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Yes, understand & agree. " the absence of limitation is absolute life, absolute freedom, absolute love, because it includes everything . whoever realizes the absolute is the only one that exists, but his infinity excludes any solitude. there is no other, but as in a game of mirrors, there are infinite perspectives. you cannot understand it in a linear or superficial way". That is beautiful. And the "one" who realizes the Absolute is gone... replaced by the Infinite Totality that was always already the case. The previous separate self is seen through/transcended/emptied out/dead. A functional character remaining, but the separate self gone. Because how could IT be the Infinite Totality when "anything" separate or individual/individuality still arise&moves in it.... That is why some say no one realizes the Absolute, and that there can not be an enlightened person. I use Nothingness in the definition of Andrew Halaw, to contrast it with Nothing. Nothing has a opposite: Something. Nothingness is neither existence nor non-existence. Madhyamaka-style. Neither existing nor non-existing, nor both, nor neither. Infinite. Infinite Consciousness, or the One without a second. But that already says too much "positive" about "It". Andrew Halaw in "God is Nothingness": "This book is about Nothingness, the great Void of the holy sages, not to be confused with the nothing of the ordinary person. Silence. A blank page or space in a book. A shout. Slapping the table or thumping the floor. These are all expressions of the ineffable truth that is theuniversal nature of reality. Since there is no way to directly capture the highest truth with language, all we can do is point to it. And “Nothingness” is the best verbal pointer that I have found." In the beginning, there was only Nothing. Now there is only Nothing. In the end, there will be only Nothing. There always was, is, and only ever will be Nothing. God is Nothingness Christ is Nothingness Buddha is Nothingness The Tao is Nothingness Brahman is Nothingness The Absolute is Nothingness Nothingness is neither something nor the common nothing; it is the Great Nothing, the eternal, magnificent, all-encompassing Nothingness that transcends being, yet is the ground from which existence itself arises. In truth, there is only Nothingness, for nothing else ever was. Beings suffer because they do not understand Nothing. Intoxicated by their senses and minds, they chase mirages, construct temples, conduct empty rituals, pursue wealth and status, believing that there is something —meaning, purpose, salvation— to attain. Fools are slaves to their senses and thoughts, caught in the snare of form and desire, unaware that all things arise from Nothingness, abide as Nothingness, and return to Nothingness. For nothing has ever happened. Existence and appearance are flashes of Nothingness superimposed upon Nothingness. There are no beings, no worlds, no minds, no consciousness, no souls, no events, no time, no space, no Buddha, no Christ, no Self, no God. There is only the not-‘that’ That— the Great, Magnificent Void, the womb of all existence. NOTHINGNESS. Bound by neither space nor time, Nothingness is dimension-less, time-less, and form-less. The Void is unborn, unoriginated, unconditioned, and deathless, neither coming nor going, ‘creating’ nor destroying, rewarding nor punishing. It has never set anything in motion nor caused anything to happen. Ultimately, there is only Nothing, which is the final and only truth. Nothingness cannot be seen with eyes, nor heard with ears, tasted with the tongue, smelt with the nose, felt by the body, or known by the mind. Do not look for it with your senses or mind, for the Void is beyond color, sound, smell, taste, touch, form, and thought. Transcend them and realize that you are truly Nothing, that in reality there is only Nothing. Then you are free to dance and play on the waves of Nothingness. " and " Nothingness is not sheer blankness, yet neither is it being-ness the way that we ordinarily understand existence; it is the source and true nature of all beings. This is the “vast emptiness, nothing holy” of Bodhidharma, the legendary founder of Ch’an, Sǒn, and Zen Buddhism. Consciousness is neither present nor absent in Nothingness, for Nothingness is actually the root of consciousness. In truth, there is no such thing as consciousness; there is only Nothingness. Consciousness is instantiated Nothingness, as is all of existence. Frightened dullards, clinging to notions of existence, call Nothingness “nihilism,” unaware that Nothing is the exact opposite of deathly sterility; Non-being is the great womb from which everything arises, abides, and eventually returns. From a Buddhist perspective, “Emptiness is not a negative idea, nor does it mean mere privation, but as it is not in the realm of names and forms, it is called emptiness, or nothingness, or the Void” (Suzuki 60). Sunyata, as Nothingness can be called in Buddhism, or Tao in Taoism, sustains everything, including consciousness. It is the vast, empty void of Non-existence that the Buddha calls Nirvana, meaning “extinction” of all ‘being.’ It is what Nisargadatta Maharaj points to when he speaks of ‘Universal Consciousness’ or what Huang Po calls ‘Mind.’ Nothingness is prior to consciousness, as it is is with all phenomena. This is why Huang Po says, “Mind in itself is not mind” (Blofeld 34), meaning that the mind is truly understood only when its own emptiness is realized. For mind is Nothingness occurring as consciousness. When this is properly realized, mind become Mind with a capital “M,” not in the sense that some latent quality has been discovered that it is somehow beyond all conditioning, like some eternal super Consciousness or Witness at the base of our mind; but in the sense that when we realize our own universality as Nothingness, we awaken to our own unlimited nature. This is what sages mean when they talk about “primordial consciousness”; it is the realization that our minds transcend beingness alone, by extending into the core nor Non-being, into Nothingness itself. The mind, in effect, is simultaneously limitless (transcendent) and viscerally present (immanent). Hence, Nisargadatta calls it “Universal Consciousness” to express the insight into the universal Nothingness of our minds. Nothingness creates, supports, animates, and eventually recalls everything, yet is not bound to any single thing. It is the stars, but not limited to them. It is the earth and all of its inhabitants, but is not confined to them. Nothingness is the true nature of all existence. The Buddha, the Awakened One, is also called Tathata, meaning, “One who has arrived at suchness,” suchness being another term for the ineffable, mysterious reality of Nonbeing, sunyata, or Nothingness. We have risen from Nothingness, and to Nothingness we shall return. Therefore, ultimately there is no movement or nothing that ever happens, for everything is in fact Nothingness. “That which is before you is it, in all its fullness, utterly complete” (37). And yet the world continues to change and transform; the seasons come and go; people are born, grow old and die. Nothing changes and yet everything happens. Divinity expresses itself as an acorn, a mustard seed, a lump of coal. Humans, including their toils and vices, are all manifestations of the wondrous Nothingness. “Nothing[ness] is the inexhaustible, suprasensible power underlying all finite beings,” “the emptiness from which all beings are forged” (Chen 90, 92). Nothingness sings as birds, sighs as the wind, breathes as humans, and knows as mind. Once this is realized, there is nothing to worry about, for everything is an expression of Nothing. As the seminal Buddhist scripture, the Heart Sutra, says, “Form is Emptiness; Emptiness is Form.” Your truest nature is Nothingness. Mind and consciousness are in fact Nothingness. This is why Ch’an Master Linji called the Enlightened being a “person of no rank,” someone who can come and go freely. “No rank” means no fixed limitation, free and vast as the sky, bound by neither ‘being’ nor even Non-being. This is the infinite Nothingness of the sages. " and, maybe most important, Appendex I: Nothingness (Infinite Consciousness) has the potential for sentience/awareness, to have awareness arise if an "object"-arising happens. Or perceptions perceiving themselves, with our without separate-self arisings. So it is not Nothing, like in nothing at all. But infinite potential + potential for sentience of "that". See also Benthinos Water-Pistol emerging/manifested in an infinite empty vastness. " Appendix I Some readers may be wondering why I say that awareness is not the Absolute, despite the fact that so many ancient scriptures and eminent teachers say that they are identical. For instance, Nisargadatta taught that consciousness is rooted in (and therefore limited to) the physical human form, while awareness transcended the individual body and was actually the Absolute—that everything is Universal Consciousness. This is more of an instructive approach than a philosophical commitment. If pressed as to whether the Absolute is awareness or not, I would say, like Huang Po did, that, “Mind is not mind, yet neither is it no-mind.” In Nothingness, there is some degree of awareness present—it is not how most people imagine brain death—albeit unconditioned, object- and subjectless. The Consciousness (for lack of a better word) of Non-being is so subtle that the moment we try to reflect upon it to check if we are conscious, we are jarred back into ‘being’ and into our ordinary dualistic consciousness. I hesitate even to call this experience “pure subjectivity,” for that invites a metaphysical position that I am not willing to support. In the end, to paraphrase Socrates, all that I know is Nothing. This Consciousness has shed all of the characteristics that people normally identify with awareness, such as perspective, spatial and temporal contexts, objects, ownership, etc. Yet, if there were no awareness, then it would be impossible to differentiate the numinous Nothingness from how people conventionally conceive of blankness or being comatose. Personally, I think that differentiating between Nothingness and consciousness is helpful, and that is my ultimate goal—to help people realize Non-being or Absolute Consciousness. At that point, I can care less whether people call it Nothingness, God, Brahman, Buddha Nature, One Mind, Universal Consciousness, or a kangaroo. Names at that point, after the Absolute has been realized, are insignificant. " Since this is the first thread I started myself, I allow myself the liberty to blow it up with a waaaay to long ramling like the one above. Hope nobody minds... Selling Water by the River

To awaken is definitely not just the "acceptance of Truth" (a concept), as you literally write in the quote above. Awakening is a change in state, for example the visual field getting nondual and infinite, and the "externalness" and "solidity" is replaced with unity and mere appearance. Along with this unmistakenable state-change there is a change in brainwaves, for example more gamma-activity. And its a change in self-identity, towards the "subject" becoming more empty/nothing/transcending. If one changes these states (for example nondual) often and long enough, these states tend to get permanent (transformation), supported by a more empty self-identity, until at one point one is both Nothing/Nothingness, and everything, the infinite nondual field. But what Awakening definitely not is: Just a change in the way of thinking, just a change in the way which concepts are used, and promoting these concepts (for example Solipsism) in an agressive way, and declaring awakening is just believing/accepting these concepts/ an "acceptance" of truth. That is what you are doing, and selling/promoting. Or where is your call to actually do the work, practice and meditate, and really transcend the separate self? Not just a call for different thinking and concepts (Solipsism,...), but an actual practice to induce these awakened states? Most of what I see you doing is promoting certain conceptual concepts/ideas/worldviews (mainly circling solipsictic concepts/worldviews), and harshly attacking anybody who has different concepts/worldviews. How is that different from what all other "nonspiritual" people are doing anyways? Defending their conceptual world-views, and attacking anybody who thinks differently in more or less open or subtle way, because its a threat to their own ego? A change in thinking/concepts is easy, everybody can do it. But if one doesn't have the corresponding awakened nondual states on which these changes of identity are based on, one is just doing wishful conceptual thinking. Replacing one ego/worldview with another, a horizontal move, not a vertical transformation of transcending the separate self. And that transcending is way harder than to just change ones thinking/separate-self/ego-concept. It means to sit down and practice for a long time (in whatever way, for example meditation) to actually induce these states of awakening. And these states then transform ones identity on a deep level. Selling Water by the River

Because they are LIARS, you are everything. I can use light in this example. Notice they object because they want TO DISTRACT from what is being communicated here. Again...it is willful denial of the truth. To sleep= Denial of Truth To awaken= Acceptance of Truth If you have not fully awakened its because you refuse to accept what you are. People who have not been exposed to Spiritual Teachings have an excuse. But the moment you are on the Spiritual Path and have been illuminated by the teachings, your lack of awakening is COMPLETELY ON YOU!!! If you are dishonest, and cannot accept the truth of what you are...YOU WILL NEVER AWAKEN. Spiritual people who refuse to awaken are bigger hypocrites than people who have never been exposed to the truth. You have no idea how much you are blessed to even have the opportunity to actually know the truth, and you squander it. I will be leaving this forum soon, I see why people leave here because majority of you love bullshit more than truth. Only a few can accept the truth and I really cannot even understand why. So it's fine I will just accept that many of you will chase your tail for the rest of your life. It's like you are in school trying to pass the final exam and I literally give you the answer and you deny it and fail the exam repeatedly and keep wondering what the answer is even though I literally already passed the final. I keep telling you the answer and then I even tell you how to study for the answer and find it yourself and you resist both yet keep wondering how to pass. Eventually I have to just be okay with the fact that you DO NOT WANT TO PASS so that's what I will do. I will accept that majority of people in Spirituality are lying about their desire to awaken and are just completely wasting your time. They are too full of fear and lack of self-love because they lived a life of loving lies over truth and are unskillful in the way of truth. I guess discernment is a rarer skill than I previously thought. It is probably the rarest skill on the planet. You know what it makes sense actually. Discernment is the highest expression of Self-Love and that is why it is the rarest skill ever.

Yes, definitely a feature. To get the show going, one needs the separate-self, the seductress Maya fooling most mindstreams into her illusion-game, using mainly narcissm/self-importance as a motivation-carrot. Maslow stage 4. But then, one also need a pull towards transcendence, evolution, growing complexity of the Kosmos. Like in atoms->molecules->bateria->plants->animals->humans-> awakened beings. And that pull is both suffering, but also especially wisdom&inspiration to grow. And as Leo eloquently said: The fool doesn't know or understand its foolishness. The fool thinks of his insights as wisdom, and all others and even wise ones as fools. Couldn't be different. Take away any feature of the game, and there wouldn't have been a functioning game/Lila/Evolution/Survival. Selling Water by the River

Some Quotes from Stephen Wolinski, The End of the Game - Deconstructing the Portals to the Absolute. Below are some quite poetic pointers on how the last separate-self-identities or arisings (very subtle ones at that stage, which is very close before crossing over to Enlightenment) appear and get transcended. They are already very empty and quite impersonal (of personal stuff/Ego), and can and normally are already nondual, or unitive states. Wolinski calls them Portals to the Absolute, because it is in these Portals/states/last separate self identities where the "ripening" of Awakened Awareness (= technical Mahamudra term, standing for totally Empty Impersonal Nondual Boundless Timeless Consciousness) happens, which still has some layers/arisings at that ripening stage of some very subtle "Individuality" preventing full Enlightenment, or crossing over, until finally transcending even these last illusion layers, and then sudden crossing over to waking up /Enlightenment happens. One can not "push" through them with willforce, or artificial activity. Because that would generate more subtle separate-self arisings (will/trying to do/pushing something IS a separate-self arising, is artifical activity). But with something like Nonmeditation-Yoga of the Mahamudrasystem, one just rests in Pure Empty Impersonal Boundless Nondual Consciousness (or nondual unitive state Reality at that point in time), and lets these last veils evaporate. What is very helpful (at least for me) is the understanding (or a map) what these very subtle last separate self identities/veils are and how they work, because they are very hard to spot. No-Self is not automatically True No-Self, or Nothingness. And if one confuses the final Impersonal Empty No-Self of Enlightenment with some No-Self/Portal still loaded with subtle separate-self-identies, one does not cross over to Enlightenment, or finding the Real Empty Impersonal Infinite No-Self of Absolute Consciousness/Nothingness, the essence of all appearance. Ones True Deep Identity of the Universal Mind, the One without a second , Impersonal Infinite Consciousness, or: Nothingness. And now Stephen Wolinski (The formating is like this, because it is like this in the book, and increases its readability): "THE NO-SELF SELF I-DENTITY The appearance of the perceiver, aware-er, knower observer, witness no-self self, the position-less position the no-point point of view the non-being being etc. These subtle Identities often times remain unnoticed because they appear in such a pleasant form such as: Silence, a peaceful space The space between two thoughts The gap without thoughts memory emotions associations etc." and "Often times, the Appearance of a Portal which is a State requiring a Knower is a Phenomenological Appearance. Any Portal can mistakenly be confused as being the Absolute. All portals and spiritual paths are appearances and are experiences requiring an experience-er… Portals are appearances that are labels which carry with them an associational network of thoughts, memories, emotions, associations etc. Portals Appear to Appear in the Dream-Illusion. [that is, they appear in Infinite Reality as arising/appearance, temporarily. Portals/states like the appearance of the perceiver, aware-er, knower, observer, witness, no-self self,] Eventually, the appearance of Portals as well as the appearance on which the portal appears which could be called or named the No-self-self Identity, the No-Position Position, The No Point-Point of View, the Vortex appearing on the Ocean of Existence The Witness The Being(ness) All Evaporates… Prior to all appearances Prior to the Absolute… Prior to I Am THAT The Nameless Absolute…that which is prior to and without consciousness, awareness, knowingness, being-ness, form or emptiness" "Please note that the stillness etc. is a by-product of the no-self self Identity and that a no self-self Identity, aka a position-less position aka or a no-point point of view are all part of the appearance. In this way the appearance and the perceiver, knower/aware-er, witness, observer or a no-self self identity position-less position or a no-point point of view etc. is part of the appearance. In other words, they arise and subside together. Moreover the perceiver, knower/aware-er, witness, observer or no-self self identity etc. is part of and fixated and fascinated on the something-nothing or appearance disappearance game (to be discussed later). ... Realizing this leads to the appreciation you can deconstruct appearances ad nauseum and still end up continuing to deconstruct appearances. In other words there is no way out of the loop, without the evaporation of the perceiver, know-er, aware-er aka no-self-self identity etc. which is experienced as stillness, peacefulness, presence or I am etc. ... Finally, feeling like a separate self or feeling a “non-dual” self or feeling are both states. There is the dual identity and a non-dual identity. the dual identity and a non-dual identity are states and are perceiver, knower awarer dependent, and are appearances ... [appearing in Reality/Absolute] " "It is the appearance that appears to appear as a witness or a know-er or an aware-er etc. which is part of the illusion. All of the appearances of the witness, knower, aware-er, perceive-er observer etc.) are appearances, temporary illusory-mirage like appearances which contains the illusion of stability, solid(ness) and permanency. This illusion functions to stabilize the illusory dream of existence, isness, and/or beingness." Selling Water by the River

@Leo Gura Is it possible for you to describe what level of awakening you are talking about compared to the average "awakened" folk(no self, samadhi, love, etc.)? I mean, atleast how many orders of magnitude are we talking?

Okay then you might have be the most awakened here.

But You have it in You to let go That doesn't mean leaving them. And there's nothing wrong with loving someone. But You can sort of let go in your mind and surrender to the awakening more when the time comes... and accept death, or rather overcome fear of death, and the fear of leaving your parents, which I'd argue is part of dying. You might have to spill a lot of tears to get to this. I know I had to about my sister - A LOT. And it might be really difficult for You, but You can do it. It's pretty much about ACCEPTANCE. Last time I awakened 2 weeks ago I actually managed to finally overcome the attachment (it arose yet again), accept "death" and let go... and "the outcome" was indescribable. So yeah, it's possible for You too.

1. You are not awake. You will never dissolve the ego because the ego cannot be seperated from the dream. YOUR HUMAN EGO IS THE SAME AS YOUR HUMAN LIFE!! This is the first evidence I know when a person is full of it and has never awakened! 2. If you do not understand what I said above, YOU WILL CHASE YOUR TAIL!!! This is why I said human spirituality is bullshit, because when I awoke I realized the flaws they have when they talk to you. Your ego is your filter! Without an ego YOU LITERALLY CANNOT EXPERIENCE THIS THING CALLED LIFE!!! Your ego is MORE than just your memories, your ego is DUALITY ITSELF!!! No ego, NO DUALITY!!! This means you can't walk, talk, think, drink water, etc. 3. So again if you or anyone says this delusional crap and keep trying to transcend the very thing that is the GIFT OF DUALITY then all you are doing is fooling yourself, fooling others and you are preventing yourself AND THEM from fully awakening. This is why unless you awaken YOU SHOULD NOT BE TEACHING!!! You are actually doing a disservice and confusing yourself and other people!!! This is why I rail against false teachers such as yourself because you are delusional and create mass confusion. P.S. From the point of view of the Ego IT IS SOLIPSISTIC. Have you ever experienced freezing time and walking around a FROZEN WORLD? NO!!! Because you never awoke. THERE IS ONLY YOU!!! NOBODY ELSE. While your ego is just as imaginary as everybody else, the avatar that God chooses to use is both the Absolute and the Relative. When you awaken to the fact that your relative perspective is also the ABSOLUTE you realize that the human avatar you are using is the ONLY REAL avatar. Why? Because you as God are currently experiencing THAT POINT OF VIEW. Your point of view is the absolute, it is only relative because you create other things for that avatar to experience! If right now you entered a void and only conjured up a human body to float in that void then that human body has nothing to compare or relate itself too. But the moment you put a ground, and put things on that ground that perspective because relative because it can be compared to things that have distinct features. The void has no such features so if you only conjure up a human body in the void the human body will have no height, no weight, and it won't even take up space. But because you haven't awoken you don't even understand what is being communicated because your drive to awaken is not strong enough.

The Point of Reality is to become aware of itself in its totality. The whole point of being baseline sober fully awakened is being able to experience reality at the deepest level on a daily basis. If your awareness becomes too high you will break the dream entirely so you should aim to raise your baseline as high as it can go while still experiencing the duality. The Spiritual Path of meditation and renunciation sends you in one direction, eventually you need to come back full circle for complete engagement. This allows you to walk the path of attachment/unattachment. This is a much higher more advanced way to live as you now have to balance and orient yourself to each moment. Become too unattached you become robotic, unrelatable, and become too attached you become deluded and reactive. Do not put too much stock in the demonization of thoughts, and words. Reality is both silent and noisy, invisible and visible. The teachings that push towards silence and the invisible are there to open up that aspect of reality to you (even though it's always there) as a point of focus since you have ignored it for the totality of your life. But true balance burns from both ends. So the path of balance becomes its own journey. Now you don't have to take this path if you don't want too, especially because the path of engagement can be tricky since the current collective human development level is so low the ability to integrate the Spiritual Concepts you have learned can be a challenge. When you fully awaken you truly realize you are your own compass and map. But the cool secret is....you can look to events in your dream to guide you. Because the Dream...is YOU.

Might you all be in a chill sweet loving cool airy spacy mood when you awake. The very moment you awake, the devil will go for your nake. That’s why you have to create a peaceful environment before awakening. Might the devil be fooled into believing you did not still die when you are death as he’ll try to really kill you fooling by it’s own foolishness. He never understands he can’t understands he’s already death and killing is pointless. What you Manifest whilst Awakening is very Real though and it has to be handled in a very careful way. We have come to a point into humanity where people can no longer awake by creating monsters or Humanity might not survive. Do it but do it safe in a responsible way. You do not imagine all the shirts you’ll have to handle if you awakened violently. All your manifestations, you’ll have to handle. All your demons , you’ll have to face. This is no joke. Osho did not learn Jesus lesson and forget to pay the price for his sex. People lost their wives burning because of that. Be careful playing with fire. « It’s all fun and games ntil someOne Lost an I » as it is said. If you want to awaken do it and do it as u want to do. The question is : will you be ready to take back all you lashed out during Awakening? That’s your duty as an awakened being and as The https://youtu.be/ZvcdYWg3Q9s

Is some ways, Enlightenment is what it is not. I am writing this post because I am thinking of the several different posts I have seen in the past stating things such as: "You are not awakened"; "Nobody is awakened"; "Everyone is awakened"; "only X person is awakened"; etc. I don't resent these posts. Rather, I find them quite hilarious while tragic. The thing is, all of these ideas about Enlightenment are correct, but not right among themselves. I think Enlightenment is a constant state of being something which knows it cannot be recognized. If you think you are enlightened, you are not enlightened. If you think you are not enlightened, you are enlightened. I think these things are reminders that while enlightenment is real, it can't be realized. I believe the best course of action to take in these circumstances is to not accept any of these idealizations as they are, but for what they are not. Even what I am saying.

No my friend - that is what we call death which is awakening. You are stuck on this masamadhi thing where you think that is the only true awakening but it is not. You have not even awakened from this dream yet so how could you even take the step towards masamadhi when you haven't even died yet and returned? One step at a time friend

I also understand the reaction of Breakingthewall here. @Inliytened1 and Breakingthewall: How about both perspectives are important: (1) The steps (or awakenings, or Kenshos/Satoris, Enlightenments (not the Final Basis Enlightenments) or temporary openings to the real state of things, whatever you want to call them) to Absolute Reality/Ones True being are important, since they are aligning the individual mindstream more with the enlightenened mindstream, increasing its potential to finally wake up fully. That is still happening in the dream, but the dream can be more or less lucid. But these experiences are very important. So maybe something like "waking up fully" is sudden, its either or, its an "accident", but previous "awakenings, or Kenshos/Satoris, Enlightenments" make accident-prone. Basis Enlightenment/Great Enlightenment/Final Enlightenment/Fully Waking Up: The full waking up is then a sudden, unmistaken waking up to the True Reality of both oneself and Reality, nondual. The description of the Tibetan Mahamudra System, and Basis Enlightenment, describes exactly that: (1) "Awakened wisdom[Awakened Awareness] now comes forth unobstructed, no longer as a brief glimpse or flash [small "awakenings/enlightenments or whatever one wants to call it" but as that which saturates all experience. It has no real support (brten), yet serves as the ground or basis for all experience." (2) Contrary to the slow ripening of meditative experience throughout the preliminary and essential stages of meditation, and even the gradual ripening of awakened wisdom [Awakened Awareness] during extraordinary meditation, crossing over to enlightenment is an immediate and compelling event [sudden, awake or not], wherein the mental continuum undergoes a series of fundamental and enduring reorganizations At least from my perspective it doesn't look so complicated to align the different statements/wordings/descriptions/experiences/views concepts into a picture that can contain them all, that is spacious enough in an integral way to make room for all experiences and perspectives in a coherent picture. Water by the River

Agree, important point. Since I am quoting already a lot today, I hope you don't mind me hijacking your comment, and quoting some passages from "Pointing Out the Great Way, Brown" again. Maybe that is interesting for some.... Bold markings and [...] by yours truly. THE OUTCOME: THE NATURE OF ENLIGHTENMENT Contrary to the slow ripening of meditative experience throughout the preliminary and essential stages of meditation, and even the gradual ripening of awakened wisdom [Awakened Awareness] during extraordinary meditation, crossing over to enlightenment is an immediate and compelling event, wherein the mental continuum undergoes a series of fundamental and enduring reorganizations. One implication of the term nonmeditation is that the "journey ends." There are no more stages. Pema Karpo says,The journey ends. Going by stages stops. There are no stages that go anywhere else. You find the perfection of everything that came before, without stages. (PK, f. rib) There are no stages (sa med) beyond this point ... a. Basis Enlightenment The first enlightenment moment is sometimes called samadhi-enlightenment (mnyam bzhag) because it typically occurs during continuous, uninterrupted mindfulness. When the conditions of the extraordinary meditation are exactly right, crossing over occurs. A profound shift occurs during which seemingly individual consciousness, and all ordinary sense experience and all false concepts associated with it, drop away. The vast awareness-space of the dharmakaya becomes the point of observation. Seemingly individual consciousness (yid), the point of observation throughout the entire path of meditation, is now found to be a mere concept (btags pa), which drops away. Basis-enlightenment is said to be "beyond all notions," "beyond examination," "beyond representation," and "beyond false concepts" (TN, pp. 5 19-20). Tilopa says: When the mind comes to an end, The three realms become absorbed therein.... Through the nonduality of self and other you become the blessed Buddha. The mind becomes absorbed through the force of the ripening perspective of [vast awareness-] space. Then, the five sense systems and their objects, the aggregates, and the elements also dissolve in the perspective of space. The seeming reality of individual consciousness along with its functions and activities gives way, leaving only an infinite ocean of awareness-space. Basis enlightenment leads to a very "new view of the way the realized mind stays" (TN, p. 5 17). When the concept of individual consciousness or "mind" is finally eradicated, a profound rearrangement takes place. Awakened wisdom[Awakened Awareness] now comes forth unobstructed, no longer as a brief glimpse or flash but as that which saturates all experience. It has no real support (brten), yet serves as the ground or basis for all experience. Therefore the first moment of enlightenment is called basis enlightenment. During the ordinary special-insight meditations the practitioner searched for certain knowledge within arising events of the ordinary mental continuum. During the extraordinary samadhi meditations the practitioner located the simultaneous mind as the source of certain knowledge. Now, with basis enlightenment, knowledge takes on a new epistemological locus of knowledge. Awakened wisdom comes forth but not in association with either the ordinary or the simultaneous mind. Awakened wisdom [Awakened Awareness]has no basis. It is without coming Ong med) and without going ('song med), in that it does not arise from the seeming activity of the relative mental continuum. Awakened wisdom [Awakened Awareness] is self-originated (rang 'byung). It is simply there, and with basis enlightenment, stays there. Basis enlightenment is called, "wisdom beyond the world" (TN, p. 542)." So also according to Mahamudra/Tibetan Buddhism, the Deep Identity Level Shift of Basis Enlightenment/Great Enlightenment is sudden (contrary to the slowly ripening of Awakened Awareness before), self-evident, and there is no stage beyond it. Awake or not. Other Traditions call the shifts that happen before that event "Awakenings", some even Enlightenments. But qualified Enlightenments, "smaller" Enlightenments, partial gradual "awakenings" refining the mindstream to make it conform to the Big Shift, awake or not. Its a question of choosing the words. But they tend to differentiate clearly between the final thing/Great Enlightenment/Waking Up, and the events before. I agree with Inliytened1 that if we call this Great Enlightenment/Basis Enlightenment/ Waking Up, that one is either awake or not. Digital, either or. Before being awake, one can maybe postulate there are gradual changes/"Awakenings", preparing for the final big shift (called crossing over to Enlightenment, or Basis Enlightenment in Mahamudra). Or waking up, like in awake or not. If one knows or has realized what one truly deeply is, one knows what one is, and also what everything else is and only can ever be. Awake or not. If one is not sure, one is still asleep/dreaming. Awakening n+1 ain't it.... Selling Water by the River

No, that dream just happened. I didn't contemplate about that too much. Sure I did contemplate the topic, but I never had real problems with that. A bit yes, but not too much. Maybe because when that contemplation of "other" became a real existential topic, I was already practicing (and concentrated on) staying in boundless changeless limitless Awakened Awareness (infinite, nondual, mere appearance). When you are in that state, it doesn't freak you out that "others" don't really exist, but one can directly intuit that the same Impersonal Consciousness that Oneself and Reality really is, is also the substratum/essence (Nothingness/Consciousness) of their mindstream. You can intuit/feel their Illusion-arisings of I-feelings/I-thoughts of being something specific as being exactly(!) the same as the illusion arisings in ones own mindstream. The exact same mechanism how "others" fall for the illusion, as oneself does and did. Once one knows the structure/pattern/gestalt/essence of ones own Illusion separate self arisings, one sees them in "others", or other perspectives of the same consciousness. That doesn't cause shock, but limitless empathy. It is You (not the separate self, but the real you, Impersonal Consciousness, totally empty), litereally You looking through all eyes. That is the core and source of all empathy, but now without any filters and flowing freely, directly intuiting und knowing that it is You looking through all eyes. Then, where should the shock come from? All beings are children of the Real You, Impersonal Empty Consciousness (not a of separate self blown up to God-like proportions). Including what one formerly thought was "oneself". Only the separate self arisings/gestalt need "others" for love, validation, belongingness, self-esteem, the whole Maslow-Pyramid stage 1-4 up and down is made out of that. Couldn't be different to get a society going & surviving. Impersonal Consciousness and the bliss flowing from it doesn't need it. So it could make sense to transcend all of that already to a large degree before entering the terrain where there is no "other". The gentlemen who wrote "Enlightenment: Behind The Scenes, Leavitt" describes his final Enlightenment experience when he directly realized that he IS his daugther. Literally the same consciousness. Not as metaphor, but literally. Didn't cause a shock, but infinite love. Disclaimer (not written for you Breakingthewall): All of the above is only valid when one speaks from an Identity and mindstream of Impersonal Empty Consciousness, not from the perspective of a psychedelic boosted separate self (or even worse, not even having the psychedelic experience and just playing playing mind-games having watched some videos), blowing itself up to God-like dimensions and playing God. The entrance price for all of that is literally the transcendence/death of large or most parts of the separate self, and the final price is its complete demise/complete transcendence (transcendence of the separate self part, and then include the remaining functional character. Transcend and integrate, not transcend and disassociate, see Ken Wilber). Death/Transcendence not of the functional character/Ego, but of the separate self arisings. The main indicator for the separate self still being well, alive and active is narcissm, or self-grandiosity and self-importance. Preferably in the form of preaching from upon high. On the other side, that is not even a bad thing, because then every newbie with at least some intuition, common sense, and a not too narcisstic karma can spot that from a mile away. Instead of transcending/slowly annihilating the separate self, one boosts it up to God-like dimensions with doing that. Good luck ever transcending that! Doing something like that can destroy ones life. There have been cases like that, final station mental asylum or next life, or in the "best case" just a miserable unintegrated life full of suffering- end of disclaimer - I don't know if that view/frame helps. Maybe it is a nice exercise to feel deeply into the essence/consciousness of what you are, and then deeply into the consciousness/sentience of "another"? Its the same Nothingness/Consciousness. One can directly experience that (if oneself is completely empty, just pure impersonal consciousness). It is not philosophy or a nice idea, but a direct experience. But one has to be completely empty. The own lense of perception has to be completely empty of separate self arisings (=high speed cut off of any of these arisings before they grip/hypnotize oneself and elaborate fully, Trekchö-style. Needs familiarity, training and high-speed of attention/spotting, aka the goal of meditation. Please see my last decription-posting of the Pointing out the Great Way Mahamudra system, link below), only then one can intuit that. A colored lense with stains will not let that intuition/understanding pass. As second step, one can feel that essence of every appearance of the visual field as Nothingness, hovering as mere appearance in infinite Nothingness, at a certain point of practice Which is necessary at some point, because as Daniel Brown said: One can not understand the Totality/Wholeness from a partialized stance. Nonduality has to be there before that understanding. One has to literally become all phenomena appearing in the Infinite Boundless Changeless Awakened Awareness field (that is Nonduality), and then see what all of that is and who or what is aware of that. Then, at the end of the Road, Infinite Consciousness/Nothingness IS everything: Your Mindstream, the mindstream of others, the appearance of the world in the visual field, every though/feeling. Infinite, boundless, limitless, nondual all there ever could be. Everything that could ever appear appears in that, made out of that suchness/Nothingness/Consiousness as its essence. Then, one experiences/becomes/is... Home/safe/Indestructable/eternal: And that actually is not shocking. But if feels like one is at home, now and always, wherever you go in relative reality. No Fear: Somewhere in the Upanishads it says "Where there is other there is fear". If there is only oneself, which is indestructable (no moving parts, just Nothingness that can't disappear), there is no fear. Infinite Love: The recognition that there is no other in the whole kosmos, but only the suchness of ones being, bound together in a infinite nondual field of love Infinite Freedom: When the bliss/love of your own indestructable infinite true being flows, what could you ever want that you don't get, or ever be taken away from you? Total freedom. Then we have Eternal/Indestructable, Fearless, Love, and infinite Freedom. But before one gets there, the illusion-mechanism/Maya/Lila had to place some strong "illusion-protection-mechanisms" in front of these properties of the enlightened mindstream, because if it wouldn't scare the separates selves, who in his right mind wouldn't attach his own mindstream to these properties of the enlightened mindstream. And the strongest one is probably the need for "other" or "others", Maslow stage 1-4. Somehow I mostly fail to write short posts. Maybe I need to go to a training "Concise writing for Dummies" who went off the deep end of Emptiness... Selling Water by the River

Hi Ayham, I remember that very well. Facing everything the separate-self can throw at you head on.... And it can throw a lot... Maya is not letting one off the hook easily... The Game-Changer for me was the book "Pointing Out the Great Way, Daniel Brown". At least for me personally, 95% of the meditation system out there would have never worked for me. They would have been too unpleasant, or needing more much willpower. Or I would have get stuck in the several traps there are, where ones practice can "bottom out", and lead nowhere.... So I can not highly enough express my gratitude for the heroic pioneering effort of Daniel Brown translating all these books, and getting the (in my opinion) most sophisticated meditation system of the planet to the West. It has been practiced and refined for hundreds of years, developed further, elaborated in hundreds of Tibetan Books, producing a steady stream if deeply enlightened beings. It achieves a precision of technical vocabulary in the stage decriptions of evolving meditation, meditation experiences, resulting understandings and insights about ones mindstream and Reality emerging at different stages like nothing I have ever seen, and I studied more or less all major meditation systems, reading a few hundreds of books. The book is several hundreds of pages. It lead to me awe and deep respect of the Mahamudra-System when realizing at certain stages that I just had experienced the exact same flow of meditation experiences and understandings/insights than Tibetan meditators hundreds of years ago. Of course I can't summarize a few hundred pages of the book with the musings below. But I try to give a first taste of the system, with some personal experiences with it, and how it all developed for me, just to show off how great and oh so wonderful I am . No, just kidding... Because I would have loved to have had something like a"user experience" with certain meditation systems like that 15 years ago, to get a feeling for a certain path, and the experiences others are having with it. Concentrative Meditation: I would recommend starting with concentrative meditation, the Elephant Path (all Tibetan schools use it). There are several stages of concentrative meditation that must be mastered, and tools learned doing it. They are very well described in Pointing out the Great Way, and "The Elephant Path: Attention Development and Training in Children and Adolescents", in the chapter of Daniel Brown. Here is explicitely stated what one learnes while learning concentrative meditation. By the way, that system is in my humble oinion more sophisticated than Zen or Vipassana, because it includes techniques like easing up and intensifying. That is essential for making it efficient, and these techniques are just not there in Vipassana and Zen. These aspects (easing up and intensifying) one learns there by conincidence, or not at all. In the beginning, you don't stay long on the meditation object (breath, stone, candle, not so important), but just catch yourself when you have wandered off, your monkey mind taking you on a ride and elaborating something else. Now: Don't put negative reaction/feedback on that, but move attention/focus back. You can only control focus/attention, you can't force what thoughts emerge. So meditation is always moving attention back from wandering off, and the more you do that, the more pliant the mind becomes: Less wandering off, and if wandered off much faster to move it back. And when that goes quite well with a little bit less wandering off or loosing attention. Then, when its more automatic, you "ease up", which means you use less energy and focus, and see if you can stay on the object. If yes, good: Ease Up. Easing Up brings more clarity to what else goes on in the mindstream. Which lets you notice more of the subtler arisings of the mindstream emerging. When you drift off more than, then intensify: Inhale strongly, increase focus, energize. And see then if you stay more on the object. If you do, ease up. Find the optimum energy balance you need to stay on the object. One balances easing up and intensifying then.... Then your clarity will increase, your energy will become nice, joy can start to arise. And then you do that for a few months, a year.... Meditation Experiences of Clarity, Lucidity, Bliss and Non-conceptuality (silent mind) can occur, but also go again. They are just experiences passing in you. This way, you train your focus and make your mind pliant. When you can stay on the objects for a few minutes without totally getting lost in elaborated thoughts, and keep some focus on the object while wandering off in thought a bit, you have partial staying.... at some point you have pretty good staying on the object for a few minutes. Meditation without an object: Then comes a big change, that you can start doing then: Change to the Mindstream of thoughts itself as meditation object. And try to stay mindful of the mind watching that mindstream. If you can keep doing that (which takes a long time), you can start taking the meditation into daily life. Investigating the Nature of thoughts: See Pointing Out the Great Way for that. Thoughts are no different than consciousness, which is empty/nothing, yet has clarity/awareness, so its not a nothing at all. If you look into a thought, you don't find it, it disappears. Is cut off. One can never see or find a thought. Looking into a thought, an experience of un-findability arises. Empty, nothing specific. But with clear alert awareness of consciousness. Empty and aware. Nothingness, yet something that is not nothing. Nothingness. Emptiness. Consciousness. And more important: When really looking into the nature of a thought, it evaporates. Is cut off. Disappears. Reveals its nature of emptiness. With exactly that phenomenon is worked in the "Skill of Recognition", see below. Doesn't that effect appear as very useful to get thoughts and the mindstream under control? Of course! That effect of the thought evaporating, revealing its nature as Nothingness/Consciousness when looking into it, and generalizing that oberservation and understanding on the whole mindstream and all events it contains and can contain. That is understanding the continuum of the mindstream. The nature of thoughts. You don't control the thoughts which arise, that is why you/the person is also empty, a concept. Because what are you, if you don't even control your thoughts, and what thoughts arise? After having mastered Concentrative meditation, and having understood (contemplation) the nature of thoughts as consciousness/awareness/emptiness/suchness/Nothingness, you can put that into practice: Skill of Recognition: (1. Yoga of Mahamudra system) Now it gets interesting. That was the decisivepoint for me once I understood that, and implemented it. Afterwards, it started to get nondual pretty soon... If you look HOW the thoughts emerge, (1) out of what they emerge, (2) what they are, (3) in what they move (4) into what they disappear ALL of that (1)(2)(3)(4) must be present. Thoughts DO appear. From "something". Stay in "something". Consisting of "something" All of that is Emptiness, or Consciousness, or Nothingness. Thoughts are made of "that","move in that", "dissolve into that". and you will never SEE that, or can say what it is. Nothing. But not a blank nothing. An aware Nothing. Actually the essence of all world-appearances, but that comes later, when it gets nondual, at the Yoga of One Taste. What happens if you investigate into emerging thoughts this way, is that they get FASTER. VERY FAST. Like 20-30 emergent thoughts/feeling arisings per second, most of them rudimentary. The mind does this to keep the illusion going. To make it too fast for you. But at some point, you learned to get that fast also... Basically, looking into a thought, one sees its Emptiness/Nothingness (one doesn't find the thought, it evaporates). It is cut off. Dzogchen calls this cutting off "Trekchö". Daniel Brown called this stage a "High Speed Search Task into the unfindability of the nature of thoughts". A High Speed Search task into their emptiness, into their nature as consciousness, as Nothingness. So the emerging gets fast, very fast. Daniel Ingram also mentions that. But at some point, with enough practice and familiarity, YOU get faster. You spot and cut off every very fast, subtle, fragmentary thought arising. None of them "grips" you anymore, since you have seen them all, and their structure. Just thoughts arising very fast. You don't control which thoughts arise. Depended origination, they are just emerging by themselves. You can focus on just their arising (of thoughts), just their staying, just their going away. At some point, they just emerge, looking into their nature is automatic, and they immediately dissolve. No duration. Just emergence, and poof gone. And when you are fast enough, you get a continuance of staying mindful. When that happens its pretty clear what happened. Your attention got so fast that you can stay mindful even through the high-speed thought emergence. At the end, they come very fast, they don't get "elaborated out". Thinking, or elaborating the thoughts out, is slower than their emergence. They emerge already fully complete with their content, and then slowly get "talked/elaborated" in your mind. Natural reaction: So WHO the f*** am I (pardon my french) when I don't control what thoughts emerge and if they appear fully with their content in a fraction of a second, and get elaborated later in a hypnotic show over several second? good question... to be answered later. Outcome is: You know the nature of every possible thought (Consciousness-Emptiness-Nothingness), of the whole mental-continuum of thoughts, all that there can be. Their nature. you can cut off or transcend/just watch your normal mindstream in most daily situations without getting caught up/hypnotized by it, which already here leads to a lot of bliss. Not sufficient bliss to get ones separate self completely handled, but already quite wonderful. That is the start of real freedom. You know how your mindstream hypnotizes you, and gets faster when you actually look into each thought arising and its nature. At some point you get fast enough to cut off every arising, or let it elaborate in a controlled aka mindful way. Yoga of Unelaboration (2. Yoga of Mahamudra-System) Here, you finish off with time. You open up the eternal always here mind. Past and future become deeply understood as imagined/manifested right here and now, not really existing. Only the eternal now exists. Not as idea, as concept, as understanding, but as felt and lived reality. Deeply realized. Always Here. Eternal. How ones True Being can be immortal/eternal/always here becomes a very real possibility here. Later on, the emerging possibility "of how that could work" become validated beyond any possible doubt. Pointing Out the Great Way: "From where does the first mind-moment [the thought-arising] arise? Then, where does it stay? Finally, where does it go when it stops? The "mind" in which all this is happening is Always Here. Always Here Mind. Time is not "out there", self-existing. You only notice time because of change, of emerging thoughts and appearances. time is a mere construct/concept. No change of appearances/thoughts, no time. "One" doesn't control the content of the emergent thoughts "Through dependent origination certain propensities [thought capsules with their full content already "inside" emerge] at the very subtle level ripen into subtle movements within the temporal mental continuum, which in turn become constructed into and elaborated as coarse-level thoughts [get elaborated into long thoughts that get told in awareness over several seconds] and appearances" dependend origination: "one" doesn't control which thoughts emerge. "The skilled meditator can view events transforming from very subtle propensities to specific subtle mind-moments and constructed coarse thoughts and appearances seeming to arise and pass in the temporal mental continuum through a process of dependent origination" Seeing and understanding the emergence of the thoughts (fully formed out with all their content, but not yet elaborated in the mindstream, emerging in the Always Here Mind), and seeing this in real-time because ones attention got fast enough, is a game-changer. That stage is very hard to fully understand in Pointing Out the Great Way. At least for me, it took me a long time. . I would have been faster with coaching.... Yoga of One Taste (3. Yoga of Mahamudra System) So here it gets nondual and mere appearance, floating in Nothingness. No more a solid and external/duality reality "out there" anymore. But an infinite limitless field of Infinite Consciousness, manifesting an appearing world of mere appearances arising in it. A loving blissful boundless timeless field of bright lucid Awakened Awareness. This is where probably (my pet-theory) the Endohuasca-System starts working. https://dmtquest.org/endohuasca-magic/ The practice is basically taking the insights of stage 2 and putting them into practice, specifically also in daily everyday life. With that, one gets enough time and momentum in meditation to really make the difference, to get it nondual. To make all that with sitting meditation on the pillow, at least for me it would have been a full-time job. And I did a demanding career and some other stuff in the meantime also... The view taken all thoughts/mental events emerge in the Always Here Mind, or Simultaneous Mind (which means nondual). same with all world appearances. The essence of all thoughts is emptiness/consciousness, and the essence of all visual field appearances is also emptiness/appearance/consciousness. That is called the "One Taste" of every arising (thought or world-appearance). Nondual in other words. and being aware of the emerging high-speed stream of thoughts emerging already with full content, but getting elaborated in the seconds following, and cutting off most of the emergent thoughts by looking into their nature, which has been automized by this point enough clarity and mindfulness is generated that at some point The Visual Field/"world": Becomes mere appearance and infinite/limitless becomes mere appearance appearances 1) the world no longer feels "out-there". Everything arising just arises in oneself. 2) appearances loose their solidity. One can not tell if they are solid "objects" out there, or just appearances happening in the timeless Always-Here-Mind 3) At some point later, with a lot of meditation-mindfulness-momentum, the "inside" feeling as pure empty awareness, a very transparent witness, but not even that because the awareness is no longer separate: the visual field becomes really mere appearance. One looks at something, and its just appearance hovering in Nothingness. You feel into it, and its essence is the same as the indescripbable Nothingness behind ones head. luminous mere appearances, very similiar to trip-descriptions. the limit of the visual field, and the wondering of "what is behind it", become limitless or infinite there is "nothing" behind it. One just imagines a border/boundary of the visual field one imagines that something must be behind it (like 3D-Space continues". No, 3D-space is imagined in dimensionless Nothingness/Infinite Consciousness. 3D-Space is not self-existing, dangling out there. That was a biggie for me, took a long time to get, and could have been much faster with coaching. Guess I am quite a visual person Time is gone. Timeless Everything can only happen here, and now Past is imagined here and now , future also here and now the "subject"/"me", the separate self Gestalt/arisings, feeling and being separate from the whole Reality, slowly gets transcended and dissolves, more and more aspects of the person/separate self are seen as arisings moving within oneself. finally, after a long path of transcending every identity/I-thought/I-feeling of the Ego/Body-Mind/character, it becomes a transparent witness, nothing but still something witnessing the visual field. At some point, One can't tell AT ALL what one is, nothing positive is left. I am not the body/person, anything. Only aware Emptiness. But somehow some murky Witness or something like that still there. One literally doesn't know what one is, besides the nondual field... One becomes the visual field of mere appearance, one is that in a nondual way. any sense of location or center slowly dissolves. One becomes the whole boundless timeless field of mere empty, groundless appearance. Sometimes lucid and shimmering, like mere appearance. Some traditions call that already Enlightenment, or Kensho/Satori/Awakening. And it is in some way. But Nonduality is not already Full or Great Enlightenment, where there is absolutely no doubt about ones nature, and the nature of reality. That can become clear like ice-cold water thrown in ones face. Nonduality can be very well experienced by a separate self, just try some psychedelics.... To reach Nonduality sobre without psychdelics, one already has to be quite empty or transcended the separate self, but not necessarily (and normally) fully. With psychedelics, you don't need to empty (or have transcended the separate self) at all. 5 MeO will do that for, even if you don't want. Not fully empty, not the last step (no traces of Individuality/transparent witness left, see above), but very very much. that brings us to the last stage, Stage 4 of the Mahamudra System, the Yoga of Nonmeditation. And here is where meditation, and the long time it enables in these very empty states of dissolving every last speck of individuality/last very subtle separate self arisings/last very subtle illusions, becomes paramount. Only this 4. stage enables the final crossing over to fully, without a doubt, knowing what Ones True Self, and Reality, really is. Without that, suffering, grasping for ever more Awakenings, and still being a bit "gaslighting-ability" of the finality of ones realization/awakening, continues. Yoga of Nonmeditation (4. Yoga of Mahamudra System) What is already the case, from stage 3 Yoga of One Taste: The visual field/world already arises in the Always Here Mind as mere groundless luminous appearance, with Nothingness as its essence in an infinite limitless field of Awareness Space in the timeless Always Here Mind so many ingredients of the True State of Things, ones True Identity as Boundless Changeless Timeless Reality are already in place. That is already very lovely, filled mostly with bliss. Like really really nice. But not fully the Unshakeable Unchanging Reality that one intuits to really be, with its Infinite Love, Peace and Bliss. Only one thing is still missing for conforming fully to the enlightened mindstream, and fully crossing over to it with the sudden recognition of ones True Identity, Reality itself, Absolute Impersonal Infinite Consciousness, Nothingness. and that is the last remants of the Empty/Transparent Witness, or what Brown calls artifical activity. The last remnants of individuality, of I-feeling, I-thoughts arising in oneself. The last aspects of being a bit separate from Reality itself, from being not fully empty/transcended. A very subtle transparent witness, already being nondual, identifying with an infinite nondual field. Bassui (Zen, in Three Pillars of Zen) calls this Awareness of Emptiness, or Awareness of Beingness. A very subtle feeling of still being aware of SOMETHING, even if that is infinite Nonduality. Not full and complete nonduality and oneness. Still a subtle (very subtle) separate self aware of the Totality. Not the Totality being fully aware of itself, like in perceptions perceiving themselves. One can do NOTHING here to cross over to Full Enlightenment/Basis Enlightenment. Because that would be an act of a separate self. An effort. A movement of a separate self WANTING something, manipulating the mindstream, grasping for the understanding, doing something.... One can only automize the meditation/mindfullness, staying fully present, letting the Awakened Impersonal Awareness flow by itself, let IT do the meditation itself, get out of the way... Bringing out the full force of this Utterly Impersonal Awakened Awareness. Ones True Identity. And that is the last contra-intuitive trap: ONE CAN'T FORCE IT ("artifical activity"). Because forcing it would be a separate self arising doing it. One can try to force it (for example Koan-style), but then the Crossing Over normally happens in a moment of grace, of relaxation, when artificial activity is not present. And once the last very subtle remnants of the separate self are seen as moving within oneself, just changing and temporary arisings/movements consisting of I-thoughts and I-feelings, the last subtle lenses ("Individuality,separateness") are recognized and dropped/transcended/no longer believed and just cut off/let go/Trekchö-style. All and any center gone, no separate anything remaining anywhere, forcing its claws of suffering into the natural bliss of Enlightened Infinite Nondual Empty Reality itself, perceptions perceiving themselves, shimmering in Infinite Always here Nothingness, in Infinite Nondual Consciousness. The Universal Mind, Nothingness. Realizing that nothing is lost if the separate self illusion is realized and seen as that what it really is, and always was: Just appearances happening and moving within the Always Here True Self/Reality. All that is lost is an illusion, what is gained is Reality itself and its inherent bliss. And indeed welcome home, to a home you never left, on a journey that never really happened.... Bon Voyage! Selling Water by the River PS: By the way, that is not a nice theory and beautiful claims, but a path actually walked over many years (although because of lacking coaching and not being too smart sometimes from my side making it take longer than actually needed). But I am still very very thankful that I picked that path, and not 10-15 years face against the wall Zen-monastery Koan-style. That would have also maybe worked (but I don't know, that system has many pitfalls the Tibetans have identified and made maps for to avoid these), but would have been much less pleasant, at least for me. Would have felt like digging a hole with a shovel instead with a climatized excavator, doing most of the meditation in daily life instead of some hardcore-monastery-fulltime-environment. So I can understand all those that don't like meditation, because it is maybe the hardest thing one can actually do, depending on the system. Give this system a try! PSPS: Before one maybe starts thinking that nothing matters, and Karma is just an Illusion, since Individuality and everything else is an illusion anyways, and nothing matters, like ethics, common sense, Karma, compassion and so on: Be sure that reality will give you a crosscheck if that is really the case, or just a funny idea/concept. And then let's see if suffering hurts and grips, or is still just considered an Illusion. Compassion and Boddhichitta for all beings (which are nothing but the same One Reality without a second) actually is a pretty hard entrance criteria to any of these states decribed above. With honest and practiced compassion/ethics/Boddhichitta, one has the support from all of Infinite Reality on ones path. And how much intuition and intelligence emerges in ones mindstream is guided only by this One Infinitely Intelligent Reality without a second.

I believe you are truly awakened based on your posts, and I appreciate the support. But I do this for shits and giggles. Do you know how entertaining it is to see egos attempt to avoid truth, but simultaneously keep coming back to it. It's like a push/pull relationships. They both want truth and are terrified of it. You can't tell me it is isn't funny seeing their pathetic attempts to deny the Absolute truth. This is basically a game I do. Ego comes up and attempts weak duality creating argument. I use the fact that Oneness can never be defeated no matter how much it tries. In one of Leo's videos Leo said its like "Consciousness is trying to get outside of itself." God is so powerful but God has one true weakness...it can never escape the fact that it is ONE. Think about that.....once that is realized...all delusions will never hold. I have spent the last threads illustrating this and notice all the egoic reactions of horror in response. I find it laughable because....it's the truth of what we all are. We are all ONE, I am you, and you are me. Which is the same as saying I am all alone, and you are all alone. No separation forever.

I made a post on this forum a couple months ago called "I awakened and I don't like it". I say some similar things as you. I felt so crazy. Now though, I think I understand the insights a little better. Just give it time and it will start to feel not insane again.

I have never taken DMT in my entire life. Notice your assumptions that have no basis in evidence. My entire waking direct experience is everything is me. I broke the dream and fully awakened. You have not and speak from a place of ignorance. You do not have an open mind otherwise you would not be responding as you are right now. 1. Your actions reveal how you really feel. You are scared and hesistant. 2. When someone shows you who they are believe them. Your actions are all we need to know to understand your current state of mind. DENIAL.

Full Awakening does not absolve you from self-deception, it just allows you to catch it more easily. I just went on a run and was contemplating Oneness and my actions and discovered I was deluding myself and awakened to another frame. Oneness is calmness, tranquility. This means any deviation from that expression is a fear based expression and denial of Oneness. So my recent aggressive behavior and belittling comments were borne out of ignorance and for that I apologize. I discovered why I was doing that, remember every situation reveals where you are. I noticed that the thing I hate the most is when someone expresses a lack of accountability. It irks me, it irritates me and this is because my greatest fear is to not take accountability. Why? Because I have fully awakened my greatest fear is to fall back asleep. This is itself delusion because there is no difference between being fully awakened and fully asleep. Since I was afraid of a lack of accountability I aggressively attacked anyone who expressed that behavior. Now this is not to demonize aggression, because this too is pure delusion. Let me explain. To learn the art of fighting is to learn the art of aggression. One who has mastered the art of fighting has mastered aggression. If someone attacks a master, the master will effortlessly dodge and misdirect all attacks. The master will CALMLY face the aggression and make his opponent look clumsy and will make him appear that he is fighting himself. This is because every master in martial arts knows the only opponent is within. Master your fear of aggression by engaging in aggression. So when aggression arises in the form of a physical opponent you can remain calm. You will perfectly reflect your opponents aggression back onto himself and eventually he will realize he is just hurting himself. Because when you cannot hurt another, you are just hurting yourself. It's like punching a concrete brick. You cannot hurt the brick therefore you are only hurting yourself. So now I know the truth, anytime I express any emotion outside of calmness then I am deluded. This delusion is a result of a lack of mastery of self. Which is the same as saying ignorance. So here is how I will handle people from now on. When you reply to something I write I will ask you what response you would like me to give you. I can give you encouragement or I can give you deconstruction. The deconstruction can/will be painful so I will let you know this as well. Now I will still every now and then trick you into higher awareness just like LIFE does. But this will be in form of questions. I will guide you to higher awareness through questions. My question will constantly be....are you not creating a duality? You see to fully awaken you must dissolve all duality. So if I ask you if you are creating a duality and you say yes....then you are admitting to delusion. Notice how I was able to catch my delusion. Why? Because there is only security in life. Which is the same as saying there is only your power in life. Which is the same as saying THERE IS ONLY YOU. True strength also empowers others, I just gave you the ultimate trump card against me. If I deviate from a calm expression you can say I sense you are not coming from a place of calmness but insecurity. This can awaken me from my own self-delusion. This is why full transparency and vulnerability is strength.

Hey Leo, I hope you are having a great day. I have to say that I’ve being devouring your content this past year. It helps me a lot in developing different perspectives as well as having multiple epiphanies in my life. However, there’s one perspective that particularly piques my interest: the perspective of a self- actualized individual. The reason it is so appealing to me is because so little people have actually reached self-actualization. There’s a limited range of resources available to us so we can only stipulate when we are asking ourselves—people who haven’t reached self-actualization—what is like being one. While watching your episode “How Fear Works,” I’ve asked myself: “If Leo was to be kidnapped one day, would he feel anxiety and fear while waiting for his next torture session?” Unsurprisingly, I am very much afraid of being kidnapped and tortured which explains why I would have such a question in mind. One thing led to another, and I started asking myself how different the public’s view of self-actualized people is from yours. Which leads me to have a set of questions: 1) Would you actually feel fear while waiting for your next torture session? Or in other words, is fear and anxiety things that self-actualized people permanently transcended, no matter the hardships? 2) Are awakenings permanent states? More precisely, what aspects of life are permanently changed? What aspects aren’t permanently changed? 3) Is there a disconnection between the biological creature that is Leo and the self-actualized being? If so, why bother even live an external life? Why bother make money? Why bother have sex? 4) Is it a detachment or a destruction of the biological creature? Is the biological creature still there as it can feel aversive emotions but the actualized being can “cage” that biological creature (detachment)? Or is the creature not there anymore, leaving the actualized being at the unshared seat of experience? 5) How can we be sure that self-actualization is not just another stage of delusion? If the only premise that I can hold as true is that I experience something (cogito ergo sum), what to say that my awakening is not one of the many illusions of life just accompanied by Conviction Bias? I don’t believe you are Leo as I love to trust my intuition, but, knowing that you are aware of the many biases that plague us, how can you trust your experience of self-actualization? I hope you'll find time to read this and thank you in advance. P.S. I had already posted these questions but received no answers. I'm still as confused as I was 10 days ago so I would love to read your take on this Leo.

You don't know that reality is imaginary, all knowledge is from personal experience. To know something is to know self. You lack self-knowledge so you are not awakened. This is how you and many delude yourself. You sit around all day spouting spirituality dialog but you lack the direct experience. All of Leo's videos literally tell you this. Watch his videos, over and over and over and over and over again. Look up other Spiritual Masters if you want. Deconstruct all identities with the concept that everything is one. The fastest deconstruction is to watch Leo's Solipsism video and accept it as true. If you resist Absolute Solipsism then you cannot awaken. You resist it. How do I know? Because you keep complaining. What you do, every non-awakened human does. If you do what they do how would you ever hope to awaken? You won't! The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting the same result. To awaken is to GROW in self-love. If you are not growing in self-love then you are going BACKWARDS! Your love your avatar and the totality of life should be INCREASING NOT decreasing! The more you hate life, the more delusion you are creating, the more you are seeing the beauty of life the closer you are getting to awakening. I awoke because my mind was already relatively pure so all I needed was someone to teach me Spirituality and guide me to the correct point of view. Awakening is a point of view, the point of view of ONENESS as the absolute and everything else just an expression of it. ONENESS means ABSOLUTE ACCOUNTABILITY. So if you are EVER blaming, any other for anything you are in delusion. The entire dream is delusion your job is to be aware of your delusion so you can enjoy it! When you watch a movie, or play a video game you know it is delusion and thus you can enjoy it! Your life FEELS real that is why you complain! All complaints come from REALNESS, this is because of your fear of pain and loss! So whenever you speak, think, and emote from a pain and loss perspective it is OTHER delusion. It is akin to watching a movie getting so engrossed in it that you cry or laugh. It's a beautiful thing, but the beauty can only be realized when you know it is PURE FANTASY!

If you want to make your baseline experience awakened PM. Anyone can do it. I am not special. You need to be addicted to TRUTH. Nothing else should matter in your life and truthfully nothing else matters in life.

Great post, i agree in everything. but the issue of solipsism is very elusive. if I'm in awakened state, it's obvious, but if I'm in a sleeping state, like now, it doesn't make sense. If you want to go deeper, you have to fully understand that your direct experience is absolute, therefore there is nothing outside of it, therefore, the others are imaginary. but it's really not exactly like that. how is? I don't know