not fueled by thoughts anymore. You can develop calmness through mindfulness if you practice it on everyday basis. Also when you feel that you hold a grudge against someone who was hurting you in the past (if there is such an issue), mindfulness and a concept of self-responsibility helped me with this. I stopped blaming people for who I am cos now I can take a responsibility for my own life and direct it the way I want. I stopped treating my traumas as an excuse for staying passive. When a self esteem is shuttered due to a childhood trauma there are some ways to fix it and rebuild it, even from a scratch. I think some important areas to consider are developing self-acceptance and self-love no matter how you feel right now. Then take responsibilty to build up your self esteem. You can gain some valueable information from books. One of the best on self esteem I've read is "Six pillars of self-esteem" by Nathaniel Branden, I'd highly recommend it to you. The book has some exercises designed to help you increase your self-esteem as well as an overall awareness of how self-esteem works. I hope it helps a little.

Yesterday , from my second inquiry ( first serious investigation ) through the Neti Neti meditation I just got that intense frustration of running out of resources about who I am , and along with leo's affirmation that i am " this " came to me the HOLY SHIT sensation followed by the aware nothingness for around 30 secondes to 1 minute , followed by a sense of peace and calmness . That flow was too powerful and intense that after the realization I felt my eyelashes unceasingly blinking fast , it's just like my eyes wanted to open and yet I was resisting . After that i sticked with Leo's post visualisation explanation with honesty . I am planning on doing the work and inquiry tonight again even more seriously .. but looking for recommandations and guidance . Thank you Leo , Thank you ' community '

And basically. Yes all teachings towards enlightement are geared towards realizing your true nature and also therefore getting you free from attachments. But there are many methods/ways to get to that state. Meditation, psychedelics, contemplation, different kinds of yoga, different teaching techniques: Focus on nothingness, love, attachments, projections, emotions etc etc etc. For example if a teaching tell you to fully rest in yourself in the present moment and accept all of reality as it is and see that you are everything you experience ... if such a teaching clicks with a student and he has never heard the words "get free from attachment", don't you think he still has gained a lower attachment to desires? There are many ways. It's obvious. Yes all the paths lead to the same destination (as you describe that destination), but the paths may very well differ.

@Echoes God is not nothingness or emptiness. These two words emptiness and nothingness are taken from a religion called Buddhism, which is an atheist system of thought. Buddhist dont subscribe to the concept of God a creator, they are stuck inside the material universe and the aim is to free the relative person from dualistic "thinking" and call this void in the mind "emptiness" . Buddhism is a humanistic philosophy that has been subject to many changes over its history, meaning that is a man made religion. It is essentially based on pantajalis yoga sturas, and is related to a bunch of religious ideas floating around at the time, one of which was the popular enlightenment misconception "chitti vritti narhodha" - which means that in order to reveal the nature of reality, one must rid themselves of their mind. Nobody has ever become enlightened using this method. It is good for preparing the mind for enlightenment, but its not quite right as a statement of enlightenment itself, because the enlightened self is beyond thought, is beyond the person, is beyond experience, it is nir-guna (free FROM experience) whereas nir-vana is the extinction of experience itself. So God is actually "fullness" it is the Self, and the Bhraman which you mentioned. Brahman is the one sentiency that pervades existence, the knower, the SEER, the conscious indweller behind the mind, witnessing the mind of all sentient beings (Atman). It is not human specific, it is the all pervading substrate, the knower in all subtle bodies - animals and plants all have subtle bodies, and therefore are all Atma. Atma refers to Brahman when we look at the world through the conventional perspective that there are many "Atmans". Brahman is when you look at life from the perspective of the one self, when you understand that YOU ARE the sentiency, the all pervasive consciousness that looks out through every "other" apparent beings eyes. Brahman realization is when you understand that there are no others, that there is only one principle operating here - you, consciousness associated with and deluded by many different bodies and minds. We dont know, we will never know the why or how, that is for Bhraman as the creator to know. Human beings will never know this because really we will always only ever be Atmans, the knowers of self knowledge revealed in a specific subtle body. Enlightenment takes place in the psyche of the human being, so we are bound by that instrument and its limitations. But your confusion lies in the fact that you confuse the Buddhist No-thing with the Hindu Bhraman, Bhraman is not no-thing, it is the witness with the power to create. Same answer to previous question, we dont know why. Donald Trump and Ramana Maharshi, from the perspective of Brahman are the same Bhraman, the individual stories of each person are irrelevant. They are forms appearing in Bhraman, they arise, are sustained, and dissolve like everything else. IF you are ignorant and take these two characters to be their individual stories and dont see them as yourself, then there is a duality between them, but when we die we just die, reincarnation is not actually a thing, it is just being "reborn" into another ignorant thought that has been generated by believing in yourself as a separate person with separate karmas to live out. Once you realize who you are, you will understand that you were never born ad you dont die, only the physical bodies and the thought stories associated with these characters are the things that die. But it doesnt matter because all the material aspects are just mechanics.

God is everything, emptiness/nothingness is the door. You cannot conceive of the whole except by way of emptiness. Donald Trump will born again in a body of bones and flesh, Ramana Maharshi will not. Hindus believe in God and the soul. Jainas don't believe in God at all but only in the soul. And Buddhists don't believe in the soul or God either. But about reincarnation all three agree — even Buddhists agree, who don't believe in the soul. A very strange thing…then who reincarnates? Even they could not deny the phenomenon of reincarnation, although they could deny the existence of the soul; they say the soul does not exist but reincarnation exists. And it was very difficult for them to prove reincarnation without the soul; it seems almost impossible. But they found a way — of course it is very subtle and very difficult to comprehend, but they seem to be closer, the closest to the truth. It is easy to understand that there is a soul and when you die the body is left on the earth and the soul enters into another body, into another womb; it is a simple, logical, mathematical thing. But Buddha says there is no soul but only a continuum. It is like when you kindle a candle in the evening and in the morning when you are blowing it out a question can be asked of you: Are you blowing out the same light that you started in the evening? No, it is not the same light, and yet a continuity is there. Buddha says that just as the candle flame is not the same — it is changing constantly, although in another sense it is the same because it is the same continuum — exactly like that, there is no soul entity in you like a thing but one like a flame. It is continuously changing, it is a river. Nirvana means to extinguish this illusory flame of life.

Hey, I have a few questions and hope you can give me some answers 1. If God is emptiness/nothingness, how can "it" have attributes like Love or Consciousness? aren't these some-things and not no-thing? 2. If reality is infinite, does Hogwarts , Gandalf/middle earth and The Force from Star Wars exist? 3. Does it make a difference if you die as Donald Trump or as Ramana Maharshi? If yes, which difference? 4. What is the Atman? Is it a personal Soul bounded to a specific human? But that wouldn't make any sense since only emptiness/brahman exists?

Good question. Let's first differentiate between mind and consciousness. Mind = talking, emotions, thoughts ... Consciousness = You .. The non-located no-thing experiencing the mind. Your mind/brain/ego is of course separated from mine because your brain is at another location in this world. Now here comes the really strange part. You are the self-aware non-located no-thing (consciousness/nothingness) experiencing one....... mind. I am ,,,,,,the self-aware non-located no-thing (consciousness/nothingness) experiencing another mind. So You are I and I am You. The Law of One. We are all one. Unity. etc etc etc Two ways to attack the problem: - We are One, but yet, this Infinite One has infinite minds attached to it and it can only experience one mind at a time. - We are One, but yet, this Infinite One splits itself up into many finite One's, which each has a mind attached to it. You are one part of the Infinite One, I am another part of the Infinite One. Both ways can't explain reality fully though. They are both lackluster. So the question: "Why do I have this experience and You have another experience" can't be answered. If it could be answered fully, then reality wouldn't be infinite.

"The goal of the game, is to spiral out of the game, and to Attain the True self for higher experiences." What if there are no ultimate goals? Life is a game. You can never stop playing. You can die/kill yourself but this is merely like a piece in Ludo that dies, and then God rolles a dice, wooah it's 6, new piece comes in. "I also wonder rather people do not experience already that they are multi "incarnated" intelligences? That are converting different planes of existence already through their "Dreams" that are to real to state to be a dream, feeling parts of them die as if family died, which is just another part of them on a different plane of existence." What you call The True Self was never born so it could never die. It's not a thing. Yet, Nothingness is what you are, yes you. It's this nothingness that experiences everything. It's also out of nothingness that every experience is created. And thus every experience happens "inside" nothingness. "The true star of the game, your True self, is the Supreme that governs all your worlds. Your true self is your ultimate guide and protector in this game." A true star, an ultimate guide, a protector? Interesting properties to give nothingness. But whatever floats your boat. "So let this article be a call, knowledge for your True self, a signal that this all is grand scale and highly complex." Yes, reality is infinitely complex... not just "highly complex". Knowledge is for mind, not for the True Self. The mind has knowledge which it can store and proces, which the True Self then experiences. "I am saying that there is no vast source, so for example its more likely that those believers in that we come from monkeys, themselves were once monkeys and other animals in form of intelligences (spirit), and find it plausible that all came from apes, it is more likely that that is true, then that we actually truly come from apes. Awareness was already, so one of those people might have had some experience about previous creations of himself, and accidentally believed it was for all. Comes up with a logic and so on. And is at that moment just in yet another game." Just like your ideas here is another game. Those "believers" .. "themselves" were once "monkeys" Which believers? Who is it inside a biologist that may once have been a monkey? ... Actually I think my main problem with with this discussion, is that I simply don't see the point with this thread:D Just like I haven't seen a point with any of your comments posted on this forum so far. I have thought about putting you on ignore, because everytime I read a post from you, I feel like I have wasted time. Just like I have done now. Jeez.

Motus, you sound like you got it all figured out. My advice to you: - Sit down and ask yourself if you really understand who you are, and how the "game" functions. Could it be that it's all just ideas in your head that are actually hindering you on your path? You seem to be pretty attached to these ideas you postulate here on this forum. Try to become deeply aware of the fact that all you post here is just that: ideas created by your mind. And then embrace reality, embrace the not-knowning, and dive into it... It's when one fully incoporates the"I actually don't know -- I have no clue -- but I'm open to whatever it might turn out to be"-mindset into the heart that true greatness can be allowed to arise out of nothingness. Frustration and fear may be the first reactions though, but it'll pass. I can recommend "The Book of Not Knowing" by Peter Ralston. I for one haven't bought Leo's booklist, but everyone knows this book is on the list as Leo has has given credits to Ralston in some of his videos.

This is one of the most comprehensive video on the subject on porn. You will understand how your biology is fucking you up, porn addiction has a tremendous power in our brains. Attraction between males and females are one of the most sacred events on earth, it's an allegory of the dance between opposite forces, nothingness and infinity, above and below, negative and positive, fire and water, consciousness and matter, coming together to realize the Oneness. Kind of new agey though very true. When you don't have confidence, when it's not natural and flowy for you to have sex with girls, fapping to porn robs you of your power to actually go and see them, have pure feelings for them, have confident sex with them. I'm telling this from what I've lived, what I'm living personnaly. Oh and stop telling yourself that it's a sin to have sex before marriage. If you're into spiritual stuff, for sure sex is sacred and should be performed only with someone with which you have a deep connexion, and girls love it only that way really, they can't stand porn-like sex, they'd be glad to be taken roughly but only by someone with which she could share parts of her heart. Then you should have sex with as many girls as possible that you would be glad to have as your wifes and who love you deeply. But you shouldn't lean onto those kinds of beliefs to stay in your comfort zone and fap to hardcore porn whilst saying that sex before marriage is a sin. This is nonsense to my ears. Don't you feel the cognitive dissonance ? What I would personnally advise is to watch videos from Real Social Dynamics, rsdfreetour / rsdtyler /julienhimself/ rsdmax on youtube and mostly practice getting out of your comfort zone. I used not to have a clue about what was going on, now I know the basic structure of human interaction from biological, psychological and energetic points of view, which means I can do something about it since I understand it. Though you still need balls. Also, mostly, in my opinion, David Deida has captured beautifully how the Feminine and Masculine forces interact. Read The Way of the Superior Man and Intimate Communion, it will lay down a conceptual structure in which you know where you're at and where to go. You seem like you have deep hearty feelings that are not balanced by confidence, and this I know well. You need to live my friend, do things that make you step out of your comfort zone bit by bit, so that the next girl you have a crush on, you don't become her non-sexual friend, you act with confidence to sweep her off her feet with your love and confidence. Ain't that a pretty picture ? But this needs to be built brick by brick. I myself have been in your shoes, mostly when I was beginning highschool, though I never held the belief that sex before marriage would be a sin. I just wasn't feeling confident and I believe that the fact that I'm holding in my secret garden two very opposite things, the addiction to hardcore pornography and the desire to find a pure princess that I could love infinitely like in the Disney films. Eventually, this will blow up while growing up. Girls aren't princesses at all, they like rough sex too, maybe more than we do. And really, I don't want a princess, I want a girl that challenges me to better myself in every way, because that's how life is, we evolve, if we don't we die. Commiting to a relationship with a girl is the exact opposite of the comfort zone. Only after having pushed through it will we reap the benefits that were sown, by gladly welcoming into our lives without any needyness and with full confidence someone that matches our own needs to evolve to the next level, and that will also evolve at the same time. One last thing I too unconsciously fantasize about a mentor. But I know very well that I shall be my own mentor and my own student. This is the only way. You couldn't even profit from what a mentor would be able to provide for you if you're not your own mentor and student first. A mentor can't help you with anything that you're not willing to do for yourself. Though I agree that it would be of good help to have someone you can rely to and ask questions and be cheered and challenged whilst making your own progress. Girls are the best mentors for spiritual progress in my opinion. They have the ability to feel the little holes in your structure and point them out, only to feel you become stronger. They can rip your ego of all its fallacies until only the purest diamond is left shining. Though it is very rare to undergo this kind of evolution so deeply, couples usually fall apart because they're not commited to truth, freedom, love and evolution, or they're just not on the same level anymore and need to evolve somewhere else. But through Intimate Communion, we can truly reach the depths of our beings, and surrender to the powerful archetypal forces of the universe, fusing each other into One, enacting the universal dance through the bodies mind and soul in an intense explosion no less powerful than an nuclear one. Those relationships are quite special and unique. And they're to be lived only by the most free and loving human beings. It can't be otherwise.

It's all about perspective. In the "boy draws on a blank paper"-analogy, to me, - the boy/the boy's hand/the pencil = God (y) - blank paper = True Self (z) - whats drawn on paper = experience/happenings/ego/mind/body (x) - The blank paper is eternal (was never born, will never die) & it's conscious of whats drawn upon it. - The blank paper is infinite in size & in its "ground-state" it's just completely blank and empty (nothingness). - The pencil that's drawing can switch randomly between infinite colours and infinite types of pencils and it also has an ereaser on it's back that it often uses. - The pencil can draw an infinite different pictures upon you. - Whats drawn on paper is real enough, but only momentarily real. If you cling to whats drawn, you will constantly switch between happiness (when something good is drawn) and sufferiing (when the drawn disappears again). - If you realize that what's drawn is NOT you, but just experience/happenings, and that you are the no-thing/blankness that experiences all that, then you become enlightened. - Makyo is when there is drawn something you percieve as 'extraordinary'/true and you then cling to it as Truth. - A True Complete Enlightenment Experience is when you become fully aware of what's going on: ... Your perspective/awareness sort of raises above the paper, and you directly see the pencil drawing on the blank, eternal you... You meet God. - A Real (with a capital R) Awakening happens when the pencil -- for whatever reason -- momentarily, completely halts all the drawing while also erasing the earlier drawn (mind/memories) completely. What is then left is just the blank paper: nothingness (True Self). No experience. It's not an experience. That's enlightenment. The mind is COMPLETELY killed. NOTHING is left. There is only YOU (nothingness) left... discovering your self (but ITS NOT AN EXPERIENCE, because you are a no-thing, and a no-thing can't be experienced). This is litteraly equal to physical DEATH. The only difference is that -- for some reason -- it's possibly to keep the body alive while the paper is completely blank... It's sort of a paradox, right, because the body is something that's drawn on the paper... What when you go to deep sleep? Isn't this equal to what I just described? Sounds like it... the difference may lie in that when you go to deep sleep, "the pencil is being handled in such a way" that the mind doesn't remember itself shutting down.. it happens gently and unconsciously... A real awakening, here you see the mind/ego getting annihilated right in front of You , and then momentarily there's nothing left but You, and then some "time afterwards", the ego comes back, and You see it coming back.., like You get pushed back into a skull from the nothingness... When going to deep sleep and waking up, it's all happening in such a way that the mind is programmed to not store (remember) the experience of it being killed. In a same way when "you" wake up from deep sleep, the mind is programmed to not store the experience of being resurrected from nothing. I'm not talking about the deep sleep/nothingness itself, because here there is only You/Silence/Nothingness, i.e. it's a no-experience because the mind produces zero experience -- the paper is blank -- simply because the mind is death. I'm simply talking about the very few seconds BEFORE the death of the mind (the killing), and the very few seconds AFTER the resurrection of the mind. No one remember falling asleep. Yes, we remember when we went to lie down on the bed. But we never remember any experience of actually falling into deep sleep (= the mind being killed). This, I postulate, is "simply" because the brain/mind is wired in such a way to not store such an experience. If the mind, on the other hand, WAS wired/programmed to store such an experience, then everyone would be enlightened, lol, because everyone would see their egoes/minds getting completely killed, and thus everyone would directly be able to see for Themselves that They are not the body nor the mind/ego. Everyone would be scared shitless, lol. Very few would dare to go to sleep -- because it would feel like getting actually killed. And from an evolutionary perspective it's extremely "bad" for an "organism" to realize its True Self is not the body (for very obvious reasons), so OF COURSE the brain/mind is wired to not remember falling asleep. Same goes for waking up from deep sleep. Everyone has tried to be waken by someting/someone while you were in a very, very deep, deep sleep. When that happens, you are always very, very confused in the seconds after waking up. I think this is because the mind/brain is wired in such a way to not remember the experience of being resurrected from nothingness. Also if your body dies/you commit suicide... Then... there is no mind left to integrate/remember "the experience" ("the experience" = the 'right before' and the 'right after' the 'no-experience'/ego-death. And thus, physical death has nothing to do with enlightenment, just like going to deep sleep has nothing to do with enlightenment. Enligthenment is sort of a paradox, because enligtenment, yes, is the DEATH of the MIND. But at the same time, enligtenment requires the mind/brain/person to be FULLY 'alive/awake/aware' to actually remember the experience of both the killing and the resurrection of the mind . It's the memories of such two 'happenings' that produces an enlightened person. The space between the two happenings (i.e the killing and the ressurection) is the no-experience/nothingness which the mind itself can't remember because it wasn't there. But the process of the killing and the process of the resurrection; this the mind 'can' store and remember as a memory. And when the mind remember these two happenings, the mind can now see that it doesn't really exist, and it starts producing thoughts and emotions without the "I" labeled on to them. So an enlightenment experience could basically be described as: - going to deep sleep, while being fully aware of going to the deep sleep (i.e. the mind rembering the experience of going to deep sleep, i.e. the mind remebering the experience of itself being annihilated into nothingness). - then shorty after waking up from deep sleep, while being fully aware of waking up from deep sleep (i.e. the mind remembering the experience of itself waking up from deep sleep, i.e. the mind remembering the experience of itself being reborn from nothingness). In both cases, of course, "You" (z) is always there, You can't be modified. You are just there. You experience the memories the mind produces for You. So after all... Enlightenment is sort of a paradox because it's: - on one hand: all about the mind (it has to be 'alive'/'be there' to store certain experiences needed for enlightenment) - on another hand: not about the mind at all (it has to be killed for reaching enlightenment) It's two opposing statements ... Yet both of them are equally true and false Truth with a capital T comes when the two opposing ideas come together and form a circle: - the mind has to be killed (one half of the circle). <----> So You can become You (Nothingness). - the mind has to be alive (other half of the circle). <----> So You can experience the killing of the not-you. The True Self can only fully discover itself by directly experiencing the killing of The False Self. Without a False Self (ego) in the first place, there could be no True Self (nothingness) in the first place And vice versa. The world we all see ourselves in is dualistic. For there to be darkness, there has to be light. For there to be 'a day', there has to be 'a night'. For there to be 'good', there has to be 'evil'. For there to be a True Self, there has to be False Self. Two opposing things are always two sides of the same coin. So basically enligtenment is a change of what x (ego / mind) produces for You (z) to experience. If "you" are an enlightened person, "you" are still just a person/ego/mind/brain running around -- playing the game of life. The difference "just" lies in what this person says, does, thinks, feels . (What the mind produces for You to experience) So achieving enligtenment is after all just achieving a special type of personality ... But a very special, rare kind of personality, of course. Its traits are, among other things: - Absolute Self-Discovery. - Unconditional Love to all of reality. - Deep intuitive understanding of human life & how the mind/ego functions. - Deep understanding of reality. - No attachment to any experience, yet no detachment from any experience either. - Passion for life -- passion for both self and others. Cheers. EDIT: I edited the shit out of this one. Added a lot of rambling shit.