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Killing yourself really never helps. Don't think of it like:"Yeah if I die then all the people around me would be sad." Because you can do whatever you want. It is your life and you are free. Right now you say you are at a bad point in your life. I don't know how the relationship to your girlfriend, friends and family is but I would really consider talking with them about it. You might think that they will see you as a freak but I would rather think of intensifying your relationship to all of them by being truly honest. You might as well tell us your lifestory here, but they already know it and can help you much better in certain aspects. All I can tell is what I do for myself because I decided it to be the way to go: True isolation, meditation, confront yourself with nothingness. No light, no stimuli, no music in best case scenario and you just go deep inside yourself and see what is going inside you. Just fill up your mind with yourself. Think about where your thoughts automatically go. Search in the past for moments that hurt you. Maybe you find regrets. Just go all in. Make this inner trip all about you. Maybe you might think about certain people that had a big influence in your life but just think about what they did to you, the positive and negative of course. It might not be easy. But abstaining from certain things really can make a difference already. I did 2 months of no porn and I can tell you that in the first 2 weeks I've never been crying that much. Sounds ridiculous but it is the god damn truth. Just get yourself some isolation and when your body is wanting some specific stuff then you might be addicted to it. And addiction usually means nothing good. But most people have some addictions that rather seem harmless but it is not if you are willing to live a better life.

@Truth I admire your refocus on the true purpose behind a powerful sit. @Arik I prefer the Do Nothing sit, as well, and I have a question for some insight; maybe if both of you and anyone else can chime in, of course. So I've been noticing in my recent sets that after 10 to 15 minutes, I reach the calm and peaceful state where I am almost letting go so I may fall into the nothingness and let it consume me. This is like the breaking point most of the time because I will become aware of being at that point and it will anticlimax, bringing me out of my mind, back into a regular state. Question: How do you work on reducing this awareness from awakening after you seem to have already gotten the monkey chatter under control? Is it simply trying not to try, even more so than in the method that is already prevalent to meditation? If so, then damn, I guess J wouldn't be too surprised at such a truth to be confounding. Also, does it make sense to begin with the awareness technique and then directing that awareness into the sensations of the self before letting go of awareness into the do-nothing method. I found myself to naturally fall into this routine.

Tricky question. As far as I know, true self is a true, core vibration of every individual, but at the same time You are the U (you) - niverse and the universe is you so it is indeed a separate concept but acts as a part of the whole (all that is/nothingness/god).

I am searching for my true self for few days now, and I stumbled on a question today, so let's ask it and see if anyone has an idea. Is my true self the same nothingness as your true self? Is the true self separate for each human or is it just 1 universal thing (no-thing)? Any thoughts?

I had when I was getting awake experiences of nothingness (I didn't have any identity, I didn't know who I was) and oneness, very short. But it got me thinking about what @Leo Gura said about going back to the source. I also heard Eckhart Tolle saying the same thing.

Here is a good website that i found, on how to clearing your mind and accept space and nothingness... When Leo talks about clearing the mind, that it takes work is because of the (monkey mind) which is explained on this website below. http://meditation.radiantdolphinpress.com/clearmind.htm When you learn to clear your mind of thoughts, the easier with time it get's, to be able to focus the dark without thinking, which is described to be natural and effortless. Of Course, the beginning is always hard, but it get's easier. Man up and become the actualized self with time! This state if perhaps, so important to me, that i take off at least 4 hours of practise every day and i only just began ... It is still hard but it has certainly gotten easier. Enjoy (y)

@cetus56 @Leo Gura @Emerald Wilkins @Nic To answer your question I would like to go back to my description of my last enlightenment experience. One suggestion: Read this with your heart, not your mind. ... When I asked What does we are one mean ? My awareness was somehow taken back. Before everything that IS came to BE. Before we decided to express to create and enter form. We were “pure awareness, pure love and pure light.” Imagine an immense sea of pure light vibrating as pure love. That is what we were. We were blissful, we were complete, We were ONE !.. We were completely immersed in our being. Completely immersed in our beauty. Out of this ecstasy of joy and love a deep desire emerged and permeated all our being. The desire to share our joy, our beauty everything that we were. But how can we share ourselves with ourselves if we are One ? So we made a plan: We will create the illusion of separation. We will hide ourselves from ourselves only to find ourselves again in absolute beauty. When we find ourselves again we will remember the beauty that we ARE. That will be our gift of love. When we remember who we ARE we will become one again. That will be our promise. This is why everything that IS came to BE. It was an act of Love. How did it actually happen ? How did we create the illusion of separation ? Well this is probably the most beautiful part of the story. Contrary to popular belief we didn't have a “magic wand” in our hand. We couldn't create form out of nothingness. It was only us. So we created it out of our own awareness. Out of ourselves. Awareness can vibrate at any frequency. Everything you see is made of our own awareness vibrating at different frequencies. That is how we created the illusion of separation. We are lost in a sea of vibrating awareness. But it is only an illusion. We are still together. We are still One. Now to answer your question: As you know, the highest frequency is Love. When awareness vibrates as love it radiates pure light. Light is not our essential nature it is the result of our vibration. This is why mystics and theologians refer to God as having a triple nature. Christians “trinity” The father (awareness), The son (Love) and the holy spirit (light). As always I dont want anyone to believe me. This is only an invitation to look inside yourselves and find the truth. Look deeper.. and let me know if this makes sense to you.

@Skenderberg Yes I have had moments where I realize I am nothing, there is nothing, and simultaneously that means I am everything. This is all having to do with consciousness, it has nothing to do with physical things like the stars. This is just for me but I have realized that there is nothing outside of my perception, and then when I think about what I am, ultimately I am just consciousness. Ultimately, everything is consciousness, which on a higher level translates to everything is nothingness. This does not mean that I literally am the stars and palm reading and whatnot and now we can predict my future from them (first of all we need to grasp the concept that there is no future). I believe that that's still thinking inside of the box in my opinion.

The Enlightened Self What are you existentially? You think you are the body and the mind but that is not a correct answer. You are not a human being, you are just a story. The ”You” that you believe you are is just a story. The no self tells you that the self you believe you are is an illusion. When Leo says that there is No Self he doesn’t mean that you don’t exist, what he really mean is that the ego you believe you are is an illusion but there is still a Self but is RADICALLY DIFFERENT. The Self cannot be explained rationally. You exist as Nothingness. Nothingness exist and it’s the only permanent thing that exist and doesn’t change. Tip for Self-Inquiry: When doing it, don’t hang up on the idea that the self doesn’t exist. Drop the notion that you don’t exist and start looking for your True Self. Think like you actually exist but in a way you don’t yet know. If you are not the human body or mind, what are you? True Self: Pure transparent empty awareness/consciousness/presence/spirit. You are not an object, you are empty space that allows stuff to emerge and appear. You are the container of space and time. Features of Awareness: · I am pure presence, rock solid presence. · It is just there · You can shake it · All the attention go to the stuff that are happening within it · It shines light on everything else. It appears to be hidden but it is everywhere. · It is like the light. It is very difficult to get light get brightened by itself. How can awareness be aware of itself? · No shape · No location · No time · Eternal · Infinite (it’s everything) The paradox is that you are Nothing and Everything at the same time. Everything happens in Nothingness. You cannot think the way through this since the mind works with things, and you are Nothing. You cannot create a mental preview of Enlightenment. The paradoxical things is that this is not hidden. It is not located anywhere. You must do self inquiry. Tips - Don’t try to feel or think yourself - Don’t try to locate yourself - Don’t try to experience yourself - Think that you are not a human being - You are not an object, you are in a completely different domain - Nothing is hidden, everything is at plane sight. You are enlightened, but you are not aware of it

Mindfulness is your ability to objectively observe phenomena in the present moment, as they arise, without mental distortion. Awareness/consciousness you will not really understand without an enlightenment experience. What they are cannot be described in words. But if one was to try, the best description I've heard is that awareness/conscious is pure empty knowing, and ultimately absolute nothingness. It's the eternal "space" or dimension within which everything phenomenal becomes known.

I have been making many topics lately but i am running out of stuff to make topic's. In the self-actualization video, that Leo has. He explains, how you can practise self-actualization, through a guided technique of his. He explains, that you have to be aware of the 'nothingness' and go along with the ride, which some people refer to as the (Gate-tunnel) I am going to explain my own insights, from what difference, i have discovered, when doing (Transcendental meditation and Leo's technique = 'be aware of the nothingness) Now, i cannot tell, if this is the case but i can only explain what i have witnessed from doing each practise. Firstly... Let's start out with Leo's technique, which is to dig deep into your subconscious mind and practise the emptiness and if possible, go along with it. I have sometimes but only very briefly been able to go with the ride and that usually lasts a second or two. When i open my eyes by then, i see everything from a 360 degree view. The thing is, when i practised this technique and were able to succeed, then i experienced more love and openness to everyone around me. Unfortunately the feeling would only last = 6 hours perhaps, in a non alcoholic or 'weird feeling' way. The next one; Transcendental meditation. When i practised this one 2x20 min a day, i feel as if i smoked hash... just different thing. The thing about this technique is that, i find this one here to be the more powerful technique toward attaining 'self actualization' Now, i cannot say this for sure. I just have a feeling ... The thing is that, the first one i described 'Leo's technique', is the more difficult technique to master and become enlightened with, but i find it that, it is less damaging than Tm because of the different aftermaths of the two. I am just a beginner but i cannot hide the fact, that i feel the butterflies in my chest 'the bad ones', when i practise Tm. I have been reading about this whole thing of 'chakra energies' and how they can make a man go neurotic. I find Leo's technique to be the most unharmful technique of them all. Is it true? I dont expect a good answer, but if anyone has a clue, i will welcome them . I will hopefully get the answer, that the 'Leo technique' is the safest and slowest option toward attaining enlightenment but i expect nothing in the world of spirituality. Now, i mindful meditate half an hour a day, regardless of the first two techniques mentioned above, to make sure that my progress get's saved ...

What if physics is correct and there are 11 dimensions and this "existance" is the 3rd-dimention plus time(4th-d). The sum total of all dimensions is projecting itself onto this 3rd-D "canvas" and experiencing itself through awareness and through a variety of different organisms that can only be sustained physically within the 3rd-D+time. The human species being just one of many in this vast universe. When physics gets down to the smallest parts that make up the material world, what they find is tiny curled up dimensions called Calabi- Yau manifolds. They are vibrating and have an awareness to them making for a unified wave field. That becomes the basic canvas to this existence. Also It was just proven that gravity waves do exist. Existence is expanding and contracting. Think about what that really means. The physical distance between you and me gets closer and farther all the time. It also warps time so it slows it down and speeds it up. So nothing within existence is stable. Everything whitin existance is a wave motion. All the dimensions exist within the 0th dimension. 0th being a non-space. The alpha -omega (nothingness). I realize that is a lot of science and rational thinking. But I wonder if awareness is simply the sum total of all dimensions projecting and experiencing itself onto the 3rd-D, just as a movie is projected onto a screen. To me that answers a lot of questions about "what am I" and "where am I" from a scientific point of view. Maybe there is nothing " spiritual " about any of this what so ever.

New blog post from my site - http://www.thediamondnet.org/blog/2016/3/28/spiritual-autolysis-existence-and-non-existence Spiritual Autolysis : Existence and Non-Existence So, it is a “goal” of mine to reach enlightenment by changing my relationship to my self-concept and debunk all the falsely held beliefs and assumptions based upon concepts for making things easier to understand to the rational mind. So, I’ve recently been looking into various processes for questioning and deconstructing my beliefs about reality to perceive what is truly there before any assumptions, labels, frameworks, or concepts are placed over top of reality. So, the idea is to perceive of reality before any thought story is created. To see reality as a newborn baby sees it, only with the developmental capabilities of an adult. This deconstruction process reminds me of when I first learned to draw and paint realistically. When I was 15, I took an art class in high school where I learned to switch from thinking about the things that I was drawing non-symbolically to seeing objects as a collection of shapes imbued with colors. So, instead of drawing my idea of a chair or even thinking about drawing a chair at all, I would just draw/paint the actual shapes and colors that I saw in front of me. Having seen through the illusion of the labels put upon visual phenomenon enabled me to make progress quickly, almost over night. It was like a mini-enlightenment for the visual sense. The process of deconstruction of beliefs that I engaged in as a teenage art student, is the same one that I’m engaged in now, only with the goal of enlightenment. So, I need to turn this deconstructive, non-symbolic awareness and questioning toward my ideas and concepts regarding myself and reality. So, I have been using a process called “Spiritual Autolysis” from enlightened author Jed McKenna. In this process you attempt to write something true and then question it and rewrite it until it is true. It is through this dissection process that we can have a real experience of our own being and be ripe for the breakthrough and paradigm shift called enlightenment. So, here is my most recent Spiritual Autolysis session, to explore my unconsciously held ideas and feelings regarding existence and non-existence. Questions: What is existence? What is non-existence? Write something true regarding these questions... 'Things in existence exist. Things that are not in existence don't exist.' or 'Things in existence are. Things not in existence are not.' My definition of existence- Everything that is. Are there things in existence or is there just existence? Not sure Can there be any thing that is a 'not' thing? - Maybe empty space Is empty space a thing or the absence of a thing? - Seemingly the absence of a thing. But I've never experienced this. Even emptiness from my experience contains air. So, empty space is a concept that I have in my mind, and not a thing that I'm experiencing in the now. Does my concept of empty space mean empty space doesn't exist? No. But it means that I don't know Am I experiencing anything right now that doesn't exist? Not sure What is existence? When something is there Where is there? In reality Where is reality? In my subjective experience right now Where is my experience? No particular place. Places exist only within the content of my experience. My experience isn't located anywhere, because anywhere is a concept within my subjective experience. So, is place a 'not' thing? I'm not sure. How do I perceive of place visually? Visually I experience a flat screen of shapes imbued with colors that I interpret based on my previous experiences in the world. How do I perceive of place tactually? I feel sensations that seem to have length, width, and depth which seem to correspond to the sights that I see because of a lifetime of experiencing them in tandem with one another. Either way, I don't know if my sensations have any special relativity to one another. I could perhaps convince myself that some sensations are bigger, smaller, more left, more right than the others. I could also focus on my sensations to the point where they feel like a universe in themselves. Do I perceive of place any other way? No. Only as a thought story Does place have to have an up, down, left, and right? No. Directions are a concept to make space more understandable to the human mind. Can existence happen in a "place" if none of these directions exist? Maybe. Could I narrow down the location of 'my' experiences to a particular point? No. Does this mean that place doesn't exist? Maybe. Rewriting what's true: Non-existence is. Existence has no particular place. If there are no "things" inside of reality and there is no place for reality, does reality exist? Maybe not. Are my perceptions themselves (not the content of perception) objects? No. Objects are content of the perception and not the perception itself. Asked by jjer94 (a friend of mine on the forum I posted this on)- What is the substance of an object? Do objects even exist? So, visually the substance of the object appears to be light. But light itself is just content within the perception. It's another assumption based upon what I "know" about how color is perceived. Tactually, an 'object' is just a sensation. But the sensation related to my experience of the object has nothing to do with my visual experience of the object nor any other sensory perception of the object. What I have is a flat plane of shapes imbued with colors, perceived by no one that is seemingly floating in nothingness. It could just be a screen with seemingly corresponding sensations that are also floating in nothingness So, the biggest ‘aha!’ moment for me was that place doesn’t exist separate from my thoughts regarding ‘place’. I had always known that space had no up, down, left, or right. This is all relational. So, are the concepts of big and small. An atom and a universe are both infinite. But I had assumed that my reality was located someplace as a point within some empty dark field. That in that dark field at a point where my visual, audio, tactual, olfactory, gustatory, and thought perceptions floating there as things. But now it seems like these are sort of a non-point. Sort of like you can’t really find a point on a mathematical graph because a single point has no height, width or depth. It doesn’t really exist even though it seems to have a location and is mathematically viable. But even this is just a metaphor.

No one may be perceiving it, but there's an awareness that perception is happening. What is aware? Is it the 'nothingness'?

So, visually the substance of the object appears to be light. But light itself is just content within the perception. It's another assumption based upon what I "know" about how color is perceived. Tactually, an 'object' is just a sensation. But the sensation related to my experience of the object has nothing to do with my visual experience of the object nor any other sensory perception of the object. What I have is a flat plane of shapes imbued with colors, perceived by no one that is seemingly floating in nothingness. It could just be a screen with seemingly corresponding sensations that are also floating in nothingness.

I just thought I would share my experiences here. Hopefully they might be helpful to somebody on here who’s trying to understand what they are going through. So enlightenment? I watched Leo’s video about spiritual enlightenment. He talked about how it is such a rare thing, maybe only one in a million could achieve it. So, yes, that sounds daunting. It seems like some people have a tendency to lose their minds on their way to enlightenment. So I thought a somewhat different perspective on the subject might be helpful. I think my own experience perhaps isn’t enlightenment but just a stopping point along the journey. I don’t know. Everyone has their own way of labeling their experiences and this is how I see mine. This may be something that is easier for you to wrap your head around than enlightenment. Maybe it is just a story that I tell myself to create drama in my life. You be the judge. Life has no meaning until you give it meaning and all of that. I think my experience is somewhat rare but perhaps not as rare as what Mr. Gura describes as enlightenment. If I’m going to put a label on what happened to me I would say it was me developing my own morality and sense of ethics and where that ultimately led me. I think it is something that a lot of your teachers have experienced, especially the ones that you liked really well. It is perhaps not such an unattainable feat of the mind. So I was a quiet introverted kid. I lived in my own head a lot. I liked to read books. I would find myself lying awake at night thinking about things like – What happens when we die? Do we just disintegrate into nothingness? Can I be okay with the belief that I will one day just disintegrate into nothingness? That’s sort of sad and disturbing to me. What does it all mean? - My mom took us to church I think more to socialize and have a community to fit into rather than through any real need to instill faith in God. My dad had a somewhat strained relationship with his mother, who was very religious, and I think that made him jaded about God and religion. He used to read passages of the Bible and make fun of them. He did not go to church with us. Eventually I started to hate church and began to refuse to go. It was just boring. All through junior high and high school I thought about these types of topics a lot. A lot of the time I would be going about my daily business on autopilot with thoughts like this in the background. Hey, I likely could have spent thousands of hours on this. I don’t know. It was automatic to me. It was just something that I did. I didn’t feel the need to share these ideas. I just thought them. I read a fair amount of the classic books because I had to for classes and some on my own. I liked authors like Mark Twain, Jack London, John Steinbeck, Sinclair Lewis, Charles Dickens, George Orwell, etc. Lord of the Flies comes to mind as an important book in my thoughts. At any rate, what I now realize is that I was drawn toward books in which the characters faced moral dilemmas. If you look at any famous classic book, it probably revolves around some big moral dilemma that the characters are experiencing. One of my teachers would talk about God a lot and I thought he was kind of kookie, but I liked him. There was another teacher who I now realize seemed to be sizing me up on the moral development scale. I remember him asking me “What would happen if you turned in your assignment late?” As I was always waiting until the last second to turn things in. So the year was 1995, I was in college and taking a couple of history classes and a class about the philosophy of morality. I was an introvert and never fit in to the college scene very well. I was more immersed in my studies than the average college student I would guess. But I was studying all of this stuff, Greek and Roman history, Socrates, Charlemagne, World War I and II and it just seemed to me that everything was starting to make sense and come together cohesively in a meaningful pattern. History wasn’t just a series of random events but almost seemed orchestrated and moving in a direction of greater freedom and social justice. Political systems were becoming less and less authoritarian as people gained more and more power. I felt so inspired and uplifted by these ideas and couldn’t sleep at night. I was just thinking and thinking about all of these ideas and trying to put all of the pieces together. The philosophy of morality seemed to fit perfectly into the paradigm that I was forming. I remember reading Kant and his ideas about why human beings should have value. Why should we have human rights and a respect for life? Because human beings were endowed by their creator with these rights. If there is no God than human life has no value and we’re just a bunch of sacks of meat. I’m sure you could argue against this all day, but this was my uplifting realization. During this time I was thinking a lot and just didn’t feel like eating so I think I lost 20 pounds, and I wasn’t heavy to begin with. At any rate, I was thinking all of these thoughts one night and it just hit me that there must be a God and I felt this shift in me like my ego and the part of me that wanted to be selfless came together and something entered my heart. I don’t want it to sound like another BS religious experience. It was a profound shift in me. Unfortunately, I was still very much me, an awkward introverted girl trying to navigate my college experience and not really doing a very good job of it. I felt like wow, I need to do something and take action on this. I tried to talk to people about it and of course they just thought I was nuts. I dropped out of school and pissed off my parents royally and made a whole slew of strategic blunders. I tried to find someone to give me guidance, but I realized I was on my own. I had to figure out my own path and I did a piss poor job of it. I didn’t really heed to call to go on my own hero’s journey, as they say, and wound up going back to school. I didn’t have the skillset to deal with my experience and didn’t find anyone to guide me to a better path. So this became a big source of shame for me. This experience I had and couldn’t really relate to anyone I knew about. I felt like I was failing the world in a sense. I wasn’t ready to be Gandhi or Martin Luther King or anyone awesome like that. I’m not going to relate my whole lame life story after that point. It is not impressive. At some point I started to learn about the dark side, conspiracy, 911 etc. and then my life took on a whole new level of effed upness. I’m not going to relate that story here. But this phenomenon is something that is understood and studied in the psychology field. I’m no expert on the topic. I do recall one of my high school teachers handing out a worksheet about the levels of moral development and moral reasoning. Lawrence Kohlberg is a psychologist who spent a fair amount of time studying the subject and breaking down the various levels and what type of moral reasoning is behind them. You can size yourself up on the scale. So thanks Mr. Leo for your videos. I am started to see the light I think at the age of 40, yikes. Yes, we all need to grow the fuck up and meditate and figure our shit out. So enlightenment sounds like an attempt to bliss out of reality. What I experienced is not that. It is something that ultimately created more suffering in my life. I still had a lot of layers of crud over my shiny authentic self as Leo would say. I’m finally finding ways to lift those layers of crud. It’s a slow process and the hero’s journey still seems like something I still don’t really want to take on. I have to or I will remain miserable and un-actualized. That’s all that I’m going to write for now. Hopefully this will give you something to ponder on your journey to enlightenment. Anyway, here is some info about moral development Levels and Stages of Moral Development Level 1: Preconventional Morality The first level of morality, preconventional morality, can be further divided into two stages: obedience and punishment, and individualism and exchange. Stage 1: Punishment- Obedience Orientation Related to Skinner’s Operational Conditioning, this stage includes the use of punishment so that the person refrains from doing the action and continues to obey the rules. For example, we follow the law because we do not want to go to jail. Stage 2: Instrumental Relativist Orientation In this stage, the person is said to judge the morality of an action based on how it satisfies the individual needs of the doer. For instance, a person steals money from another person because he needs that money to buy food for his hungry children. In Kohlberg’s theory, the children tend to say that this action is morally right because of the serious need of the doer. Level 2: Conventional Morality The second level of morality involves the stages 3 and 4 of moral development. Conventional morality includes the society and societal roles in judging the morality of an action. Stage 3: Good Boy-Nice Girl Orientation In this stage, a person judges an action based on the societal roles and social expectations before him. This is also known as the “interpersonal relationships” phase. For example, a child gives away her lunch to a street peasant because she thinks doing so means being nice. Stage 4: Law and Order Orientation This stage includes respecting the authorities and following the rules, as well as doing a person’s duty. The society is the main consideration of a person at this stage. For instance, a policeman refuses the money offered to him under the table and arrests the offender because he believes this is his duty as an officer of peace and order. Level 3: Postconventional Morality The post-conventional morality includes stage 5 and stage 6. This is mainly concerned with the universal principles that relation to the action done. Stage 5 : Social Contract Orientation In this stage, the person is look at various opinions and values of different people before coming up with the decision on the morality of the action. Stage 6 : Universal Ethical Principles Orientation The final stage of moral reasoning, this orientation is when a person considers universally accepted ethical principles. The judgment may become innate and may even violate the laws and rules as the person becomes attached to his own principles of justice.

@dominic1 This is the kind of question that if you ask 100 ppl, you'll probably get 100 different answers. No two will be exactly alike because it is all illusion of mind and the way mind will interpret that experience will be different for each. That being said, the first time I let go of my ego self and had an awakening "experience" it was quite dramatic. Conscionsceness was no longer localized at my body location. It was filling the room and became externalized. That was VERY different to experience for the first time. There was a distinct and sudden "shift" in consciousness. Just as if you changed the channel on a radio and tuned to another station than the one you normally listen to in daily life. For me it was like discovering there was more than just one station to tune to. It was like tuning to a "universal" frequency of pure consciousness. I became just a very silent observer in the background to what was happening. I flowed into the consciousness that was outside of my body location and was suddenly floating in an ocean of pure silent bliss and stillness. My interpretation of that was that I entered another dimension, it was so distinct from my usual awareness. Again that's just the best way I can describe it using words and mind. I refer to all this using the word "I" just for the sake of conversation. I'm not "enlightened" but I do understand that all this is "Maya" that is happening within my mind. My interpretation of nothingness is there is no experience of that. No "heavenly" feelings. You don't exist when nothingness happens so it can't be described at all. It is a total blank space within awareness. It's a total non-experience. Not even a silent observer is present experiencing a state of bliss so there is no memory of that at all..... So I guess to sum it all up, we all have "awakening experiences" until we get to the point where the "I" vanishes and than there is not even an experience to be had of any kind because there is no experiencer remaining. That's my illusion!

There are levels of mind. Enlightenment (Nirvana) is the highest level of mind. In Highest level, mind stop existing. Not even awareness. That's why enlightenment is referred to as nothingness. In babies, mind exist. They feel, know, and want. That's why they are obviously not enlightened. In Buddhist scriptures, ego started to develop when the egg is started to fertilize. I'm just sharing what I know though. Ego is not only selfishness but also not knowing and lack of awareness. Babies has all of those characteristics. They don't know anything. They are also selfish in their own ways such as they only know what they want and can't think for others.

This Adyashanti guy has a very distorted understanding of contrast and change and referential systems (reading through the transcript of the vid) If this is their view enlightenment, then it's just another word for disassociation from change. Lol, ahhhh, I see what these guys are doing. They are stressed/pressured, seek distance/disassociation for relief, get the distance, which temporarily provides the feeling of relief because it's a contrast from the previous stressed state, try to hold onto it as long as possible, then fall back out of into the real world, and then repeat the cycle. It's just escapism, disassociating from everything but the contrast of what's being pushed away to feel relief from pressure. Actually, he doesn't seem to understand the meanings of a lot of the words he uses. Of course his disassociative state is an altered state of consciousness, all conscious changes and alters. If his supposedly unaltered state of consciousness was unalterable, then he wouldn't fall out of it. Everything would be in that state if it was unalterable, but nothing is. You're eye doesn't see all as one, it sees different colors, it contracts or expands based on different light intensities... this shit is out of touch with reality. And his whole nonsense about "Aha" moments lessening over time, of course it does! If you're having an "Aha" moment about the same damn thing over and over again. You get "used to it", because the contrast or degree/distance of difference between the Aha moment and your baseline has shortened creating a lesser intensity of feeling. It's like putting warm hands in room temperature water, little difference of change, versus putting cold hands in warm water, with a bigger difference of change. The degree of difference creates the intensity, but he's too blind to nuance to understand that. Then he goes on to talk about how "The egoic state of consciousness actually takes a great amount of energy and a great amount of effort. Since it’s not true, it has to keep building this falseness constantly. Otherwise, it will end. Because what is not true ends as soon as it’s not being fueled." What a bunch of nonsense, he doesn't even realize it, but in his backwards ass way he shows how unhealthy this disassociative practice is. To maintain, is to care, to practice taking care and looking after something. Life has to be maintained, balance has to be maintained, this earth has to be maintained, anything built, anything connected has bonds that have to be maintained or else they collapse into a lower threshold of life/energetic activity. What's funny to me, is that his body keeps fighting him and dropping out of this "oneness" because it's trying to take care of itself, while he fucks around with this practice of destroying capabilities this body has generated and maintained over the course of it's life. Poor guy, he doesn't understand he's doing shit backwards. He thinks the nature of everything is nothingness, because he numbed his ability to feel change, but it also limited his perceptional and referential abilities, but he can't see that. So all he does see... is lack of activity and he's so fucking arrogant to think the rest of the universe is feeling that exactly like him. Kind of like a baby, with the inability to differentiate experience going on outside the scope of his current focus. So with this very limited, empty experience he then goes on to believe the universe is really like he's seeing it inside his head, when if he stepped outside it would be very apparent that the universe or reality is not empty. It's filled with a lot of shit, as a matter of fact the sun is currently raining down photons all over the damn place and their bouncing off of shit allowing me to see and distinguish between different things.

Born enlightened? After I started reading this forum, I kinda don't know what people mean by ENLIGHTENMENT anymore. People are having different opinions on enlightenment so to answer this "Born enlightened?" question, I might have to ask what do you mean when you say enlightenment? What is enlightenment to you? What do you think enlightenment would be like? To me, enlightenment is being in state of nothingness. Mind does not exist in enlightened state. Not even awareness. Babies feels, want, and know. I'm not just saying this out of book or hearsay. Babies are not enlightened because the ego (sense of self) is formed at the moment the egg in the womb is fertilized. Not only big animals have this ego (sense of self), little animals in our bodies such as cells also have ego.

@abrakamowse What? Never heard of nothingness. Its a religious term isnt it? I've had experiences where I see the perfection of the human race. For about 2 minutes. Then it goes away. Is that "nothingness" then?

@Nomad Is Nothingness real?

@brianman3 Hi, I don't think anybody can help you if you don't tell us what your problem is specifically. What is it you feel you need to express that you imagine is going to be so badly received? True self and false self: A false self is where you identify with an issue so much that it becomes all consuming, runs your life, runs your thoughts feelings behaviours. "Nothingness" isn't a self, it's an organising aspect that allows all your different aspects of your personality to harmonise and function cohesively as a whole. If you want to get a quick introduction to your true Self and what it feels like without having to do years of meditating then try "Big Mind" process. http://bigmind.org/ Do the process and talk to the aspect of yourself that wants to express itself. It will have a healthy side and an unhealthy side. You might only be aware at this point of it's unhealthy side, so it's probably a good idea that you are keeping it under wraps and are afraid to express it. If you do find that your expression should be socially accepted then finding like minded people and pushing for social acceptance is a healthy way to raise awareness of your right to express this part of you. Homosexuality has travelled a long road. In 1973 homosexualty was still classified as a mental illness in the Diagnositc and Statistical Manual for Mental Disorders http://www.psychiatry.org/psychiatrists/practice/dsm.

In French, "Bonjour" literally means "Good Day". And when I was young, that was a problem for me. Because I wanted to say Hello to people, without necessarily wishing them a good day. What if the person's was a murderer ? What if their "Good Day" was spent abusing children, or manipulating people. Why would I wish them a good day ? Basically, I was so obsessed about honesty that it became hard for me to interact normally with people. For me, small talk wasn't a "small" problem at all. But a few years ago, I finally found a solution to it. I had to work on my personal dictionary. I had to split my definition of truth in two parts. Practical Truth and Metaphysical Truth. Practical Truths are the useful ones. The ones people use in their day to day life. The ones that are "true enough" to help you get tangible results in life. For example : My laptop is in front of me right now. This is true enough. Sure, if you gave me 30 minutes and a joint, I could find a hundred ways to make that statement philosophically debatable or scientifically inaccurate. But if you wanted to borrow my laptop, I probably wouldn't answer "I don't really know what a laptop is. Or if any of us really exist. Or what borrowing even means". I would probably say "Yeah, here it is". Which is not metaphysically accurate, but still practically accurate. Metaphysical Truths are the ones that survive any kind of questioning. They are absolutely and fundamentally true. Unfortunately, during my own pursuit of truth, I reached a point where nothing is certain enough to be classified as a Metaphysical Truth. So I can't give examples. Even statements like "Something exists" doesn't seem solid enough for me. But some religious folks might include "God exists". Some spiritual folks might include "The real self is nothingness". Some scientific folks might include "Evolution is real". No problem with that... I want to hear your thoughts on the subject ! What do you classify as Metaphysical Truth ? Do you split Practical Truths in subcategories, depending on their level of consciousness, or the level of personal development needed to access them ? Do you see totally different levels than the two I proposed ? Do you think about those things as much as I do ? And finally, I wish you a good day everyone ! Even the murderers...

Nothingness loops back into existence to become one thing happening and completes the circle? If that's what you mean by looping, I totally agree.