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As Jed Mckenna said truth realization is a booby prize. Do you really want to lose yourself and find out that you do not exist, and that no one have ever existed? Is there a possibility that you will not want to interact with people once you become enlightened? Maybe you will want to completely isolate yourself from other people? Do you really want to experience void and nothingness? Will you still be able to enjoy the activities you once enjoyed? Didn´t Jed Mckenna say that many people that become enlightened isolate themselves and keep their mouth shut about the whole thing? That they become lazy because there is no desire to become anything at all or to improve yourself. "I think the bubble is a magnificent amusement park, and leaving it is a damn silly thing to do, unless you absolutely must" - Jed Mckenna Steven Norquist said that if you have a good life in the "dream stat" with wife and kids etc, then it is stupid to become enlightened because you might become completely detached from them. What´s your guys thoughts on this? Have any other teachers talked about this? I´m still a novice on the topic

Thanks, I appreciate it. I looked up Samadhi and this definition most resonates with my view and abilities (from wiki) "Shankman: an abiding in which mind becomes very still but does not merge with the object of attention, and is thus able to observe and gain insight into the changing flow of experience." I call this "thinking (or moving) in parallel" and I'm pretty much in that state all the time, gradually changing to hold more and more contrasts in parallel. Choosing which thoughts I fuse/merge with and the degree of immersion. This parallelity is also referred to as capacitance with electromagnetic fields. So it is externally in nature, so to is it internally within us humans. If you notice there is a space/void/nothingness in between the two plates held in parallel and that is what people on here refer to as the void (in my view and experience). A lot of times people on here meditate and attach/fuse to that void and then pedestalize it as "true awareness" but for me, it's not "really" empty, it's the space where I feel fields of energy or tension that arise from two or more things. For me, the void is dangerous to fully fuse with, because it will shroud out human emotions, but I've long learned how to keep both balanced and running in parallel synergy at the same time. That synergy held in parallel is what affords me the ability to bridge and combine and counter-balance things like pride and humility or pleasure and pain. If you want to experience what I mean viscerally, get a magnet and a piece of metal and hold them close together, but not so close that they're touching and feel the pull and tension of the attractive forces struggling within your hold to "snap together" (I feel a similar pull and restraint at all times in conjunction with my "electric cloud" void feeling and of course normal thoughts and emotions). This is analogous to what happens within a fraction of a second with things that come into our focus and have an attractive or repulsive charge. We come in range, it pings our awareness , and if the charge is intense enough it shifts our attention towards it, and if that charge reaches past a certain threshold we immerse within it and start creating narrative chains of thought around it. If you ever notice how some thoughts arise and then flow past and some you latch onto and delve into, you'll have at least a starting point for differentiating the degrees of fusion and immersion. But when you have worked with things like me, you can restrain the momentum of that attractive/repulsive movement, shifting the degree of fusion and degree of immersion, holding that space, allowing you to see deeper and wider and calmer while still connected. This allows you to catch the subtle details of interaction and grow and learn, rather than fall into circular behaviors, because the emotional charge is too strong and it creates the same reaction over and over again (like people who always get caught up in heated political debates about the same stuff. It's the emotional charge, attaching and shifting them over and over again. Which is also why things like "click-bait" get people time and time again). Anyways, how I've trained myself to do such things is a long explanation that I'm writing a book about, but if you still have interest I'll try and write something for you to think about and try.

That's exactly right. For those who are serious, it can happen much sooner. But for most people, it will take a LONG time. Who the hell is going to concentrate for 60 minutes a daily for a year? 0.0000001% of people. There are various kinds of Samadhi possible. You can even have a Samadhi without any object. A Samadhi of awareness or nothingness.

You guys are totally underestimating enlightenment! You should be more interested in becoming of aware of the fact that "right side of the brain" is a thought inside nothingness. When you say "brain", you say it as thought it really exists. Might want to question that assumption. Where was the brain before you were born? Did it exist? No? Then what possible significance could it have to you or to truth? All this brain-talk is shallow, shallow, shallow. You need to look 1000 miles under the surface.

Nothingness

Really with the bruce lee quote? You're not pointing at the moon, you are pulling things out of imagination land that isn't grounded in reality whatsoever and choosing to believe them. You have heard or read second-hand that consciousness is this magical nothingness, rather than working with reality and burdening your limitations of awareness, and devoting yourself to expanding them. You're big picture is built off the interpretations of un-grounded experience by people who have spent little to no time at all developing their actual senses and is doing very little in the way of changing your physical reality. Why would I entertain that, when I have so much experience and understanding backed up by the real world that shows me differently? People make up magical stories about attachment and non-attachment filled with pedestalization and aggrandizement. I work with the actual physical forces in real life that propel attraction/attachment and repulsion/non-attachment, and gain a whole new set of feelings and sensations that I've carried with me everyday for years now. People question subjectivity and objectivity, but I see and work with the foundation that bridges them both together in real time, via a staggering number of combinations of patterned motion. People talk about how we are limited by our mind, but I have uncovered and work with structures deeper than my mind, which contrast with it and affect my reality. People talk about having a limitless awareness, yet they are completely unaware of nuance and detail and all the staggering amount of inter-related movements that make up just a single second of change within the limited scope of the human body. And that's not even counting potentiality. How many potentialities can you hold in your head? I've been able to see and act on 8 within a fraction of a second. Are you fast enough to feel a thought attach to you and in that fraction of a second before immersion, choose 8 different potentialities in relation to it? I doubt you have even the foggiest idea of what I'm talking about, because neither you or anyone else on here has spent the years training to pick up on the all the things going on within such a small window of time. How can you hope to properly describe consciousness if you're too slow and dull to see even a thimble full of all the different patterns going on with your very own perceptional system? God you people are arrogant in your delusions. Thinking some two-bit, shallow ass belief about consciousness magically solves everything. Not even realizing or addressing the motivations pushing you to assume such beliefs. The patterns and principles I talk about are inherent all over the world and have been here before humans and any programming of oneness. The same principles I use to balance effect and affect are the same ones found with electrical capacitance and the shifting tides on both the sun and in the ocean. But hey, if you want to believe un-grounded stuff, that's cool. But, don't push it like it's the one ultimate truth, when it's just another iteration of religiosity, requiring blind faith. You talk about capability, but If it was this amazing thing, people who have it, should be able to tell you about the foundational elements of learning. They should be able to learn anything they choose, slow down their perception of time as they choose, they should understand how actual physical reality works, seduction, music, biology, emotional realities, etc. None of these people who believe in this stuff are any more capable for it. But, the stuff I talk about changes me everyday. It evolves me. For me, enlightenment, non-duality, and nothingness, is a pale substitute for actually developing all of who I am. But that's me, everybody has their own journey of evolution to undertake. My road bears fruit with every step.

Easy. You already are it. You just forgot. You got lost in the forms of nothingness. Listen to it. The space between breaths, the empty silence that pervades all phenomena. Don't try, just put your attention there. Where attention goes, energy flows. Spend time with the aliveness that is the nothingness, and spend less time attending to the manifest forms of nothingness. Just do it, and one day it will happen.

Here is another pointer (just a slightly different way of looking at it)... Pay attention to the room. You notice there are things in the room. Most of us pay attention to the "things"... What about the space?? Did you ever stop to consider the space? The nothingness that allows all things (including you) to BE... Ever tried to become one with that space?

Now that @Galyna mentions it, on a second read @Salaam you are saying that: "There are 118 elements on the periodic table and they all have different reactions and chemistry with each other. How would the world work if there was only one element? What would it combine with to form blood, bone, organ, and muscle tissue?" You are talking there about physical world, and the "idea" that everything is one, is beyond physics. Imagine the "nothingness" that is consciousness or awareness, and can create matter of 118 elements, or anything from nothing. Because it is nothing and everything. I know what I am saying is a concept too, but it is not ONE "physically" that Buddhism and other philosophies refer to.

@Lorenzo Engel Check out the clip below...at 34:45 Leo started to discover the Zen term, the Ox's tail. What does this mean? Now...hold on...Ox's tail...are they really talking about an animal or something else? Check out Shinzen Young's clips on The Ox Herding Pics: https://youtu.be/x8aN9O73lg https://youtu.be/0PQonSiGkVE https://youtu.be/Ozca_5ifwQ0 The question is, why do they tell the story this way? Very ancient story. And, what is Riding the Ox Backwards really mean in the end according to an enlightenment experience? It's an interesting but discreet story. Anyone who has had an enlightenment experience will tell you that the experience is an outer body experience without the human mind & without the fictional ego, literally. The ego doesn't exist in an enlightenment experience. All you "feel" is peace (nothingness/everythingness = one with the universe) Whereas in the human mind, the ego is there because of "choice," or unawareness. But, if you would like to talk about it with someone, like a master or guru or whoever, there has to be an understanding between the two-no judging. How do we make use of the understanding of enlightenment and/or enlightenment experiences? Below is a clip of Leo talking about creating world peace. How do we discover our talents/gifts in order to contribute to this? Below are some more clips: (Note: I just want to make a little note here. All that I've said has nothing to do with religion. It's the meaning I'm trying to communicate. Riding the Ox Backwards is an extraordinary experience of time & space where one is facing backwards. )

Learning about the ego through enlightenment experiences & simple understanding of enlightenment... Negative voice and emotion = fictional ego...the thought that helps you to solve problems, go for your life purpose, go for transendence morality, seek for enlightenment that is coming from the "everythingness" and "nothingness" is your true self. This is what "you" call being enlightened. In the end, "you" want to contribute to peace in this world. Having enlightenment experiences is different from being enlightened. Enlightenment experiences are outer body experiences or any wisdom that you get that gives out of the ordinary/meaningful info in life. It helps you understand your fictional ego.

LOL. Mal jumps off the soap box, drops the megaphone and walks off into nothingness

*Mal drops non existent mic and walks off into nothingness*

Hello Friends This is my first time!! expercience with strong determination sitting (sds) English is not my native language, but i read a lot in english and i learn now words/vocabulary every day. Feel free to correct me if you see a mistake! I meditate every day (very few exeptions to be honest) since 8 weeks. Started with mainly breating and mindfulness-meditation lately nothingness-meditation. I already see positive effects. Beeing more calm/balanced, more productive (i did a LOT! of stuff in the last 2 weeks only, seemingly without effort and without forcing myself, i just did it!), less self-hating ^^(yes i told myself sometimes how bad my life is/ or how good it WAS before i srewed up etc...) less complaining and more pro-active behavoir, and i feel im on the right path! Work to do! I just did 80 Minutes of SDS. It was totaly different from what i expected, it started of quite underwhealming for me just to bring me to places where i wasnt able to get to in the last 8 weeks with my other medi-techniques! Now that i did it i can say im glad i did and i will continue with sds every day throughout march. I feel like maybe 10% of this firsttime i can NOT recreate, but 90% of what i expericed can be accuratly be recalled. here and there might be a small chronologic jump. Some of this protocoll is "direct speech" or "flow of consciousness-speech" and some of it i edited into correct sentences.^^ 1. THE START I was sitting on my chair, silent humming of my refridgerator in the other room, i put on a sweater so getting cold wont be a topic/additional distraction, since i expect the partice of sds to be hard from what i read about it. straight back sitting on my chair i close my eyes... after 10sec already ^^ omg! how long am i in this? 10sec maybe? shit! a THOUGHT!!... wait it is ok im alowed to think in this one. but i didnt think a lot i didnt try to think something actively most of the time but it felt comfortable knowing that if i do, it is not a problem. god! this is borring! and also way to easy i just sit here ..so what? how long now? 5minuntes maybe? ...im made for this. this is waaaay too easy slight pain in the back ..maybe a 2 on a scale from 0 to 10. i can ignore it. Thought occurs: probably becasue im a sportive guy i released all my body energy already by doing gym-work and badminton yesterday so my body feels realy calm, maybe those ppl who struggle with "sds" are all overweight americans ^^ (sorry guys!^^) they think it is so hard but actually im way better than them... (ofc you are) how long now? 10minutes maybe? this is so easy what´s the point? should i even go on? couldnt i use my time better? couldnt i use the 80minutes for breathing meditation or nothingness meditation (which i did the last week every day and felt positive about it since i did it even thou i found it extremly hard to do the first times) wouldnt that be a better use of time , maybe im not made for this? WOuldnt it be better to stop now and do something else something "harder" .... pain in the back goes up to 3 ..still i ignore it. OR!! now a different thought occured... since i find it so easy...can i do this even longer than 80minutes ? i could do 5 hours...i can just ignor my timer when it goes of and do it longer they will be so impressed on the forum if i tell them^^ wait isn´t it a realy bad reason to want to impress people? i realized that impressing is kinda important to me and it is no coincidence that i want to do it here in this practice too and this might be my first small realization. I was not thinking: I SHOULD NOT impress or swearing i will never try to impress someone again from now ..but just realizing / narrating to myself objectively that i DO have the tendency to wanting to impress ppl in the last months/years and i felt intuitivly that is not realy something im proud of ^^ and i should keep an eye on that! ..nothing more and norhing less for the moment then my handy rang ..shit! (the first call). who could it be? someone at work, they sometimes call me when they need something i must help them out with, or maybe i forgot something important...nah! maybe my friend is calling asking me if we go bouldering today? but i cant since i hurt my ankle at badminton yesterday... maybe my father is calling? maybe i did something wrong maybe my aunt asking me if i can go buy food for my grandmother? it stopped ringing. it is not imporant right now...i have my free day, i dont have to take calls. i wont die! if i dont take the call.. it is fine! ok back to: this is easy im made for this, then i felt bad : pain in the back increased to 4-5, still no problemo but it is annyoing. leo said it will be worth to do "sds" maybe he doesnt know that im different, that it is too easy for me. if he could see how easy i sit here for like 15minutes now he would recommend me to do "breathing meditation" instead or someting else. ------------- 2. BREAKING UP then my state kinda changed and i cant quite remember / reconstruct how it exactly came to be. i didnt feel a hard change while i was doing it, but recalling it is a bit foggy for me. i know it had something to do with this: for some reason i cant quite remember the cause (althou it is probably secondary) i felt guilty , maybe because i mooved a bit while i shouldnt? and i went like: you piece of shit! you mooved! you failed..you fucking idiot! and i sometimes talk to myself in that way always implying that i dont realy mean it, it is more to motivate me ^^ now i realized that it is not realy helpful if i insult myself for doing something wrong?! also somehow that everytime i realize something, learn something about myself, i feel like there is the old me (not knowing the new thing) and the new me (knowing the new thing) and then the 2 are getting into a kind of micro-fight with each other, who´s the better "I" ...i realized this is fucking tragic! WTF am i doing? i realzied and remembered that i do this on a daily basis never beeing able to see what happens...that 2 mini-egos fight each other over who is the boss! first i felt mooved by this realization ...it wasnt realy crying. just feeling realy mooved by realizing how i get into arguments with myself, beeing able to see how sad this is! 2 tears went from my eyes, 1 right and 1 left. It didnt feel like crying, just like water is coming out of my eye. both waterdrops went down my face to my mouth and the right one was bigger i guess and went further to my chin. i felt something changed, i knew this place where i am now. i realzied that i have so many unrealsitic ideas about getting enlightend or the way i can change throu meditation, i can become this new "super human" kind of guy almost godlike ^^ in a way , my goals are actually ridicoulous i realized now, it will make "click" and im perfect i will understand everything and be happy for all the time ^^ i know and i knew of course: that cant be achieved it is just a child fantasy but at the same time a part of me still wants that or wanted that, i also cant exclude that the wish wont appear ever again , it probably will but next time it comes i can see it from another persepective. because now that i have seen what it ACTUALLY means to learn something about myself, to starting to know myself better, i realized what i can actually get from meditation and how it is so much more worth to me than beeing perfect and happy all the time or even like beeing a super-alfa-male 24/7 ^^ i thought about how tragic humans are, how most of them try their best to be happy (like me) but they only cause pain in themself and others cause they dont know what they do and what they are. the difference between the human intention to do good and actualy doing harm without knowing made me cry. it was too much at that point. it seemed so sad, so heartbreakingly tragic that all those peolpe realy honestly want to be happy but they all fail cause they dont understand shit ^^ 2 more tears go down my face... (now comes a part which does not! represent any political standpoint on the question of how to treat criminals, but it is rather an experience in empathy and seemingly understand the suffering of a psychopath/murderer) the topic about why people do bad things without knowing it took me to the question about criminals. why do some people kill others. why do some people become insane killers. are those people realy evil, or are they just completly diconnected from their own inner life from their emotions. what is wrong with them? of course i want them to be locked away and in prison but also i thought maybe they are helpless. what kind of pain must have been inflicted on them in order to create such personalites that can´t feel for others anymore that are completly numb. i saw those killers as childern and feeling sorry for them getting beaten in fact i thought: how dare i - how ignorant of their suffering do i have to be to judge those people i have no idea what they went throu!! start crying again this time with opened mouth , couldnt keep it closed , felt like caughing in an emotional way realized i should return to my pratice to not moove now but it is fine i mooved affectivly couldnt stop it now return to pratice... i thoght this year had already had 8 weeks and in this last 10minutes i had more meaningfull personal realizations about myself and the world than in the last 8 weeks. even thou i did my routin, 1 hour meditation , breating medi, body scan sometimes, nothingness medi the last week which realy felt like stepping it up for me, but i usualy had only positiv feelings, i smiled i had moments of joy even bliss in the meditation, i even had moment where i went: oooh! THAT`S WHO i am , or Ohhh! right im not that (rather abstractions/ feelings almost autosuggestive realizations) also i faced fear (in one of my first meditations in january i had the sense that someone stands behind me and wants to murder me ^^ i sat though that and made me face it ..it never came back or only in a softer form and then it went away) i never had concrete realizations about myself, what EXACTLY almost scientificaly it is that i am, what i do, how i behave. this time i had that and it made me cry i felt that having an epiphany that makes you cry because your realze how wrong and almost tragic your behaviour is worth more than smiling or feeling bliss... then again i realized that there is probably a time for each of them i wouldnt want only crying all the time ^^ but for now im realy glad i could get those insights! ------------------ 3. CALMING DOWN / JOY i hoped i can recall everything or maybe the most important things for people to read beacuase i also enjoy reading such protocols by others to kinda see what they saw. also i realized that by beeing prepared to narrate my experience it made the experience more clear for me. it reminded me of this psycho-therapy technique of just narrating what happend without judging, just objective desciption of events. i feel i was able to do this for the most part in the last 15minutes of this sds. i wished for it to end now and i felt like i realy enjoy it. i thoguht ok it was enough now. i have to write it down and let it breathe take a break now. OR! maybe i could go even deeper now...but there is still time the next weeks i will do this daily. so no hurry! i felt realy relaxed now, my back pain had completely gone and instead i felt warm and unified like ... you may laugh now: i felt like a banana it must sound horrible but it was realy funny and i had to laugh myself when i tried to explain to myself how i feel now and i came up with the banana comparison ^^ my body feeling was good i felt like one huge slightly rounded thing beeing whole. i felt like i expanded. i could still feel my body borders as a silouette but i was also in the whole room filling it up, it was realy nice! i felt refreshed and i enjoyed it. ----------------------- 4. LAST MINUTES / WORK TO DO... one time at the end maybe 5-10 minutes before the alarm went of i licked my lips and i thought ..awww np i wont tell them! wait what? im going to lie about stupid shit like that just to make me look better ^^ LOL i had to chuckle this is ridicoulous ..did i actualy just thought about lying , trying to make me look better even i realized earlyier in the sds that i shouldnt do that. that i should try to impress people. here i also had to smiled and realize it will take MORE! than only realizing things to stop bad habits in myself, bad habits have a momentum they are automatic almost and i have to be aware of them and stop them everytime they will occur in the next weeks/month. then i went nah ok...ofc i will tell becasue if i lie that makes me feel bad.. then i realized not lying just because you feel bad is also not a realy good reason isnt it? but i couldnt think of a better reason right now and i felt no urge to do so since im mainly supposed to sit still in this technique. then the second call came... i thought np. i wont answer it is fine... it stoped 1minute later the alarm went of. i did it! 80 something minutes... i waited the alarm to stop /wanted to do bonus time for some reason and then when it stopped i breathed sometimes in and out streched my back, and then started to open my eyes...eyelashes beeing glued together by dried tears ^^ i felt fine. i want to write down everything...here i am!

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1612680208/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1467541336&sr=8-1&pi=SY200_QL40&keywords=Guide+to+Investing+by+Robert+Kiyosaki&dpPl=1&dpID=41UqvEnLtYL&ref=plSrch Yes, true, but I prefer one on one especially with enlightenment experiences, or I like watching informative clips, like Leo's clips, and then researching. Once you find someone that could tell you a lot more, and it's actually informative and not just make-believe, there are a lot of discoveries. I know one can see more than just the no-self (everythingness/nothingness). Even Leo mentioned Ox's tail (Zen terminology) in one of his enlightenment clips. In other words, what I'm trying to say here is...you want to talk to someone who will not shed the wrong light. Both trust and knowledge has to be there. Leo did say in one of his clips-I don't remember which one-maybe it's his Graves model clip-not to get caught up in debates. I do agree with him. We need a lot of time for our life purpose. Yes, of course, it can be the same. Mine happen to be the same. I'm a bilingual teacher (career at a school). I'm also working online, have my own website, and wrote my own book (my startup). I wish you the best on your journey. Much success and peace.

Yea we've been over this. You have yet to show any depth of understanding to match your level of self-aggrandizement. Last time we talked, you were still working on "combating" your thoughts. Unlike anyone else here, my thoughts are completely my own. I'm choosing and mixing multiple potential realities on the fly, while people are still stuck on nothingness, and other beginner shit. Also, don't think I haven't noticed you've recently started talking about your "core". I wonder where you got that from?

Consciousness doesn't really exist. It only appears to exist in the Absolute nothingness. I am nothing, you are nothing and awareness is also nothing. There is indeed no perceiver to be found. But we are not a perception, because if we are a perception there has to be a perceiver. What 'we' are is the same consciousness/nothingness as the Absolute. Our minds don't really 'know' anything for there isn't anything to be known, the mind can throw some vague concepts around trying to define this consciousness but it cannot. And how could it? These seeming thoughts appear in the thing that it's trying to define. It's like a single cell in your big toe trying to define what the human body is, it can't be done because it can never see past the toe.

Meh, that's kind of dogmatic. You might want to ease that stance a little, so you don't miss out on nuance. I'm assuming that was just an off-the-cuff response? Yes, when it comes to sharing information there are limits, in a lot of ways we can only be a reference for each other in that respect. Definitions without self-referential experience to connect to, won't have much practical application as it is, but in this case the definition, in and of itself isn't the problem. The issue lies in what action people choose in response. There is a difference between using another as a reference or answer that replaces or substitutes the transfer of understanding that comes with involvement and experience, versus using another as a reference for gaining perspective on how to enhance and enrich the developmental process in concert with an actual practice. It's helpful to have some one point out structures behind the mind, that over time they can work to sensitize themselves to. And just as precious, is sharing structures of accountability and self-balancing that protects the integrity of continued development. I assume that's what you attempt with your videos in a way? Anyways, speaking of limitations or barriers, Bruno, it is also very important to work on becoming aware of limitation and learning from it. Gaining nuance with your own personal, dynamic, context-sensitive, "ceiling and floor". Some people feel limitation and respond with frustration, despair, anger, but it can also be precious, and enlightening (I don't mean no-self enlightenment here, I mean clarity). For instance my internal awareness is so deep and sensitive, that I can pick up on very fragile things going on inside my body. However, placing my awareness directly on those things, causes damage, making me sick. Why? It's because awareness in and of itself has a weight to it, like how you can feel the weight of a person's eyes/gaze on you even with your eyes closed. That weight can disrupt or distort the integrity of those fragile things structures and patterns of movement. So, with that experience we learn that even awareness has limitations, but those limitations don't necessarily mean loss, but instead an opportunity for trust and synergy with another part of who we are. Instead of trying to be directly aware in isolation, I mediate the weight of my awareness, through multi-dimensionality and contrast. Connecting with the larger structure they're a part of and gaining deeper understanding indirectly, from the inter-relations going on within that structure. Actually here is a video that better describes the patterns and structures inherent to seemingly invisible things, that are made visible via contrast. Contrast in this case, being the use of salt or sand to create a chain of inter-relation with the vibrational frequencies to make visible, what we could not directly perceive in isolation. Much like dusting for prints, it is the synergy and contrast of the dust and skin-oil that affords us the opportunity to be more aware. In a similar way, this is how I learned and gained capability with 12/? of the invisible structures I balance at all times that work behind and in concert with "thinking". Relating with how they all work and depend on each other, provides me an inexhaustible supply of growth experiences that changes and develops as I change and develop, creating momentum of synergy. See, it is experiencing these kinds of realities first-hand which make me shake my head at people who dismiss difference and contrast. People who say that all there is, is nothingness or everything is an illusion. That's a fucking ignorant and irresponsible stance. Even the void has a purpose and creates contrast when it inter-relates with everything else. It's a dielectric material. The universe is filled with different patterns of motion and shape and they all interact and have different chemistries with each other. For instance, notice how in the video the higher the frequency the greater the complexity of shape, but also how that complexity impacts uniformity. Notice where the the thickest lines are, how the rising and falling of motion affects the activity of the salt and the porousness of shape. Which area's have the highest zones of activity and which don't. There are principles of reality and nature and working with ourselves right there for people to understand, if we take the time to feel out how these interactions work together and inter-relate. Everything has a shape or pattern, even thoughts. Each thought also has a patterned chemical cascade, which plays a part in supporting it's integrity of shape and fidelity of expression. Why lose out on all that beautiful nuance and detail with an extreme or ignorant stance? I hope this helps.

@Greatnestwithin Good, when you do not find yourself while inquiry remember that you are not failing. Remember, who You are is pure infinite nothingness, and this is quite impossible for the mind to grasp as it can only grasp somethingness, it cannot grasp nothingness, it wasn't made to. Leo explains this very beautifully in his Enlightenment Guided Inquiry @ 55:00. I definitely recommend you to watch it if you haven't https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oq4NDMNDzSs A self realized person would see life and death as an illusion because he would realize that "he" was never alive to begin with, ever. The body and mind was active, sure, however, there was really no one that operated it, and ever will. A self realized person when coming to "his" demise would not flinch an ounce of fear when death arrives of the mind and body, for he has already realized the very nature of one's self and reality. That you are the Infinite, Divine, that the body/mind experiences from. There is no more identification with the body/mind, only to the divine nothingness, so then what is death of the body/mind mean to the self realized person? Yeah, it means nothing! Aha!

Hi, I'm wondering if anyone can help understand how the subconscious relates to the authentic, true self. For a long time I have been in the process of tweaking and refining both my lists of top values and strengths as well as my life purpose statement. Every time I feel something click on the "inside", I feel like I'm making progress. In my head I'm conceptualising this as trying out different thoughts and theories and "checking" them against my subconscious, looking for the "gut reaction" or intuitive understanding I'm on the right track. However, I've also read a lot about how your subconscious seems to be largely constructed from your own life experience and can be re-programmed, through various mind techniques (which I've also been practicing), which makes me wonder, am I "checking" for a gut reaction or intuition against some sort of arbitrary state of thoughts / currently buried in my subconscious? I guess my questions are: 1. Is the subconscious where intuition or that "gut feeling" comes from, or does that come from somewhere deeper, like your "true self" or "highest self"? If the subconscious is constructed on the fly and prone to change, then it does not seem to me like a source of truth. The subconscious also seems likely to harbour as many negative thoughts as positive, if not more so. 2. Does the feeling of knowing your life purpose and your top values ultimately come from being in tune with your subconscious, which just happens to be configured to be a certain way, at a certain point in time? Or, are your values and purpose resonating with you on a more spiritual level, stemming from your authentic self - the true self that is essentially nothingness? Is there a distinction to be made between what's "true" for the body / mind and then a higher level of truth which does not care about life purpose or values? 3. What is the relationship between the subconscious and the true, authentic self? Does anyone have any insight into what kind of role the subconscious mind would play in the life of an enlightened person, or how it might operate? Would it operate in the same manner as it does for an unenlightened person, or would it simply be reduced to purely managing the workings of the body; digestion, heartbeat, breathing etc.? I've been struggling for a while to reconcile these questions, any help would be greatly appreciated!

@governor Dharma means the Buddah nature as far as I'm concerned. From what I understand we need an embodiment in human form, because how can "nothingness" be otherwise expressed of it were not through a teacher?

The ability of the brain to create objects within awareness from raw data (sight, smell, touch, etc) is so fundamental to truly understanding the breadth and scope of awareness itself. As an experiment, do the following: 1) Pick a mug 2) Now describe the mug using as many adjectives as you can (hard, shiny, smooth, etc) 3) Now, ask yourself: "Are any of the words I used to describe the mug an objective description of the mug?" Most people would agree that a mug is hard, but that is not objectively true -- from the perspective of someone that works with titanium drill bits all day, a mug is soft. From the the perspective of someone that makes disco-balls, a mug is rather dull in its appearance. Notions of soft/hard, shiny/dull, smooth/rough, light/heavy are all dependent on your frame of reference (and how your brain is currently wired). In fact, you can easily adopt the view that a mug is soft: imagine it just crumbling under the weight of a 10 tonne steel block. This view is no more false than the idea that a mug is hard! But here is where the interesting part comes in... Since a mug can be described as hard or soft, which is it? Both? Neither? What starts to emerge is that there are an infinite amount of ways to describe a mug. At the same time, the mug is objectively none of these things -- that is, the mug is in reality 'empty', only taking on characteristics once a mind comes along and gives it 'life', so to speak. To truly understand this is to see nothingness and infinity in a flower -- it is the ability to hold paradox in ones mind without cognitive dissonance. To truly understand this is to see how your own mind is sitting in a particular frame of reference to the world. Hard mode: Is the object you call a mug, really a mug? What is the purpose of a mug? To a young child, maybe it is a cave for a toy dinosaur? Which one is true? Play.

Awareness also only exist at the present moment. It exists only after the senses and thoughts. Without a sense, will you have the awareness which know the sense? They happened as cause and effect nature. Awareness has to be trained. So that later it appears naturally right after all the senses and thoughts. In enlightenment experience, that awareness sees everything is not permanent and also sees itself that it is also not a permanent nature. So the mind prepare itself to let go of everything. Then.... become NOTHINGNESS.

Why are we talking about all these? Nothing has a form, form is empty... this forum is emptiness Enjoy the nothingness of the forum Oooooohhhhhhhhmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

Good question! But no, don't worry that when awareness rises you will feel more shitty. It's the opposite. It might seem that way if you just think about it logically - like you do - but it is more like this: When awareness rises you literally become aware that everything you do is like a play. Sometimes you play the "good" side (when you are in your higher self and for example learning you for studies) and sometimes you play the "bad" side (when you are in your lower self and for example smoking pot while binging on ice cream and watching a netflix marathon). Not only your action separates in these categories (good / bad - white / black) but everything goes on in a similar way. For example you try to live your whole life (very passionately) not to die, because you have the sense in you that dying is something that just mustn't happen. Through awareness you begin to acknowledge how everything can bee seen as games, cycles and similar patterns. Not only that, but you also begin to see how you began to involve yourself so passionately in trying to make the one side win that now you are terribly afraid that black might win. Moreover, you know back in your mind that black will win in the end so you structure your whole life to get so involved in all kind of bullshit (other games) so that you don't have to face the fact that black wins in the end. And you just make too much of it. Awareness shows you that you are nothingness, incarnating itself in all kind of different games and patterns and that you are white and black, life and death and really can't die. If you begin to see that, you might still come across pains but it won't fuck with your head any more. It is by far one of the most cleansing and nice things to experience that you as the great self are immortal. It feels like being let out of yourself. And now ask yourself this: Isn't that really what you try to accomplish with all your bullshit involvements you make in your life? Cheers from Berlin,