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You shouldn't even bring up nonduality because its not relevant to this discussion. When we are talking about laws we are talking about some kind of morality that we are agreeing on even though we know that it is subjective. we shouldn't have even started talking about this morality issue, if you are not willing to biting some bullets. Of course in the grand scheme of things there is no distinction between anything but at the end of the day, you would have a problem if someone murdered your family. So you want some laws around it. Laws are coming from ethics, and ethics deeply correlates with politics and we are going back to morality. Its not practical to continue this "discussion" or this "debate" because you are not willing to engage with the points i make, and you are not willing to answer some essential questions that are revolving around this morality issue. But I will try it one last time. When you saying that i am immoral because i would allow abortion because i am actually allowing murdering humans thats a very serious claim. You need to back that claim with justifications and not with these arbitrary lines like :The line still exists within the potential range. You need to justify how am i allowing murdering humans, and that requires making a definition for humans. Because right now you are only saying that yes there is this potential and when i am allowing abortion in the first week for example i might kill a human or i might kill a human life ,"i don't know exactly because i didn't draw the line" You can't get away with being that hardly untangible. Also still waiting for arguments why should anyone value potentiality over my valuesystem. How your moralsystem better than mine. Make arguments around that. "Taking the whole conversation to the line is pointless" It is essential especially for you, when you make claims , that i allow murdering humans. This is another arbitrary line that you are making about how you decide what has enough potential and what doesn't have enough potential. Being this arbitrary with your morality will cause a lot of problem, because if we are talking about a law system you cannot just be this untangible with your arguments, because thats not how morality or justice system works. This is not just a 1v1 debate, this is about making justifications and figuring out which moral system would be better in regards to abortions. So your argument basically boils down to this: "I value potentiality, but i can't exactly define what i mean by sufficient potentiality" Be very very exact about what do you mean when you are talking about "Sufficient potential" potential without putting words like "and a few other factors". Be willing to take a position, and this one time don't be abstract.

Three distinct awakenings I can remember: God realization, nondual recognition, liberation. Nondual recognition will always come before liberation, but other than that any of those can happen without the others -- though again liberation won't happen until after nondual recognition; liberation isn't a one and done thing like nonduality (collapse of identity), but the additional stripping away of the layers that hide the indescribable intimacy that's really going on.

There is no difference between doing the work and trolling, hense nonduality A true master is both awake and an epic troll, here is a koan for us all

The word “believe” seems to imply more than its use in the traditional sense. They could either mean that reality is what you make of it, literally.. or they could mean the straightforward notion that belief = reality. The meaning of the latter being actuality. And the former meaning being more psychological than actual in its essence. Personally, I'd say they meant the former.. Belief = Reality.. simply because of my insight on nonduality.

First I will define awakening/enlightenment, so you know what I am talking about (and opposed to more general uses of the words). Enlightenment is a sudden, non-conceptual, and visceral insight or revelation that dispels ignorance and shatters illusion regarding who/what you are and the nature of reality. The insight instantly shatters the illusion of “me” and the illusion of separation or duality. The "me" can never be believed again. This is the same as Self-realization or God-realization...for in Advaita / non-duality the realization includes "Aham Brahmasmi" or I am Brahman. Did you lose/increase your interest in certain areas? Spirituality has been a favorite topic since I got into it, but after awakening, the interest has solely been drawn to nonduality. Dualistic traditions with a path and somewhere are no longer interesting. That is because those paths all involve a "me" and bettering the "me" or a "me" trying to get something. There is no "me", so talking about the "me" is not much interest anymore. All other aspects of life seem to remain the same in terms of interest. How did it affect your work/life purpose if at all? Awakening shattered the idea of purpose. Life does not inherently have a purpose, we imagine purposes for things. So I no longer need a purpose and am perfectly content without a purpose. But life goes on as play (and play is something not done for a purpose but simply for its own sake). I play going to work, I play paying the bills, I play married life, etc, etc. This is an inward attitude really, so outwardly there was no change. For example, awakening did not affect work life. How did it affect your relationships with "others"? From the perspective of this body-mind, awakening had little to no effect on my relationships with others. However, my wife tells me that this is the easiest relationship she has ever had. I make no demands on others...I expect nothing...and I know all relationships will end one day and so I am non-attached. Other changes would be that I don't take part or add to drama, others can not control or manipulate me, etc. So others who want to "test our relationship" or otherwise control/manipulate would not be satisfied. That being said...none of my relationships with others really changed. For example, non-attachment is not apparent to others and so they don't know I am non-attached. The inner attitude changed, but outwardly there was no change. What challenges do you face knowing your true nature whilst living "in the dream"? There are no problems. Enlightenment/awakening happened in 2005, so it has been over 15 years. I do not recall any challenges I faced due to knowing my true nature while living "in the dream". Enlightenment/awakening does not impede or make it difficult to live in the world. I am not other than the dream...it is all Self/Brahman. The dream/life game may have challenges, but challenges are what makes playing games fun.

We can't create a loving society with nonduality. For that, compassion is required, which comes from applying love in a relative way. Nondual love is not healthy for human society. Here is why: Fighting torture is evil? Worshipping torture is love? To create a loving society we actually need to do the opposite. Fighting part of "what is" (all the suffering in the world). And worshipping "what is not" (a potential future full of love and happiness for all). It's interesting, the definitions of evil from a practical vs a nondual perspective are basically opposite. @gettoeflI'm not addressing you specifically. What you wrote is just the perfect representation of hardcore nonduality.

^^^ Definitely. @iboughtleosbooklist Jim, Tony, Kenneth, Andreas, Ariana, Tim, Richard, etc do in fact transmit nondual realization. However, not only is that not as far as enlightenment goes, but for most seekers, actually hearing the message by just consuming (let’s call a spade a spade) nonduality meetings is like winning the lottery... and even if that happens it is frankly a long, long way from enlightenment. Don’t pretend the ball isn’t in your court. Whatever you think nonduality (and enlightenment) is about, it’s not about that — it is utterly beyond anything conceivable. Probably the most common mis-hearing (understandably) of the nondual message is “there’s nothing to do and nowhere to go” which is simply not true. When nonduality is recognized, identity is over (it has finality to it, unlike basically any other awakenings) — the experiencer apart from reality stops happening. It’s not that choices don’t happen anymore, it’s that there’s no chooser (or material universe) separate from choices. Saying anything about this is still just a story though. But waking up goes so far beyond nonduality, even though nonduality has finality to it. Paradoxically. As soon as you authentically want to wake up... you don’t need to read or watch or listen to anything ever again — you’ll have everything you need right here. Perhaps find a real teacher — one that you resonate with — such as Adyashanti or Angelo Dillulo MD.

soon good words here: https://www.reddit.com/r/nonduality/comments/uei7t4/using_intellectual_understanding_to_bypass/

@Thought Art heh. to answer your question, being is more than consciousness. Well, that depends on how you definie consciousness actually. god is and always will be a name. This makes it less than consciousness. Vocabulary has implicit meaning, and the meaning of god is... welll.... "That which is greater" .... and nonduality just isn't that. I see god as less than.... the indescribabeably, because god cannot escape its implicit meaning. I do not believe in any god, including this pointer nonduality thinkers use to point to what has better pointers to point to it. Leo basically worships god by self actualizing, and that is perfectly good for him. I do not pretend to know his experience or Truth; I only comment on my own, and compare it to his teachings so that you might see something you might not have realized on your own. Truth... Truth is as unknowable as it knowable. take that as you will. on infinity... it was one video, I'm pretty sure he said or implied that there was no more to experience than all of everything. And how exactly is any conscious being going to know that? they can't. Infinity is unbounded, and Leo definitely bounded it with his words. I stopped following him because of it. I had already been on the fence, for the words he used to talk about.... whatever..... just kept getting more and more namelike, and less and less a guidepost. But, that is only my opinion, again, take as you will. as foryour last question, I already answered it. oh wait, there's a hidden question after that. Yes of course I'm greater than Leo, but that does not mean he is not greater than I. Greatness is incomparable, really. Leo will never have what I have, and never have what you have, and you will never have what your brother has, everyone is greater in their, idk, truth, or whatever. actuality. it's just incomparable and uncombineable. it is seperated by our limitation as the experiencer of the present moment. Truth.... it is already gone as soon as we have it, idk, that kind of points to the possibility that we will never get it. sure, Truth can be described as.... thisness.... but Truth, it is... well... infinite, and to be honest, I wouldn't be surprised if Unkowable existed beyond Truth, or if Truth existed beyond Unknowable, or maybe they are synonymous... lol I feel like I'm naming things, but my naming things is fundamental to.... who I am. Leo naming things (which, I only know that he has named god) just.... doesn't really fit what he pursues. calling it god is arrogance in my oppinion. god is unknowable, not actuality. like, I can see how one can say that like, godliness is actuality, but by definition we cannot look upon the face of god. Or at least one definition of it. We cannot speak its name. This does not make god.... well... anything. God is unknowable. That's like "undefined" in coding language, lol. Naming something god quite ironically is as arrogant as it is ignorant. Wait, those things aren't opposites, heh. As long as Leo names it god, the religious folk will feel objection to his words. I truly believe this is one word he should abandon, one pointer that fundamentaly fails to accomplish what Leo pursues by creating Actualized.org. lol I meant to make a quick reply, but it ended up meandering all over the place. Again, take it as you will, it is only meant to show you an alternate understanding of thisness. fundamentally, thisness is the same thing, for any of us, or is it? how can we tell the difference between the two?

Then I shall expand in the form of a Q and A. You are welcome to ask me any question from what I've stated thus far regarding the instrument and the process of creation. Yes. Nonduality does not mean the absence of form/appearance and diversity. Nonduality simply means that all is one.

I am interested in hearing more. I guess for me, even if the "life is a dream" paradigm may raise more questions, that doesn't mean I have to reject that paradigm as being a potential possibility. I can see that the creation is slightly different. For the dreamer god, the creation is a dream and imagined with the physical world being dreamed. For the nonduality god, there could still technically be a physical world or it too could be all in the mind. Yes I see that with non-duality, we are the Earth and it really isn't death but rather transformation of the self with the self.

In nonduality is the appearance/existence of life necessary or just what happens? Theoretically could there just be rocks, planets, light, heat etc. without an observer or the presence of intelligent life?

Now you have to understand that realising nonduality and realising the process of creation, literally what you're doing now as every moment is a moment of creation, that these are two different things: Nonduality and Creation. And your question seems to be leaning more on the latter - the process of creation. In discussing creation, I'm not particularly fond of the “Life is a literal Dream” explanation, simply because it overlooks and negates a lot for the person who is interested in learning of the process of creation which deals essentially with meaning, as you have slightly come to notice in your ASC. Yes, existence is something like a dream in relation to nonduality but this is simply because it hardly matters what and how you think of it, for in nonduality all is literally One. However, with regards to the process of creation, the “life is a dream” paradigm won't get you anywhere. In fact, all this paradigm does is make you care less in realising creation, especially if it is introduced to you as ‘the answer’ rather than a question of exploration. To me, with regards to creation, this is not even an answer because it just raises more and more questions like.. why is God asleep in the first place.. and just leads to a lot of mental masturbation rather than actual progress. In the process of creation, there is something called the mind/body/spirit instrument that I'd like to introduce to you should your interest hold. This instrument is the literal tool of creation. The part that is responsible for the “coming up with visuals” is the mind-instrumental, the mind is form-maker. I'll only continue here if you want me to. This is another reason why I am not so resonant with the dream paradigm because it only leads to confusion and potentially distress. How will the dream paradigm account for your awareness and my - the person who is responding to your thread - awareness? It cannot, for it has already negated the possibility/actuality of the other-self. The reason, in terms of the process of creation, there exists a other-self is because the bubble of consciousness, as most will put it, the sphere of consciousness is capable of crystallization to the point where the POV no longer appears to be one life perspective but several. So, instead of a perfectly smooth bubble, you can imagine here a diamond like structure to consciousness and each of us is particularly focused on of the many sites/sides of this crystallised unity. But, these sites/sides of POVs are not limitations, as the dream paradigm has led you to believe, they have never been limitations for as the psychics of this world have, and will continue to, prove to you.. these POVs can be breached. Even the word “breach” is peculiarly misleading since there has never been any boundaries in the first place - only focuses/foci - the words “cross over” are more appropriate. Me.. you.. we are all One. If you realise or awaken to a truth, the whole bubble has awakened and realised that same truth. When I give you advice, I am essentially giving myself advice.. what looks like a conversation in this material level is essentially but a thought in the crystallised sphere of consciousness.

Nothing is necessary because the question arises out of an illusory-like experience of separation where meaning, purpose & value seem real. Awakening reveals the questioner or individual within the body isn't real. Nonduality is already everything without a second. No real you or me....no real separation....boom nonduality! ❤

This question is entangled with false ideas. First off, this very existence is already a nondual one, no matter what or who you imagine to be “the observer”. Nonduality is the Knowledge Itself, all knowledge (of appearance; of existence; of all finitudes) is, in truth, but one Knowledge. Secondly, where there is appearance, there is life. The observer is only an idea produced by the life itself, it is not absolute. Knowledge is however Absolute, for it is timeless and limitless. So long as there is knowledge of anything, there is knowledge of everything, for all is one. Life/Existence is already nondual. So you see, the question of necessity is itself unnecessary here since all is already one.

He's rather confused because he grasps solipsism intellectually from the human perspective. Notice how he says "A solipsist believes that my finite mind is all that exists", the truth is that there is no finite mind at all. There is only an infinite mind pretending to be finite, which is a possibility Spira seems to be unaware of as he hasn't realized solipsism. However, it seems that he does comprehend nonduality correctly at least to some degree. And as such, he understands that materialism is nonsense also.

In my experience, IFS and "nonduality" are both necessary as far as holistic spiritual work. Here's the problem: IFS alone is very nice, but it's a delusion to think you can ever properly integrate the parts without dropping ego attachments. The ego construction means an inevitable preference and prioritizing of certain parts due to attachment. And nonduality is very nice, but without IFS you have not integrated, so you're in a let-go state but with many of the same issues that you had prior to enlightenment. It is best to do BOTH, otherwise your results will be limited.

@Reciprocality no, it's not the possibility of awareness that I'm questioning. It's precisely its presence that I'm questioning. To say it is present because it is necessary is to subject it, and I think we can agree that awareness, literally the pre-sent, transcends all that mental faculty. Well I'm having trouble with your logic too, friend. At this point it's coming off rather circular as an argument. I mean.. something that exists must be necessary, simply because it exists? What you're literally saying is this: Existence = Necessity. Of course this will leave room for no miracle because then there's nothing to question other than the implications of the logic. If Existence = Mystery then there is substance, rather than empty belief. What is so wrong if we encounter a duality with this lens? We are simply questioning the aspects of reality as they present themselves. No point in shying away from this for the sake of nonduality.

So I hear and agree with everything you've stated thus far, except for this post right above ?. The problem is I'm not fully acquainted with the concept of ego, so I try to avoid it. I agree with you here, strip away all identities and what remains is nonduality itself. Only question is can there be a intuition of such a modality if I may call it that? I can tell that you use the term imagination rather conventionally. I'm only wondering if it can ever be possible for you to try to broaden this in a sort of all-encompassing was. Otherwise you leave no choice but to agree with you that the absence of imagination does include the possibility of a something remaining. I mean what if imagination cannot be absent? What if there was something like a metaphysical (or multidimensional) imagination were reality suddenly has levels to its realness? This may very well sound ridiculous but only until we enter the realm of dreams. This, by the way, was the approach I was willing to take in proving to you that all is imagination without actually “killing you".

What if phenomena never “arose” and there was just a blank slate forever and ever(blackness/nothingness) with no consciousness or awareness. Would it ultimately not matter because regardless of what appears there’s only THIS? I know there’s only THIS but if there was just nothingness forever then there would never be conscious awareness of nonduality or THIS (which I guess doesn’t matter). Trying to work this out internally and it’s confusing the heck out of me. Any pointers or advice to clear this up is welcome. Thanks

Why? So that it can make sense? ? But that's exactly what I'm saying, though. However, of course, when I say this, it will come across as the most meaningless statement one could make rather carelessly and dry. You say that there is a priori intuition of those things outside consciousness that we may define as (X), and that it is through the sensibility of space that we can learn of their presence and imagine their identities into reality thus rendering the (X) identifiable. This is how I've come to understand you thus far. Now, what I'm saying (from a mystical pov) is this: There - here - is only Knowledge. This knowledge is not the knowing of things (X) or information, no. This knowledge is nonduality complete - it is knowledge of the knowing of the knowing of the knowing for infinity, and never the knowing of a what or who or why and etc, no. Thus, knowledge is knowledge. It is nonduality, it is whole, and it is here, with us and within us, it is the absolute. To awaken to this requires no reasoning or induction of any kind, it merely requires a mere moment of silent observation. Is this not obvious enough? If I were to ask you, “How do you know that you exist?” won't the most honest and yet simplest response be, “I know, because I know.” ? Is this not the truth? You know that you exist because you know in the first place? See.. Knowledge is the first place; it is, in fact, the first and last; it is, in truth, the only place. Thus so, there is nothing outside of existence, for there is nothing outside of Knowledge. Then, from this Knowledge, arises that dormant serpent which you have constantly referred to as intuition, what the Indians call “Kundalini”, what my people call uMbilini, and what the religious scriptures call “Lucifer” which literally translates to 'The Lighter', or 'Light Bringer', for it is this very intuition that awakened Adam and Eve in their edenic, nondual, nature of consciousness. Intuition is secondary to Knowledge.

I guess part of the confusion is- if there was blackness/nothingness/no phenomena from the start…there never would have arisen an ‘I’ thought or a forum discussing nonduality or a galaxy. These “things” prove there is THIS. If there’s just groundless nothing the “proofs” of THIS don’t even arise-and we’d be none the wiser because we’d never know about it either. I’ve grasped these ideas before and been in the flow but sometimes confusion sets in again. I guess I should just focus on this current moment- if there’s THIS now (proven by me sitting in a chair) then there has always been THIS.

Hello everyone, I am doing the self enquiry "work" to awake and reach nonduality. I still have a long way to go. So far I managed to "rewire my brain" to the point that I have started to perceive some sensations and thoughts as if they don't entirely belong to me. As a result most of my emotions feels ... on low volume. I have started to tag them. Also my thoughts feel less ... important. Is this normal? Am I on the right path? Is this being "disconnected" on the right path for enlightenment?

We share the same soul or we are one soul. Rather than saying that other minds/bodies/spirits don't exist and everyone else is being imagined? Of course, this is only in the context of soul referring to that all-encompassing essence of all existence. In discussing consciousness, there is no reason why one should negate the self or other-self, and individual freewill, for the sake of reconciling the diversity of the universe with the notion of one God. Why can't God be diverse, why can't s/he divide and multiply as much as s/he wants while retaining nonduality? In this world we can clearly see everyone working to actualise their personal dreams/visions/ideals, so why can't creation be a co-creation? Are you not your own individual? Do you not have history, do you not have ancestry? Have you walked and struggled no journey in order to reach where you are now? So why say you have no self? And am I not also my own individual? Why should one of us be a dream for the other to be a God? I just don't get it.