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I agree to all that Leo has written above. Some musings from over here: Free will vs. Determinism: The Real You (Infinite Consciousness/Reality) has absolute freedom. The separate self illusion arising in you just feels like being you, but is not you, never was you, never will be you. Never could. You contain these arisings of the separte self in the real You. So it doesn't really exist, and since it doesn't exist, it has no freedom. But the Real You has absolute freedom. Nothing is or could be outside of it to limit its power. You project this freedom that you so strongly intuit on the separate self. So it is an illusion/ignorance. But the core of that feeling of freedom of choice it true, it is the Real You. But: That reasoning will not be clear before some Awakenings into what you are, and then it can help you passing and ripening that understanding, and stabilizing you in resting what You are. Then & there it is beneficial. Before that, it is just impossible to fully get it. Structure of your World-Bubble-Perspective/Visual Field: Since any form of boundary between perspectives would be an imagined arising, it is illusory, an appearance. Your current consciousness is limited, you forget all other perspectives in real time. But you add/imagine separate self arisings (feelings and thoughts), which are the illusion/ignorance. With more consciousness, you can have a Vision like Leavitt (see book cover with infinite perspectives). To get Enlightenment or Omniscience into the structure of Reality, you don't need to see all perspectives, but to fully understand the nature/structure/essence of your perspective, which you then realize has necessarily to hold for all other perspectives/beings. And for all dimensions, since there are only perspectives in Indras Net. N+1 -style. Even a Molecule is some kind of proto-perspective, the interiortity of a Holon in Ken Wilbers theory for example. Although a very rudimentary one. Here some ideas/Koans how to investigate your perspective, and which kind of [Awakenings/Enlightenments] you need: all appearances are imagined arisings in you, any boundary to any other perspective would just be imagined/arising (so not real, just appearing): What is necessary for that Awakening: A state of sufficient Nonduality , appearances appearing as just appearances (hovering in you, hologram-like/translucent). Not the normal everyday state, so either lot of meditation done correctly or Psychedelics are necessary. Psychedelics are very useful to get a preview on that, it takes a while to get there via meditation. the True You as the fully empty Nothingness which is "structurally infinite": Awakening in to the Nothingness or empty cogniziant nature of your core. "Structurally infinite", since any boundary limiting it would just be an imagined appearance, NOT really limiting it, but appearing within it. Something outside that imagined boundary can always also appear/be imagined. And since it is infinite, has no boundary (that would just be an arising in itself), it can't go anywhere, can't die: Awakening into eternity or "always necessary here-ness, can't go anywhere else-ness, can not not be there-ness". Also wasn't created (that would be another arising). It has nothing outside of itself (would be another appearance/arising) which could have created or caused it. That is a mindf*** (sorry) of the highest degree once you stumble over it. No daddy, but You get used to it. ( : It can imagine whatever it wants (omnipotent). Then we have timeless/eternal, nonlocal/"everywhere"/every possible being and reality, literally the only "One" or Reality itself, nothing can be outside of It (omnipresent), and omnipotent (since its the only Reality, no other Reality is stopping It from whatever it wants). So we have eternal, infinite, omnipotent/all powerful. And in some persepctives/beings, it even knows its structural fundamental nature: omniscient of its fundamental structure/being. And that is where sometimes the God-word (eternal, omnipresent, omnipotent, infinite, omniscient) comes in.... But please, don't use any of these insights for separate-self-identity/arisings. That only makes trouble and, you know, bad Karma. Because it is just not true. All of that holds for the True Nature of You, not some not-really-existing (EX-isting = standing out from reality) separate self. But it is not standing out from Reality, it is moving in it, as it, the temporary arising separate-self illusion moving within you and temporary capturing the show for itself. after all of that, you can Awaken to the nature/structure of Manifested/Appearing Reality/Consciousness, God Mind, Infinite, Brahman, Nonduality, ... However you want to call it. The last step is: (oh yes, after all of the above when having been stabilized in it for some time (days, months, years), the last big shift comes. And you won't overlook that one, because all of the above is gradual. This one is quantum). You won't overlook this one, you don't need to contemplate it, don't need to "make a decission" on it or on what you hold as true. It is totally fundamentally self-evident. It IS YOU. With that, you can look the devil in the eye and not blink. You will have the peace and bliss of your True Nature, that is "maintenance-free", since it IS You. It is variously called Great Enlightenment (Zen), Basis Enlightenment (Mahamdura Brown, Pointing out the Great Way), Great Liberation, ... Who or what is aware of all of that described above? Of the nondual infinite God-Mind Bubble Universe of manifested Infinite Consciousness floating in Infinity, as Infinity. What is the Reality/Awareness of Yours, that is inseparable of this Reality? What is the Awareness/"Subject" in perceptions perceiving themselves, without ever possibly having any location/center? What is the Reality/Awareness that can be originally "unaware" when no appearances arise in You (for example, in unware "normal" Deep Sleep), but has the potential of sentience as soon as an appearance is manifested? Who is hearing these words right now? What is this Absolute Subject, the Absolute Nothingness, that is so empty as Subject itself that the Absolute Abyss, that even God can't see anything in It? That you can only "experience", or that becomes available when "looking back" from "one level lower" and intuit/understand it as absolute Abyss of the Absolute Subject that you are? That then can be intuited/realized as total Abyss/Nothingness. That can never be any form or arising, because "the eye can't see" itself style? The Unmanifested Consciousness Reality that can be unaware of itself if no appearance is imagined, and yet that manifests as any possible world appearance in itself as itself, totally nondual, as the One Infinite Reality? What is beyond Manifested/Appearing Reality/Consciousness, God Mind, Infinite, Brahman, Nonduality, beyond all of that, but at the same time expressing itself through that? What remains if all of that, the Universe-Appearance, is switched off and ends, and before a new creation arises (for example in Deep unaware Sleep, or immediately after death before the show goes on)? What is the unmanifested "side" of Consciousness/Reality/Nothingness, but which is not different at all from the appearances arising within it, as it? That which can not not be there? That which has been called Para-Brahman, Godhead, the Absolute, Absolute Awareness, Infinite Awareness. The Fundamental Real You. That neither exists as appearance, nor does not exist because something still appears? The Water of the River that every Being is at its core. Or much much more precise, after all my clumsy descriptions above have failed: The Clap of the One Hand, or your face before your parents were born. And since You are already It, "I" am just.... ... Selling Water by the River ( : Somebody made a Video Channel on the last step: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC9vlZGtpdFIts8GOG5vu27g Bassui on the never stopping short with small Enlighenments: "I have seen that the foundation of the universe is Voidness; still what is this something within me which can see and hear?” he desperately asked himself anew. In spite of every effort, he could not rid himself of this obsessive doubt." [Emptiness and Nondual stage, separate self still intact, on a very rudamentary level, just a void separate self watching Infinity. "The lesser masters from whom Bassui had sought guidance had all sanctioned his enlightenment [see above, Awakenings], but Koho, sensing Bassui’s keen, sensitive mind and the strength and purity of his yearning for truth, did not give him his stamp of approval but merely invited him to remain" "At work, at rest, never stop trying to realize who it is that hears. Even though your questioning penetrates the unconscious, you won’t find the one who hears, and all your efforts will come to naught. Yet sounds can be heard, so question yourself to an even profounder level. At last every vestige of self-awareness [remnants of Empty Witness] will disappear and you will feel like a cloudless sky. Within yourself you will find no “I,” nor will you discover anyone who hears. This Mind is like the void, yet it hasn’t a single spot that can be called empty [no location, unilocal, perception perceiving themselves]. Do not mistake this state for Self-realization, but continue to ask yourself even more intensely, “Now who is it that hears?” If you bore and bore into this question, oblivious to anything else, even this feeling of voidness will vanish and you won’t be aware of anything—total darkness will prevail. [Don’t stop here, but] keep asking with all your strength, “What is it that hears?” Only when you have completely exhausted the questioning [having become fully empty, even of identity with manifested Consciouss, "God-Mind"] will the question burst; now you will feel like someone who has come back from the dead. This is true realization. You will see the Buddhas of all the universes face-to-face and the Dharma Ancestors past and present." "With the passage of time one’s thoughts are stilled and one experiences a void like that of a cloudless sky [Emptiness, Nonduality]. You must not, however, confuse this with enlightenment. Putting aside logic and reason, question yourself even more intensely in this wise: “Mind is formless, and so right now am I. What, then, is hearing?” Only after your search has permeated every pore and fiber of your being [having become totally empty] will the empty-space suddenly break asunder and your Face before your parents were born appear. You will feel like one who abruptly awakens from a dream." from Kapleau, The Three Pillars of Zen PS: I didn't create that Video. But it is beautiful.

Nothingness doesn't try to become anything it just IS. It's not a noun it's a verb... IS-ING, BEING. It doesn't arrive anywhere, it already was there, is there and will always be there....God creates by Being not Becoming.

@Findus I wasn't talking about nothingness as you understand it. I was talking about becoming fully conscious that you are inside a dream. The dream still continues but you are aware that it is all your imagination. There is even deeper consciousness in which the dream disappears as you transcend it.

I'm really not trying to bother but doesn't there come something after this realization? Isn't it normal for nothingness to separate and try to become something else after it has arrived at absolution? I feel like you are overemphasizing the dissolution aspect over the creation aspect.

Your perspective on that is already quite good. I would suggest to add these three perspectives: 1: -> The infinite perspectives in the Non-Euclidian-Space as approximation 2: When allowing for forgetting in time, then also allowing for forgetting other perspectives right now, or in "space". 3: The Awakening to the Absolutely Empty Subject that you (and all beings) really are. Any boundary can only be imagined within that. That is why you have to be fully empty to understand Absolute Reality. Then: When you are fully empty and nondual, perceptions perceiving themselves, at some point you will directly have the realization and understanding that the same Consiousness that you are is in the "other", having arisings of the separate self-feelings and -thoughts, being believed and not seen through, just in the same way it was with you for a long time. Then, these dry perspectives explained above become a lived and felt reality. You can not "think" or reason your way to these Awakenings. But with a perspective that is actually close to how things really work, it calmes your questions (mental arisings in your mindstream, which also include separate self-feelings and separte self-thoughts) on this, and make you rest in the Suchness, resting in the infinite Abyss of Empty Nothingness that you are. And then you are open for these Awakenings. You can't force them (that would be generating separate-self arisings, or artifical activity as Daniel Brown calls it in "Pointing out the Great Way"), but you can make your mindstream open and compatible/available for them (Evaluating these Koan on Psychedelics for sure also helps). More on that in the chapter on Non-Meditation Yoga in this book. All waves on the river are the river, watching the river, and are not separate from the river. There is only be the river. All form that can arise have to arise in Reality/Consciousness, including all imaginary boundaries. If you fully understand the structure of your perspective in this life, you can generalize this understanding for all possible perspectives. Since any boundary or border between any perspective can only be form in consciousness. How can you define any outside or inside if any boundary marking this boundary would be an arising in Absolute Consciousness? How can there be any time in it, besides and imagined arisings moving in it, imagining all past and future? What has to be there before every beginning and ending? What are you? Can you ever get truly "outside" of Yourself? And you can not say anything "positive" about this reality that you are, the Absolute Subject, since that would be a form, and arising, arising in it/You. You can only say what it is not. Neti Neti. "It" is Reality itself, unlimited, infinite. And it has the potential for sentience, perceptions perceiving themselves, as soon as forms arise. But this sentience is also empty, it can not be pointed to as arising or form of any kind. And yet, all of the infinite dimensions and forms arise in It/True You. You can describe the infinity of all arisings/forms of infinite dimensions/multiverses. But that which is truly infinite, what Absolute Reality/True You are, has to be realized and awakened to. That is why smarter people than myself mainly used Koans like the Clap of the one Hand, or An ancient pond/ a frog jumps in/ the sound of water. But the perspectives explained above were helpful for me to relax my philosophical mind with helpful perspectives that were close to how things really work. To be available for the real Awakening. Selling Water by the River

Hello all My first post here. Been listening to Leo for a couple of years and been on this confusing but awesome journey of clawing myself out of the materialist paradigm. I have done lsd and 5 meo a handful of times and I’ve had the world melt away and been thrown into the void so it’s obvious to me that the computer I’m typing on isn’t some kind of external object with independent existence that I’m perceiving through the eyes, but that this is a dream. What’s still bugging me though is this whole POV thing. From what I’ve read others talking about on this forum I don’t seem to be alone with being confused about it. I’ve read quite a bit of people’s comments and I have picked up what kind of jargong you guys have here so first I feel like I should mention some things before I get to the actual question and example. First of all, I’m not claiming to be awake or anything. I don’t really care who’s what. I used to think I understood everything and would even look at myself as ”special” and even ”above” others, but then some brutal ego backlashes humbled me. All I care about now is understanding this for myself. Not look like I got it all figured out, but actually figure it out. Just telling me I’m playing mind games or whatever and then not explaining in what ways or why you think so doesn’t help me figuring anything out. If you’re in a position to say that you’re supposedly not in that trap yourself and should be able to give me some guidance, or maybe you just want to give the impression publicly that you have come so much further. If that’s your intention, please don’t bother to comment. Just telling me I don’t understand and then not helping me is also useless. It’s like the teacher telling the kid just starting out math class he doesn’t understand any math. Yeah, like why do you think he’s there? Also, please don’t spew some nonduality one-liner on me, I’m looking for serious feedback and not interested in hearing the same old lines every newbie loves to write under all the Rupert Spira videos. I’m also not interested in hearing about your definitions of what enlightenment is unless you’re able to talk to me about it in the context of what I’m writing below. With a lot of spiritual folks I more often than not get the feeling that I can’t even have an actual conversation without them starting to tell me about their definitions of enlightenment, or maybe just get a ”there is no you” thrown in the face without even engaging my question. If you’re not engaging what I’m actually writing and just repeating some platitude I won’t take you seriously. A lot of spirituality folks I’ve talked to always dismisses my desire to understand and tell me I should just drop it because it can’t be understood and that I should ”just be” or something similar, but I’m not content with that. Maybe it’s just you who have a weak mind so it’s easier for you to say ”it can’t be understood” because you don’t understand yourself and then confuse your own limits for what’s possible. I’ve even been told ”you’re very philosophical” in a derogatory sense, as if that’s a negative when doing this kind of work. Jeez. With that out of the way I hope I can be taken seriously here. So I have been doing a lot of different thought experiments during and after my trips and I’ve found the video game analogy to be a great visualization to create clear distinctions to understand better so I would really appreciate to get some feedback to course correct me if I’m deceiving myself. For you who play video games this might make sense. Let’s say I play some 1st person game but split screen. So I split it into two 1st persons perspective and then in each of the two perspectives we have a body from the 3rd person perspective. With this example it’s easy to see that the two bodies from 3rd person perspective don’t exist in the same world, an external world, but that they only exist as an appearance within each of the 1st person perspectives. If one of the game characters would observe his hand we wouldn’t actually have just one hand but two. The hand from the 1st person perspective isn’t even the same hand as the one that’s in front of the face of the body from the 3rd person perspective that’s part of the other 1st person perspective. There are no internal worlds because the 1st person perspectives that we usually think of as internal are not that because it’s the other way around where the bodies that we previously located the 1st person perspectives in instead themselves are in those 1st person perspectives. The 1st person perspectives can’t be located in anything appearing because that would basically be claiming that one 1st person perspective is located in another and that would be the typical grounding that materialists do where they locate objects inside of objects to create ”experience” as something owned by a body. If we would turn both of the 1st person perspectives around, both of the bodies from the 3rd person perspective would now have disappeared but none of the 1st person perspectives would have disappeared as they were never located in those bodies. So when I’m interacting with another body I understand that there is no 1st person perspective located in that body or owned by it, there is no difference between that body or a rock or whatever, both are appearances within this 1st person perspective, but I still think of it as if there is another 1st person perspective where what I usually call myself in daily normal self-referencing, my body from the 3rd person perspective, is an appearance. Alright, so here’s my confusion about solipsism. In this analogy there are not two subjects, the bodies are not what’s experiencing or owning any of the perspectives, nothing is being perceived through the eyes or being calculated or created by any brain. Neither is existing in an external world and neither is having any inner experiences. It’s all direct appearance without inside or outside. The whole story of sense organs and biology and external independent world and so forth are something that’s being imagined and then projected as an overlay on the one-layered appearance to create a sense of a separate reality with multiple subjects. There would not be two separate positions either. If we go further than the screen analogy and imagine we would remove the dividing line between the two 1st person perspectives and merge them so that they are superimposed on each other and then do that with every possible perspective, then all perspectives are located at the same point that itself has no location. A pointless point lol..where everything emerges out of, which is what I think people mean when they talk about the Godhead. Basically that nothingness that sits where I previously imagined and believed my head was. So there is no one looking out of any head, only the Godhead that’s not located anywhere that is looking. My body from the 3rd person perspective, that’s only an appearance within the other 1st person perspective and with no existence outside of it, is also something I’m looking at as the Godhead. I could see how someone might call this solipsism but my understanding of what’s usually meant by that word would in this screen analogy be equal to if we simply removed one of the two 1st person perspectives on the screen and now only displayed one and that’s it. That’s all of it. Which means that when I’m communicating with another body there is no other perspective with an appearance of me as a body from the 3rd perspective talking. Sounds like a pretty small infinity to me if all there is would be only this one perspective being imagined by the Godhead. Also, when someone says ”there is only you” or ”you’re only talking to yourself” it can mean drastically different things depending of what ”you” and ”yourself” is referring to. If you said that to a materialist who believes he is a body that’s walking around in an independent external world and using his brain to construct an internal image of that world, that would make no sense to him. Some of these things can be very confusing depending on where you’re coming at it from. I don’t see how one subject has to mean only one perspective. I mean, in the materialist model we have many subjects but one world. So if you’re coming from that paradigm with thinking it’s only one world and then you hear something like ”there is only one subject”, i.e. you, and you erase all the other subjects you previously imagined to exist under the materialist paradigm, but then still hold the idea of only one world subconsciously, I can see that it’s easy to then draw the conclusion that the forms that are present for you now is all there is. But if you drop the ”one world” idea then one subject doesn’t have to mean one appearance. Am I on the right track with this line of thinking? Anyhow, I’ve been wrecking my mind incessantly over this the last few month and people are saying different things regarding this and I guess this will be no different but would appreciate some feedback about all this from someone with some real experience and hope we can talk about it within the framework of the analogy. If I’m fooling myself I wanna know. That doesn’t mean I will buy anything you say though. Thanks!

Enlightenment is in most definitions defined as seeing that all appearances arise within the infinite you, being imagined by you, through you. And you are that, the Totality, Tat Tvam Asi. That includes all arisings, including the feelings and thoughts of the separate self, including memories. And of course the boat (all spiritual teachings) that carried you to the other shore, that you cast into the stream after crossing over to the other shore. They also arise just in you. Reality/True You includes every possible arising or imagined form, n+1. I also agree that Just experiencing or becoming Emptiness or Nothingness is not sufficient. You can experience the Godhead as state (Cessation, Nirvikalpha), and even experience yourself as Nothingness in a nondual infinite state, and it is not yet IT. Why? Because there are still a very very subtle feeling of Inviduality, of being separate, that will continue appearing in you. Even if it is just a very subtle "Nothing" watching the infinite. And how to get the Realization into daily life? Like, seeing the whole infinite appearance bubble arise within you in daily life? Learn to get proficient in spotting this last feeling of indviduality/separateness, and cutting them off before they fully rise up and elaborate, put You under their spell, before they get believed. A High-Speed-Search-Task for the Emptiness of the separate self arisings, as Daniel Brown once called it. And when you are fully empty (your personality is not gone, it continues working more efficient and better than ever, its just blows like the wind through the Totality that you are then), you can sustain that. Nondual, infinite, blissfull, the not so separate self or character moving in you like the wind. You realize that you have always been that Totality, before with the illusion of something separate appearing in it. @Leo Gura : I am (at least in my understanding of your writings, especially the one above) very close with my definitions of these terms to your definition on God-Realization/Enlightenment. I understand why you put so much emphasize on understanding the points you mention above, because its sooo easy to stop short, and various teachers like Jac O'Keffee or Wolinsky, Massaro (I know...), Wilber, Davidya, even Bassui a few hundred years ago.... also emphasize that a lot: Further, never stop short. It is so easy to fool yourself, and stop at Nonduality with a separate self still left and not fully seen through. I also like your wording of imagination more than the classic buddhist wording of "empty or empty of inherent existence", the question of BiploarGrowth. ("Could you define imaginary as “something not having inherent existence and being completely reliant on Consciousness/You to appear”?). So, at least in my humble opinion, the more or less only point where I put a different emphasis than you (yet, which at least in my experience, has a drastic impact wether you can carry this realization into daily life), is: This last quantum of getting totally empty of the last Individuality/separateness-arising-items arising in you, not a lense seen through, but a lense fully transcended moving in you and not seen through, which enables you to sustain this Realization sobre without pychedelics, and to get it totally unbiased of any last separate self interpreting lense. @Leo GuraLeo, just one question: Where is your line of kicking out people? I understand that probably most people who write in a not so polite way or are making fun, or being ironic/sarcastic in a not so light way, or are being arrogant, are probably not writing that while being aware of their True Nature (at least while writing it, yet some may be), but are a bit annoyed by some manifestation in their visual field (which in that case happen to be your writings). So, for them, a little challenge: How about writing it being aware that Leo is actually fundamentally not different from you, and writing your message in a loving way, even if you feel the urgency of critique? Writing while not rejecting parts of your visual field (in that case, Leos message)? I respect you and your work (which is marvelous in so many areas). I just have a different perspective on the utmost importance of getting fully empty, seeing the separate self arisings in real time fast enough and not getting hypnotized, and to be able to carry that realization described above into everyday life, and the ensuing happiness/bliss that it brings. Utmost at least in my experience, because it made the difference on so much more happiness and bliss that has come into my life so that I can not honestly write about this topic without mentioning the experience I had with this aspect. Let's respectfully agree to disagree on that one point? Namaste and all the best! Water by the River

AWAKE does not require alien consciousness. AWAKE requires that you become conscious of how you imagine the entire world into existence around yourself. It's very direct, very pure, very profound God-Realization. You need to get to the very root of what GOD is. Not as Emptiness or Nothingness, but as yourself imagining everything around you -- including your body, your memories, the Earth, and other people. And including all spiritual teachings and enlightenment. You have to realize that enlightenment, nonduality, Buddhism, meditation, sleep, birth, and death are all imaginary.

I exist alone. Others exist alone too. This what solpsism means. Everyone of us creats "others" which are actually imagination. This goes well with what Leo described as infinity of Gods. Everyones of us is God, and we are seperate, but we decided to make a common reality to experience being togther. I exist floating in a room, made of nothingness. This room is infinite and without borders. I use my consciousness to create things out of this nothingness. I render everything I make, Like when a game engine renders everything in a game. This rendering process happens now. It didn't happen in the past, it happens now. If I stop rendering, everything disappers. The visual field is not generated by the brain. It is directly generated by me. I generate everything in my visual field. I generate the body, the chair I am sitting on, the feeling I feel when I am sitting on a chair, The noise I hear when writing on a keyboard, etc.. I am everything in the visual field and I can feel it if I freed myself from the boundaries of my phiscal body. I can feel like I am the screen I am writing on right now, if I am not so attached to feeling the body only.

True, when i did mahasamadhi by stopping my heart the first thing god/i witnessed is that i was alone in nothingness, it was very scary realizing that you're the only being and i wanted to get back to my dream as fast as possible. The real reason god created "others" for itself, is to love itself and forget about its true reality. It was especially scary witnessing myself constructing all these fake dreams for myself and illusions lying to myself. It felt like god was so scared of its true reality and the limits that it actually has about its own reality, that it operates as a fully conscious automatic being. Splitting itself for infinity automatically to get away from its reality. I think because it splits itself automatically for infinity into different dreams, has something to do with lower consciousness. It imagines itself asleep as a lower being for infinity, this is why we will always start from scratch and never fully wake up, we will just get into different dream really fast

@Vibes Leo isn't that awake how he appears to be, don't get me wrong he knows a lot and taught me a lot but he is just a character that i created in my dream... But i literally awoke to most of his teachings/awakenings in like 2 lsd trips. God literally can't get shot or kill himself, it's not possible/not happening. Consciousness can't get kill consciousness, everything that you see including someone getting shot in the head is pre-made. In another words it is god that constructed a movie for himself to make it feel "real" being in finite/limited form. When someone is shot near you, he just disappears into nothingness since he is part of your dream/movie . But when you get shot, you will be still there and the game of you playing as a limited being is over. Don't be fooled by your limits and your eyes. There is literally a person called, tat wale baba who was enlightened being. That said he will do mahasamadhi by getting shot. In another words he already constructed reality/movie for him where he will enter into god mode again by getting shot. The reason ascended masters predict things, or do the things at the right moment is because they already know about the movie and everything that is happening in it. Because they constructed it while choosing the dream

Lillypads on a pond. Somehow the pond gets lost in the lillypads... Lillypads being thoughts, which we all have and which build our individual characters and ego story. The lillypads are always going to be something floating on top of the water: Any thought about anything like death, or categorizations like the idea of the categories of nothing and something, are always going to just be lillpads. It can't ever touch the reality of the pond. Because of those various thoughts, people don't actually understand that they don't die and enter eternal nothingness. People think there is a self and then everything trickles down with that to create a very frightened worldview. And huge fears regarding death especially.

Selling Water by the River, todays water batch: Difference between Awakening and Enlightenment: Enlightenment: You had to cut/transcend every subtle separate sense feelings/thought (very subtle ones, very hard to spot). Then you are fully empty, which is your True Condition. Then, all separate self arisings arise in you, and move in you, but you are not only them. They move in you like the wind. The wind is also you, but you are not only the wind. They are fully transcended. Why is that necessary to fully understand Absolute Reality, or what You are? What you are can be fully empty. Like, nothing at all. Total Nothingness. When no arising is there, Absolute Reality/You is unaware of itself. But with the potential for sentience if something appears (for example, check Hawal and Massaro books). You are still there when all arisings disappear (Nirvikalpha, Deep Sleep, your face before your parents were born). And if you want to understand what You are while forms still arising (like, in normal life), there can not be a subtle separate self/anything cutting the one infinite Unity of the Real You/Reality into a felt subject (Awareness) watching Infinity, even if it feels nondual or infinite. It has to become perceptions perceiving themself, no separate self anywhere to be found. You can not have separate Awareness separated from the field. The infinite field watches itself, literally does. And your body-mind moves in the Totality that you are. The thoughts and feelings of the former separate you are moving in in the True You like the wind. The bliss/love you generate in that state without needing anything external gives you autonomy from chasing externally generated bliss via experiences. It gives you total absolute freedom and love (Bassui below: You will be entirely free) If you understand that for your perspective, you understand that this holds for the structure of all perspectives/beings, for the whole Absolute Reality. Why? Because all perspectives are only form arising in the Absolute, any boundary from one perspective/being to another is either forgetting or form arising in Awareness, seeing itself. The advantage if do that sobre: You need a high developed state of nonduality/nonlocality/centerlessness/mere appearance of the visual bubble. You get that via meditation done correctly. Which doesn't need to be unpleasant or hard (although it normally takes quite a while), at least if done correctly, see for example Pointing out the Great Way, Daniel Brown. If you feel centered in your head, and the outside world appears as solid, you can not understand the Nature of Reality, impossible. So this state is necessary for Enlightenment. But not sufficient. From that stage (Yoga of One Taste) for example, you can continue to dissolve the last remnants of the separate self (for example, Nonmeditation Yoga). And then you can have Insight into what you are. You will not miss that, its definitive. Also, and most important, you got a built in safety check/quality control: You will not cross over to full Enlightenment without fully transcending any and all separate self arising coming up (and the visual field being Nonduality, centerless and infinite). You can't fool yourself here. And you will understand when you are there. Why it is absolute. Awakening: The energetic state of Nonduality/Unity/Infinity with some remnants of separate self still not fully transcended, you can also get by Psychedelics. Which of course is useful in order to have an idea of the goal, a feedback loop to build this nonduality-state via meditation, on and off the pillow. But here, you get the nonduality/mere appearance with subtle remnants of the separate self still intact. You don't have the build in quality/safety mechanism of classic Full Enlightenment. So it is very easy to confuse these experiences for the final Realization of what you are. Everyone having experienced it claims this on the difference between Awakening and Enlightenment, see for example Frank Yang/Ralston/Wilber/Jac O'Keffee/Steven Wolinsky/... (anticipating certain feedback: "they are not awake, but enlightened". Well, with the definitions above I could agree). Enlightenment is in a different ballpark. And you can't imagine it without it fully happening. So it is not some mild form of "God-Realization", or Nothing. It is something of a different category. It is, to quote Ralston, fully understanding what You are and what Reality is. Without any separate self filters, however subtle, still active. So what happens if you value Psychedelic Awakenings or Understandings higher than fully being and realizing what you are? You guessed it: Reality doesn't let you off the hook, you still have psychological suffering. The separate self arisings cut you off from the full flow of love of your True Being for itself. So you need experiences to get this love flowing. For example the love you feel when understanding-experiences of the exquisite beauty of the design of Reality/Dimensions happen. Is anything with exploring Alien-Godminds wrong? For sure not, this understanding is probably among the most beautiful experiences you can have. I just feel it becomes problematic if you value getting the love the unenlightened separate self needs from these experiences, and valueing these understandings of Alien-Godminds higher than classic Enlighenment and fully understanding your True Nature, and resting in it. Why not pursue and value BOTH endevours on an at least equal basis? Not downplaying Enlightenment as somehow not on the same level or lower than any other insight into the appearance or form side of Reality (which is infinite). If what is stated above is correct, with one path one is lead to salvation (Enlightenment), and with the other path (Understanding/Awakenings), well.... best regards from Maya, but you get a medal from her with distinction for playing her game on the highest level possible. For the readers: You will probably not achieve higher level of bliss and love than your teacher using his teachings. And how these levels will develop: Well, we are in the prime seats here to see how it will continue. I don' think I have a high chance of convincing Leo. So that means that the job of convincing to develop via suffering (or hopefully only not being as happy and loving than one could be) stays where it always has been, and ever will be: Maya, CEO of Samsara. All the best, enjoy the ride and the show, and Namaste! Selling Bullshit Water by the River. PS: There is already water by the River, so I am too lazy to carry Bulls**t there. ( : Bassui: “What is it that hears?” Only when you have completely exhausted the questioning will the question burst; now you will feel like someone who has come back from the dead. This is true realization. You will see the Buddhas of all the universes face-to-face and the Dharma Ancestors past and present. ... If you push forward with your last ounce of strength at the very point where the path of your thinking has been blocked, and then, completely stymied, leap with hands high in the air into the tremendous abyss of fire confronting you—into the ever-burning flame of your own primordial nature—all ego-consciousness, all delusive feelings and thoughts and perceptions will perish with your ego-root and the true source of your Self-nature will appear. You will feel resurrected, all sickness having completely vanished, and will experience genuine peace and joy. You will be entirely free. For the first time you will realize that walking on water is like walking on ground and walking on ground like walking on water; that all day long there is speaking, yet no word is ever spoken; that throughout the day there is walking, yet no step is ever taken; that while the clouds are rising over the southern mountains their rain is falling over the northern range; that when the lecture gong is struck in China the lecture begins in Korea; that sitting alone in a ten-foot-square room you meet all the Buddhas of the ten quarters; that without seeing a word you read the more than seven thousand volumes of the sutras; that though you acquire all the merits and virtues of good actions, yet in fact there are none.

@aurum "If by alien supermind you are referring to Leo’s latest insights about Alien Consciousness, I would say we have no idea yet what Leo even means by this. " Whatever the meaning or Referent of this concept/word is , it would just be more form. Even if its a very subtle appearance or formless understanding. Just more arisings. What is it that is aware of all of that? And what happens with that in Deep Sleep? What is that Nothingness that can be unaware of itself if nothing appears, but has the innate potential for sentience? That which can never not be? If that understanding manifests in your mindstream and daily everday-life, I would be interested in how happy and blissful you are on a permanent basis. And how much you would still grasp about the Alien... But then you would probably anyway go looking about this interesting Alien Supermind, but with a big smile on your face. When such a show comes into town.... I would go looking.... ( : PS: I am really curious what kind of stuff will be dragged in from the Multiverse into our little comfy imagined reality in the next decades... Hopefully nothing that is too hungry for some poor souls... ( : But hey, if you look into history, they dragged quite some weird and hungry stuff from god knows which dimensions.... many of the first contactees could later be visited in insane asylums.

It is valid because the fact of being precedes appearance. There is nothing to any particular appearance apart from the fact of its presence. Really think about what you refer to when saying "I am conscious of _" (like I am conscious of the sound of this music). In any statement about being conscious of anything, you won't find reference to anything except the fact of presence. Isness. Being. Being conscious of _ (whatever thing, like music) = the presence of _, and that's all it is. Nothing more. It is literally a communication that something is present. That is the all it means. Any perception from thought to sight, is perception. If it's a space alien made of sight, there is nothing to that except the visual phenomena which is the way the alien looks. If you believe you are the alien there might be the alien's thought perceptions. All of this is perceptions. Fundamentally there is nothing to any of that apart from their presence. When the alien appears visually, the visual appearance of the alien is present. When the alien's thoughts appear, the appearance of alien thought is present. Presence is the fundamental reality. The lack of distinction often referenced by gurus is to do with categorical divides. The same categorical divide which makes people do somersaults about life and death, because there is a concept that there will be a categorical shift across a divide from existence, which is thought to be a category containing all sorts of phenomena, and non existence which is conceptualized as eternal nothingness. People envision going into a dreamless sleep and never waking up. Actually, reality can freely and readily bleed between apparently distinct categories because categories are not actual. They are only thought perceptions, which are appearances, and are themselves not default to the fact of presence. There is not nothing and something or existence and non existence, because these are divided categories existent only in the mind of the one who has the idea. And presence precedes all. Even a husk of an idea remaining of category will keep it lingering, much like the idea of entering non existence, there is no necessity for such a thing to ever be actual but as long as even a remnant of an idea that this reality has categories exists, we cannot envision eternal appearances without the opposite. It really has to be seen through that neither is actual otherwise at least some idea of how something ought to be will remain. Because of the fact presence can cause a conceptual idea of what isn't present, as per the other categories above, it might not be a suitable word still. A suitable word would probably be something nonsensical that you make up, because such a term would not have an implied opposite. I know people enjoy the term God, Brahman, and various others. I think they are too humanized. So I would actually recommend making up a nonsense gibberish word instead. Honestly a nonsense word is the best way to destroy categorical thinking and to destroy any idea of traits being must have. Call it googlegoo or something, googlegoo doesn't create in the mind ideas of an opposing type of thing. Anyway... Any conceivable idea is going to consist of perception. So I just do not understand why anyone finds it interesting what reality is aside from the sheer fact of being. It would be cool if our universe were inside a marble being played with by an alien, I would love that to be true. That would still be preceded by the sheer fact of presence, though. There isn't anything else.

I don't know man, doesn't sound good and i don't resonate with it. Looks like you're a reflection of my current consciousness/limit. Read all my answers in this thread including the video. Everything is deterministic, i think you're bound to wake up until you're ready to choose a new dream or you just go to sleep and don't wake up anymore like nothing happened. Have you noticed that when you enter very high states of consciousness, you're literally falling asleep? Same thing with love, when you feel love for someone or enter higher states of consciousness you want to sleep/fall asleep. I think when you're conscious enough like we are, we definitely can do our own mahasamadhi and perhaps chose a new dream according to our current consciousness/understanding. Consciousness doesn't have to retain all the memories since it's nothingness, so perhaps each person inside this consciousness field is its own god. I have definitely seen that a dream for example where you're semi god/ascended master, is chosen and you just don't become like that.

@axiom Fully agree on all points. I should have added some concluding remark from the Absolute side of the street, not everything from the Relative side of the street. >There is noone already, so there is nothing that can be done. There are only appearances arising which may or may not involve what seems to be an individual on some kind of path. Totally agree, but for sake of teaching-efficiacy, the Mahamdura-system throws the stick with which one pokes and blazes the fire only into the fire when the fire is sufficiently burning. In the Mahamudra-System (for example Pointing out the Great Way, Brown), there is only effort or artifical activity (or a person) involved up until and including the stage 3 of One Taste (One Taste = Nondual). One learns to cut all thought- and emotion-arisings fast enough (Stage 1& 2). When one is proficient enough in that, the visual field starts getting nondual (Stage 3), the separation perceived before drops away, and the visual field gets an appearance-only quality, empty, hologram-style. Then, at stage 4 (Nonmeditation Yoga), this effort or artifical activity (or believing in a person or agent doing these things) gets dismantled, because cutting off the Illusion-thought-arisings has become fast enough and automatic. Together with that, the concept of a doer/person/agent gets pointed out as another concept, and the meditation does itself. Here, the mindstream aligns for the first time with the real state of things, that an understanding can happen there really is no person, just a bundle of I-thoughts/I-feelings arising. And of course, there was no person/individual in the past, only an apparant Gestalt that looked like that, and which one used to overlay ones true being (Infinite Conciousness or Reality itself) with, there isnt one now, and there never can or will be, only as an illusion or overlay on the real nature of things. Ones True Being is able to generate this illusion (magnificienlty), but is not dependend on it. The show can happen without it. But reality can generate this illusion. Basically then one goes full Tony Parsons (there is no person, nothing needs to be done), but only at stage 4 Nonmeditation Yoga and not before. If you do it before, certain qualities are not generated that one needs to conform to the enlightened mind (nonduality, mere-appearance/imagined hologram-like quality of the visual field, infinitesness of the visual field, space not as independend self-existing "thing" but sth. imagined in consciousness which consciousness doesnt need to imagine, time and memory happening in it now, that one cant get out of it because there is no outside, and some other stuff). And when all of that is in place, Basis-Enlightenment or Crossing Over can happen, which Brown describes (among other things): " Seemingly individual consciousness (yid), the point of observation throughout the entire path of meditation, is now found to be a mere concept (btagspa), which drops away. … The seeming reality of individual consciousness along with its functions and activities gives way, leaving only an infinite ocean of awareness-space " The description of enlightenment as a dropping away of any kind of separate-identity/person/individual arising is universal in all enlightenment descriptions. Don't worry, by definition, the real you can't go away - ever. Only an illusion is seen through and understood. And the real you can generate the separate-self Illusion-show, so nothing really is lost. Whats more fundamental is still there. So It sounds more negative than it is. Leaving only an infinite ocean of awareness-space: And if you have become so impersonal or universal consciousness (nondual) that you can have that state of huge nonduality/mere appearance of the visual field/infiniteness sobre, well then you have deconstructed your separate self enough. This is the Gate-Keeper of the Gateless Gate. This deconstruction is better said a high-speed-search-task-and-cutting-off of separate self illusion-arisings (I-feelings, I-thoughts, Trekchö-Style), and that is what boosts the nonduality and mere appearance aspect of the visual field, which is exactly what you can also boost with psychedelics, but with much more of the separate-self illusions still staying intact.... Frank Yang called that once the God-Mind-state. >From the other side of the gate, it is said that to see apparent individuals believing that they exist, believing in their own agency... believing they have achieved enlightenment or indeed anything at all - is the sweetest joke going. Fully agree. And if it can happen natty in Nonduality-States, it can even more easily happen with doing only/mainly Psychedelics, because among other things, they exactly boost that Nonduality/mere apperance/infinite state. And if the separate self arisings are not fully seen through, you can get quite a show. And by the way, as Ken Wilber said, people doing both meditation and psychedelics, get the most out of it, so I am not against Psychedelics at all. Somebody made a very nice youtube-Channel on looking deep into the Abyss or Nothingness that precedes Nonduality: Prior to Non-Duality https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC9vlZGtpdFIts8GOG5vu27g You can have full blow nonduality WITH an enlightened ego/person with an identity still going on, believing to be enlightened. Believing to be Awareness, Presence, God, whatever not. Stage 3 in Mahamudra. Quite a show... Beautiful video on that by Jac O'Keffee: and now, walking from the Relative Side of the Street a bit more towards its Absolute Side: In actuality, there is nobody selling water by the river, and nobody is buying it... And the short form, of all written above is: The old pond, A frog jumps in: Plop! Enjoy the ride!

He means because it is realized there is nothing but existence. And not even existence because existence is a conceptual term which exists as an opposite category to a conceptual "non existence". Which is why people tend to view life as existence and death as non existence, which they think is an infinite nothingness they will go into. Because it is all this idea of categorically different states of being which are then conceptualized. All categories are thought perceptions and thought perceptions are appearances of reality and not default to reality. Sort of like they float on top of reality. In that way no thought or idea can ever actually be reality because it is an appearance of it. Reality precedes it. With absolute total loss of categorical thoughts, what is left is not any different but is no longer something or nothing or existent or non existent, for the sole reason that all of those things are conceptualized categories. And categories are thought appearances taking place within a reality which in absence of your mind is uncategorized. Without any category at all, there is nothing else to which anything could belong or be.

You used your mind to come to that conclusion. But the mind is the creator of illusion and falsehood. It is what has created everything we call “reality” out of thin air. Nothingness is the true nature of reality. I hesitate to say that “I am nothingness” since “I” itself is a mind creation, a part of the illusion.

@Inliytened1 First of all, I'm not Lester ! I dont know who that is or why you guys think I am him Second of all, It's impressive you have become enlightened without drugs. I used a lot of psychedelics and dissociatives and let me tell you the states and feelings you get while tripping are MERELY POINTERS to very complex concepts like infinity, oneness, nothingness, God, everything-ness, etc. These concepts are so abstract and out of this world YOU CANNOT EXPERIENCE THEM. They were not designed to be experienced. They dont exist essentially. Everything you feel on drugs is fake, but can work well as pointers, to open your mind to possibilities. So to all the people who claim they've experienced nothingness, infinity, God on drugs, IT"S ALL FAKE, IT"S ALL A HALLUCINATION. I promise you. Yes, the feeling was metaphorically close to the actual 'concept', but it was mostly what your limited human mind thought infinity or nothingness should feel like. Even if you were close, YOU"RE NOT EVEN CLOSE! Do you get it? Nothingness is not a feeling! Infinity is not a feeling! God damn, it should be obvious, I feel so stupid even saying this to you. They're all hallucinations! Trust me, it requires you to really abuse these substances until you truly realize the meaning of what a hallucination is. They work wonders to open you up, but then if you continue using them you'll slowly enter the schizo realm by thinking you're actually speaking to "aliens" and entities and God or whatever. The drug hits you so hard that the thoughts that pop inside your head seem like they come from an alien entity. Schizo stuff. That's called psychosis, not enlightenment. It's very easy to fall into drugs' trap of "there are more awakening, there are higher and higher awakenings" that Leo seems to have fallen into. It took me a while to realize this. I kept using and using thinking there are higher and higher awakenings when in reality I was going deeper and deeper into complete delusions, total schizo realm. Complete enlightenment is definitely possible without the use of any drug. If it's 'your' destiny to awaken, 'you''ll awaken. I seriously doubt the "AWAKE" state of Leo (awake with capital A , because you see apparently there's a difference between awake and Awake, or AWAKE, who tf knows?), mainly because this post definitely came from a place of arrogance, narcissism and complete disrespect for everybody. If you think you know more than someone just because you DEDICATED YOURSELF MORE AND MADE MORE SACRIFICES AND DID MORE DRUGS:))), you're out of your mind, you're operating under a limiting belief. Whoever says he's the OnLy oNe AwAkE is probably ego tripping. It's understandable

I don't think he believes in realizing nothingness/non-duality, he seems to write them off as imagination or not absolute, I'm not sure if it's a communication disconnect or what.

Have there been other teachers that say there's something further than non duality/nothingness?

The self is also an experience and does tend to appear alongside every occurring appearance. In many ways like a parasite which has attached itself to an appearance. There is heard music by itself, then appears this parasitic thought of "I am hearing this music". Over time it builds coils and coils of itself by its constant insertion of itself (thought-appearances like "I am _" "last week I _") into the fact of something's presence, like the presence of the color purple, which can in fact exist entirely absent of the self. Over time it becomes so strong that it becomes almost impossible to conceive of existence without it. It will comandeer everything. The question of death and deep sleep and various similar topics becomes a question of what will happen to it. Will it merge with some big Self? Will there be nothingness forever? It becomes so strong that it becomes impossible to comprehend that it can completely stop existing, just like any other appearance can, and nothing will change at all. You can be dead and hearing your favorite piece of music, because there wasn't any you ever hearing it full stop. The music appeared and that was it. It is one of many shapes existence takes. Never with a self involved. Only the appearance by thought that there is such a thing there. If you find some old obscure Victorian piece of music and listen to it, every long dead person who was alive and listening to it way back then, is there hearing it again. Because in actual fact nobody ever heard the music, the music appeared way back then and the music appears now. The hearing of the music is exactly the thing which is present and each time it appears it is exactly the same. Regardless of who apparently seems to be hearing it or who appears to be dead and buried or even if every living being in existence was dead. If there were no conscious beings in the entirety of existence, the heard music could still appear and it would be heard just the same. Because the hearing of the music is exactly what is present. And in fact there are no conscious beings, this is the way it has always been and always will be.

Correct. Of course. That would be the classic Buddhist Emptiness/Nothingness.

@nachiketa nothingness in this sense is just a fancy word for everything-ness