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I have tried probably every drug available except heroin because I don't like needles. I think that drugs has nothing to do with enlightenment. Enlightenment is all about getting rid of the ego, connect with your inner body and with the timeless spaceless Being. Nothingness, etc. All psychedelic drugs enforce your permanence in the world of Form, it's superficial, it's visual, it's artificial. Drugs are at the lower scale of the happiness spectrum, it's a shallow experience that if the source is good last for 12 hrs. My longest trip was with LSD for 12 hours. I have also been doing coke and alcohol for 3 days without sleeping. Coke is Ego food. Weed makes you think a LOT as well. Nothing could be more far away of enlightenment than thinking. That being said I don't regret have trying them, i had very very fun moments with them, and also helped me realize how a waste of time money and brain cells they can be. Also very easy to get addicted. And addiction is the exact opposite of Willpower and self control. On the other hand, some ppl need to hit rock bottom in order to straighten their life. The Buddha was an addict and he was tempted by his own demons during his enlightenment journey. So maybe there is some relationship between drugs and enlightenment. That could be an interesting video haha cheers

I just want to share this, it was a very brief moment of "consciousness" but it was real... or at least it was and is a memory now. But it happened just today and well, the experience was astonishing, for i took a nice warm cup of coffee, and the energy it enabled me was honestly unlike any! I felt like i got out of the script of life and really truly experienced and expanded NOTHINGNESS. I was feeling so good, so great, the vibe was similar to a euphoric moment in life. I do have to say, words can only scratch the surface, and for the gut feeling was pure excitement! I didn't know what to do, or how to react, so i just simply enjoyed my moment. It was a really awesome high, and the low was not to bad for it's still very nice. I highly recommended coffee!

Just the other day I watched this video from Matt Khan, in which he discusses the breath as a pointer to your real nature. Along my spiritual journey I find myself working a lot with pointers to dig very deep in my own existential nature. They seem to be like constant holes that are completely ignored by most people because of their seeming simplicity. However, I found that they can be your greatest teachers if you spend some effort checking them out. So, I want you to shift the way of seeing yourself with this post. For real. When watching Matt's video he just did that for me and it brought me within two days to some new realizations + a lot of silence and peace, so I have to let you in on this. Decide for yourself. Basically, as we ask "Who am I?", "What am I?" we are looking for a constant notion of ourself. For something that was and is there all the time. So we start with thoughts, feelings, emotions, the body etc. and seem to not come too far with that. Even if we have some realizations we are still stuck inside our head. So what is actually constant about ourselves? Maybe listening, the essence or nature of perceptions, probably a few other things but something that defines our life from birth to death is simply Breath. We start with breathing as our first move in life and we will end it with the last one - poetically saying. Have you noticed the way you breathe is directly correlated with how you feel, how and how much you think, whether you are in flow or not, whether you are in a deep stage of samadhi or hyperventilating in the name of fear and anxiety? Stop for a second and check yourself out. Isn't that strange? So Matt illustrates in his video kinda artfully that we are our breath. Not existentially of course, but as I pointer to who we really are. Kind of like a door to nothingness - an entry point to your real nature. He also makes the point that you - as your breath - are perfectly awake, enlightened - complete by nature. You go in and out whatever happens. From the day all of this starts to the day you die. And so he gives the picture that every thought, all perceptions, all feelings, every kind of form that we sense is nothing but a whim of the breath. As if you are the breath and everything that comes up is just another incarnation, another form, another anything that lives from breathing in until breathing out. And so the world you see, live in and perceive is just "the game of the breath", "the colorful illustration of the breath". Now - and I invite you to invest one hour to get this realization from Matt personally in his video - I was struck by this so much that I had this sudden change of mind that if I'm actually just the breath everything is just fine. Because I'm complete and all the thoughts and perceptions are just the breath' whim of entertaining itself and the world. Yesterday and today I tended to consciously breath a lot and so deepened and slowed the pace of my breath and I felt such a great harmony and peace inside of me. Because I always had in mind that everything I think is just another whim of my breath. And my breath just lets it live for another 2-3 seconds. Well, don't get me wrong here. You are existentially a lot more then your breath of course. But the breath seems to be a direct door to what you really are because it was there even before you became conscious and it will be there until you die. So, maybe it is not such a bad idea to stick yourself to your breath and get real close with it, because it seems that this is the regulator, the point that from breath to breath brings everything - you currently think you are - up to existence and lets it die a few seconds later. Maybe there is some wisdom to find at that door, don't you think? I hope I could inspire you guys. Let me know what you think about it and do yourself a favor and watch Matt's video about this, it brought me to a new place I couldn't see before. Also, think about how your life would change if you'd be every breath consciously. You can still think, do everything as you want but you are every breath. What would change? How would you feel? What would be the pace of your breath? How much tension would be left inside your body? How complete would you feel? Let me know. And don't forget. Everything I just pointed out is just an idea. Nothing more. But as you tend to identify yourself with more and more ideas, maybe you want to chose one that sits a little nearer to the door of Truth then being fed up in never ending thoughts. Cheers to you,

How to access the World of the unmanifested and why should we attempt to do it? If we were born in the world of Form and time why should we escape to the world of the Unmanifested, the silence, nothingness and the timeless space. What's in it for us? Also how to connect with the inner body and Why (again). What happens with the inner body after the physical body dies?

When i was started education on college,i also started to watch self Actualization,and i was really motivated to do stuff. My fitness improves,grades , level of happiness are pretty good,and i was pleased.Also i was excited about life purpose ,and i was planing to do lot of work about that part,but also to enjoy life, learn about sexuality and approach lot of girls(maybe find one girlfriend that i can fall in love with),travel ,socialize more(party, going out, or some other activities) and dont have any regrets ,because im young now,now or never...But.... Leo started videos about enlightenment,and talking about no-self,and that sex,party,etc..-isnt good ,and havent value(but that is for my age 21, really important, but that isnt my main focus)... Why also have life purpose ,because i dont exist, how can i know what it is because i dont know who am I( that empty space)... and,Buddha sad that you dont need any wishes ,or something that you want,just enjoy...... Now , im demotivated ,deppressed, cant do anything, dont have girlfriend, everything is pointles, i have no ego and when i die,no one will die(how can i contemplate death,to motivate my self)...for example ,I was training soccer,and that was really important to me, i loved soccer so much... but that is extreme hard,if you want to be good at it, sometimes you just want to give up but i always talked to myself that Im the best,and my ego wanted to be best ,that was my will power ,not things like im nothingness ,never mind, just enjoy ,... Please help,maybe im wrong, but im in tuff situation,i dont want to waste my time,that thought that im nothing really demotivates me,and i think that you cant kill ego,it is nice to be less egoist,but without ego i dont have real motivation. Sorry for my english,not good at it .

Don't forget that: The emotion that motivated you to start this thread - is the activity of mind (of human). Thoughts that you wrote here - are the activity of mind. Your relief - activity of mind. Your conclusion that some kind of "problem" is "solved" - activity of mind. Your search - activity of mind. Confusion - activity of mind. Any ideas of "external" or "internal" or the abscence of both or whatever, any kind of ideas, conclusions, memories, thoughts, feelings - mind. What reads this and understands these symbols - mind. Even the thought about "mind" is just another idea, another object. Knowing and not knowing - mind. Thought that "you are nothingness" - it is just another thought, another object, mind again. It is human who is thinking. What is the most real right now, right here? Not an object. But the most real in the most now? Riiight now. Not a thought, not an experience, not a vision, not a feeling. I don't know, this is the question that I ask myself.

This sounds very philosophical, not my strong spot but this is interesting. A thought is energy, its energy in your mind and body that you put into language and becomes a thought. If you hold a certain type of energy for long you will have thoughts that come one after the other that are on the same energy level. I like what you said. From my perspective - if thoughts are energy (like anything else that is physical) then when it fades (or there isnt too much energy to distract you from who you really are) then there is nothingness. But then again, energy never really dies, it just takes on another form. So are we energy or nothingness? I'm confusing myself now

@DizIzMikey Nothingness. The boundary between the internal and external is an illusion. We just say those things because of the limitations of language. There is only one being.

Empirically, I do not exist because I cannot be a thought, if you notice each thought fades into the oblivion, than another thought pops up, and than another, but at no time do all the thoughts exist at the same time, just a thought after another thought, so where am I? Am I a thought? I cannot be a thought because it fades away, anything that fades empirically cannot exist, because I am looking at the evidence at hand from within, nothing else nothing more. What I'm wondering is if a thought exists for a moment because it does appear, but than does it die? Yes.. I have concluded that a thought exists, than it dies, but it does not mean it has to poise truth, because it doesn't, the foundation empirically from within, when a thought fades is... nothingness, now to only stay with the nothingness.

A self is just a label, a concept. No external factor can change that you don't exist. As for proving this is the case, I say just keep doing the enlightenment work. I'm not enlightened, but on good faith, I'll go ahead and say it will make sense when you are truly awakened. After all, nothing exists besides nothingness.

My not-so-scientific proof against free will...look at these penguins. Would you say they have free will? Is it plausible to think each one collaborated and in an orderly fashion they schemed this ingenious tactic to keep warm? Or could we say, the nothingness/energy which makes up EVERYTHING, including US, is at work? If the penguins don't have free will, why would we? Why does man consider himself separate and special vs the rest of nature? We aren't separate in reality. Only in our minds, which is why we don't realize we don't actually exist. That is the illusion. Not having free will is okay because, we never had it in the first place. Just like once someone becomes enlightened, they realize they never existed. Again, nothing I wrote here was by MY choice. Although it seems like it, in reality, it just happens. It arises from nothingness.

Nothing outside awareness. Inside is not emptiness, not Nothingness. Hard to describe it. A No-thingness, a spaciousness. Something that's not a thing.

<--[02-29-16]--> EXP +100 Today was fairly smooth. I had a lot of college work to do today. I managed get myself to control my emotional self that hates everything to do with college and actually motivate myself to actually finishing the coding work required. The deadline for said work was today. Even though I still needed to spend some hours in lectures, I still had enough free time to code my way to finishing the requirement. So that made me feel a bit better for the day. I spent a lot of time in my head thinking about the concept of 'existential nothingness'. Yes, I'm still listening to those online lectures about enlightenment. I focused a bit on mindfulness practice just trying to be experience. Of course, thoughts and imaginations keep arising. I'm still very early in this journey, can't expect anything big yet. Although, I find Moojiji's spiritual lectures very entertaining. I first talked about this same lecture in Entry #02-22-16 by the way if you're interested in watching it yourself, very profound. King: "Nothing is higher than God!" Yogi: "Ah yes, but I am that." ^ Just an obscure reference from the video So that was my day, I liked this day. Not bad. Kinda felt good looking back. Nothing significant really happened but it was more positive than the average day I've ever had. Oh yes, I've decided to also start learning Japanese as it's a little ambition of mine. I've actually already started learning Japanese Hiragana symbols last year but that was very early in my personal development journey (I started last year so it was very very early). But I still didn't have the emotional framework to be able to remain emotionally invested for a really long time and so many other things happened and I eventually forgot about it. I've decided to start again from Lesson 1. I want to see how far I can go this time.

I see some people here claim science is no different from every other perspective. But I want to ask you, what is your real motive for taking such a neutral position? saying that science is 'only' a perspective. What are you trying to achieve by bringing down science? Do you want to sit zazen 24/7 and "become the perception" like a tree? A mindless perception that just 'is' like a plant. Really? is that all you got? How about the universe that needs to be explored? How about physics and math, how about countless other solar systems we know nothing about. Are we actually putting the state of 'empty mind' above a rational/analytical mind that analyzes things, measures things. This state of nothingness-awareness you are all so proud of looks to me more like ignorance than self-actualization. I mean yes, the fundamental nature of reality indeed may be nothing. But it doesn't mean you have to give up your rational capacity and live like a plant. Because giving up on your rational capacity is a mental suicide. We are born with an intelligence that is naturally creative. Is naturally curious, and is fascinated by the world. And then people who are so dramatically focused on enlightenment say "Don't think. Don't use your reason! Contemplate nothingness." So the alternative to a rational mind is this.. mystical, spiritual model. And this destructive philosophy is designed to take what is the most basic about the human experience, which is perception and turn the perception into the identity. Totally DENYING the rational capacity that organizes what is perceived, and then interacts with it intelligently. You see, the world makes sense! We live in incredible times. A lot of the leg-work has been done. So what would you like to create? What would you really like to do here? But sticking with perception only and saying that nothingness is your identity... Seriously, Just imagine the difference between a culture that idolizes staring at a wall and not moving for hours, and a culture that idolizes thinking and rational capacity. Who built the world? It is the people who did the thinking. Measuring. Figuring out how everything works. Who built the airplanes? Was it the people thinking, or was it the people attempting to escape the existence by defaulting to perception? 'defaulting' to consciousness.. Because that's the invitation to spirituality. It is to give up your intelligence, give up your capacity to think critically and become a vegetable. And even though that vegetable is relaxing, it's suicide! And if you don't care about living then that makes sense. That's why spirituality exists, because existence is terrifying. And since you don't want to THINK, and Examine and investigate and use your intelligence to overcome and deal with the problems in life, then you look for some spiritual 'answer', to do that for you.. and it works! Because its suicidal. You don't want to exist anyway so rather than taking courage to kill yourself you go towards spirituality, so that you can live a mental death. You can commit mental suicide.. Perception is nothing. Life is literally nothing without this rational capacity. Your capacity to choose, remember, analyze. That is what creates the world. And the fight you are up against, is the continual attempt to trade your intelligence for some kind of solution. And yet you don't realize that your natural intelligence IS your solution! The only problem with that is... You HAVE to THINK. You have to put effort in it. spiritual: - I am the perception.... rational: - yeah but we need to fix the refrigerator. spiritual: - you'll have to call somebody else. rational:- well how are you gonna eat? spiritual:- I don't know.. I am the perception... food will just come.. rational:- oh the roof is leaking! spiritual:- well that's okay I'll just perceive the water dripping on me... rational:- But you're gonna get hypothermia! spiritual:- It's okay... I'll just be cold. I am perception. <--- Nobody actually lives this way! Because we're REALLY intelligent. So perception is already the case, you're here. You exist. Now, what do you want to create? What do you want to explore? what are you curious about. The only problem with any of these questions is that in order to investigate them you HAVE TO THINK.. And you can. You can sit down and figure anything out. It might not be easy at first, but that's what learning is. You can do anything you put your mind to, INCLUDING commit mental suicide.. Through spiritual ideas of 'perception is my identity. I am nothingness.' It's the simplest way to feel like everything's okay. And it doesn't work, unless you want to die. Because it is mental suicide.. So please say no more about how science and reason is 'only' a perspective. It is much more than that. Science and reason is the fundamental essence of our existence on this planet as rational, intelligent organisms. And by downgrading the importance of rational capacity you are destroying the very essence of what it means to be an intelligent human being. That's all I had to say. You are free to share your thoughts...

But how do you accomplish anything here? Just say you have no free will and surrender? In theory I understand. How to live that I don't understand. Im so tired of not knowing who I am or what construction I am. It's like I know Im living a false reality, I know emotions are from ego, I know all these things. I don't know how to live these things and not make life choices. They say to stay authentic to yourself and who you are. I try but I still don't know who I am, when I get to trying to really figure it out I think, I am actually no one anyways I am just a bunch of nothingness. How do I find "I" if "I" don't even exsist.

"We are all One" 1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GUfk2QnUfQc&index=1&list=PLDF642D086CDD2711 2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y0OexbB-EXM&index=61&list=WL (the part with the particle experiment where it show how everything is truly one) 3. At the very core of our being we are all identical, in a way being the same is almost like being one but let's take it one step farther than that, what if we are not just the "Same" in the sense that we're identical but that we all share the exact same core except we can't see it on this 3 dimensional reality. Imagine a Light Orb and there's a bunch of 2d lines going out from it and we're all individual lines but we're all that exact same light orb, aka we're all one. In this example you can imagine that the fourth dimension is time (although I'm not sure if that'd be correct but that doesn't really matter for now) and we're all arriving from the beginning from the same "nothingness" but we think we are different from each other because in this 3d world we can only see the so called "present" and thus we can't see how we are all one on this level unless we bring that "Blast from the Past" in to the future (or vice versa as everything is cycling, waiting to return to source) to light up the world. 4. You contain the entire cosmos within you a thousand times over because the world is holographic (that one should also be explained in the second link)

There can actually be nothing in something else. This is all just your mind separating things, creating more and more tiny little objects and interplays of these objects to get a picture of the world. Me, as an computer scientist, we always try to define everything very correctly and narrowed down to the point. This is all good and nice to get shit working well in a conceptual nature like machines but this is not how the actually world is - I guess. The actual world could be probably more viewed as a big intermingle of one big object - if we want to use this label. So this object is me, you, everything in between, space every form of space and even nothingness. All one big thing. That's why there is no actual "watcher" in your head. It's more like that you have such an great inter-mingle in your head that it is even able to create new inter-mingles - called thoughts. But of course we get all mixed up by this because 99.9% of the people trap themselves in their own realities. It's kinda funny actually, if you look at it this way. We are such an "advanced" peace of the big inter-mingle, we can't even believe that we are part of it. So, point here is: Don't get caught up in concepts. The content of thoughts won't help you do get deeper to the roots. Kinda look more of what the essence of - what you are looking at - is. Get it as an intuitive perception, not as a narrowed down defined peace of the cake. Cuz It's just all cake. Thanks for this interesting conversation any ways, @Emerald Wilkins

You maybe wanna look into the nature of space. Your starting point could be something like "Space is the potential room that gives forms the ability to be born, exist and then die." That is really general and abstract. You can go very deep on several components of this statement. I personally find space extremely interesting and I often try to get a sense of it in meditation. What is space really? And then, if space exists there must be the other side of space. The opposite, because everything seems to come two-sided. So, what is non-space? What is non-existence and how could you possible wrap your head around something that by nature is not something. Is space a form itself or is it the place that allows forms to be? Is space 3-dimensional or does it even go higher in dimensions? Have you ever thought about that? I think that space itself, the relationship between existence and nothingness, is the starting point of all spirituality. How I see it, this is the point that allows spirituality to even be a possibility. Very interesting stuff. Is our world - how we can sense it - just a little tiny bit of an never ending fractal of possible realities all existing simultaneously and at the same "place"?

I believe the question is what do you need self help for. If its success and money then put emphasis on learning how to be successful. If you want to 'ascend' to a higher plane of existence, realize the whole nothingness philosophy and live in the woods, learn the things required for it. But i'd suggest you focus on the first one. But I have to say, that there is only 1 step separating theory and action. All you have to do is put all your mind to it, and make that step come true.

Yeah. Totally true. People just switch their vocabulary but underderlying is the same structure. It is possible with every concept, also the "neti neti" approach. "Everything is illusion", "i am the whitness", "i am", "nothingness", "emptiness", "unity", "Self", "no self", "here and now", "love", "bliss", "be still", "you are that"... Different traditions have different words and concepts which can be taught to a parrot which doesn't render him awake. Even though "he is also the one". Of course. "Have you read the bible?" today is like "Have you read 'I am That'?". And "have you heard of Jesus?" now is almost like "have you heard of Ramana?". Expressions and pointers of truth can quickly become just concepts if not spoken from truth. But they all can be amazing pointers if they are spoken from truth.

After thinking about the whole enlightenment thing for a while I've come to the conclusion that it's not for me. It seems interesting. I just don't see the point. I'm a great person. I'm not experiencing suffering. I'm developing. I'm working on my career. I dont see the point of getting in touch with the nothingness. If nothing has meaning and The real me doesn't exist and I'm fooling my self right now with my thoughts thinking that I'm who I am so I think I just want to live with fooling myself. Meaning as long as I know in the back of my mind that its not true so I might as well enjoy life and forget about trying to "experience" the "no-self". If life is meaningless and empty so why not just ride this horse of a body till I die at a hopefully very old age? For get about meditating and forget about trying to realize I don't exist..I'de rather live with the illusion of self at least for while Im here. It seems dumb to try to connect with the fact that I dont exist...seems like Im loosing valuable illusion time. If its true that when I die I will be that same nothingness that I am now without the illusion of the body...I might as well live out this illusion to the fullest and then be this nothingness when I die. Why should I try to be enlightened now? For the feeling...well it cant be for the feeling because its not a feeling according to what people are saying...its just plain conscientiousness...not my conscientiousness..just conscientiousness...but whats the point in that...Leo will say..."point? points are made up and don't exist...your ego is trying find a point" or something like that. I think I'de rather be a chimp. The illusion seems better than enlightenment. The enlightenment seems like darkness. Sound like a plan? Who's with me?

@emerald :Also, my perceptions aren't being perceived. Perceiving gives the implication that there is a sense mechanism to pick up on an external phenomenon. Perceptions are perhaps things-in-themselves. There is no perception happening. There is just content. Yes, there nothing perception, and this "nothingness" is the ground of all space -time, matter, molecules etc. This is the True Existential Self:)

I'm so happy to hear that. I think the emptiness/non-meaning words tends to block out love because how can there be nothingness, unconditional love, and particular loving relationships. It all seems very antithetical. But Jed is right in saying that all you should want from the experience is truth. Because all other notions, except radical truth, can block out the experience of enlightenment. If you come to it expecting unconditional love, you'll never get there, because you're preferring a future moment which is antithetical to unconditional love... because it's a condition. So, I think Jed omits it on purpose, much in the way a Zen Master remains reticent.

You should read the "On Having No Head" thread. You realize that you are not living in consciousness..... Because YOU ARE consciousness. You are not just the emptiness, or the nothingness in the room, you are the empty space and nothingness everywhere. You are the Universe.

I would like to share the physical symptoms I had a year and a half ago during the period I had total shift in my consciousness and realization. I'm sharing this because I was somehow confused when these symptoms first happen, but let please not fall into the illusion of having these symptoms if you haven't encountered any, we all naturally has a tendency to imagine when we read about any symptoms. just be conscious about what you read here and be honest with yourself about what you feel. Some of my symptoms are referred from Stewart Wilde Audio book (Journey Beyond Enlightenment), Adyashanti talks, and few websites/articles here and there, and I was able to refer to it within my personal experience. Please don't exactly believe what I'm writing here, keep in mind that some of these symptoms can be serious physical illness or deficiencies. This DOESN'T mean not to check the doctor! 1 - Twitches all over the body, Especially around the lower leg, At first I thought I might be having signs of ALS or Parkinson disease, I went to check several doctors, and they diagnosed it as stress.. that was nearly one and a half years ago, well if there was anything serious I think I should be on a wheel chair by now. 2 - Subtle numbness/tingling all over, it feels like little stars dancing around my body, especially around in my head and skull, although accompanied with comfort, they did not feel like serious illness or damage. I asked two doctors, one asked me if I took any drugs, I said no, later on they both diagnosed it as stress, although I was so far from being stressed (at least I think). 3 - Energetic electric shocks while trying to sleep: Sleeping patterns totally been messed up, I don’t feel that I need to sleep whenever I want to sleep, there is some energy that keeps waking me up each time I try to sleep. I couldn’t force myself to sleep, I was more energetic for doing something I have been wishing to do during my day, when I talked to a doctor, he stated these were not seizures, but stress, he asked me, “you look like an ambitious guy, but are you really doing what you really love during your day?” I couldn’t disagree. 4 – Transparent shiny colorful noise all over my vision: Accompanied with relief and bliss whenever I shift my attention to them, it’s a flickering transparent overlay layer that feels like coming from somewhere behind my eyes. And sometimes they take geometrical shapes if I focus in some ways, I had these since I was an innocent kid, but they faded away as I grew up, and now they are coming back even stronger along with my gradual awakening, I never knew if these are eye glitches or spiritual receptivity, I’m just aware that they become stronger in days where I feel relaxed, humble, surrendered, and I’m not so identified as the Mind or the Body. 5 – Clicking Sound around my head and neck: It could be nothing but some internal gas vesting or body liquids pumping , I'm noticing I'm have lots of these lately and this grabbed my attention because Stewart Wilde mentioned it in his -good but a little fairy talish- audio book (Journey beyond Enlightenment), and he described it as a Floppy Disk formatting noise, he said it’s divine information receptivity! I don’t want to believe, but I wanted to leave it open for speculation. 6 – Strong Sense of Distinction A strong sense of contrast between the physical happening and inner timeless silence, and a sense that what is happening here is way different that what is happening there. One feels like I’m in a 3D software, and the other is, just a realized nothingness, they are completely two different realms. the contrast becomes stronger when I walk, visit new places or do exciting physical actions with some inner attention. Again please don’t take these for granted, I think everybody’s experience is different, Stewart Wilde (and also Adyashanti) talked about many other symptoms that I did not experience myself. Now Tell us about your experiences, and what do you think!