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That's because it's basically almost literally second jhana. Way after kundalini awakening usually it seems. But sometimes synonymous. It's the transition between Witnessing (mountains aren't mountains) and awareness of awareness possibly opening to nonduality (mountains are mountains again). I really don't know. Can hardly remember how the process went for me. Kenneth Folk probably has some info on this -- he seemed to have a very methodical and precise approach to his awakening. You're right though. 1. Piti and 2. the arising and passing away (insight stage associated with 2nd jhana) are referring to 2 different things, essentially. It's possible you were referring to number 2 when you used the word kundalini. Apart from those 2, I'm not aware of kundalini actually referring to anything else, but I guess one could associate it with whatever one wants to lol. I don't know.

Exactly @Gianna. One is just a number, and it's too easy to get lost in numbers and feel cut off. Nonduality and complete connection is everything. You are everything, everything is you. There's nothing more wonderful.

@molosku I was not even talking about nonduality. You shouldove reality even if you are stuck in duality.

Nonduality. Not-two. Try literally pointing at direct experience to realize that is not possible.

The nature of thought seems to be dual. Our actual direct experience, already, now is nondual. The nature of thought is comparison, difference, separation/combination, and opposites. Cold weather outside feels cold because it's a difference from the warmth inside. Touch your desk or some other surface and really feel what you feel. Is your hand actually a separate sensation from the desk? Do you remember your birth? When did you begin? If you have no knowledge of your beginning, what makes you think you'll ever end? Even the question, which position do we take dual or nondual? is going on the paradigm that we have to pick one over the other. Duality. Even the assumption "there is no good or bad" implies this statement is correct and the statement "good is good and bad is bad" is incorrect. As you might be feeling right now, nonduality is strangely unsatisfying to the mind, and yet oh my God, you'll never find anything more satisfying than the realization that you can just drop the war of thought games at any time.

Metaphysically speaking.. Nonduality means there is only one substance out of which everything is made :namely consciousness.

what is non duality? and what is it's use in Sprituality? is non dual means good and evil are one? what non dual teaching conclude? and how non dual is non dual? we know we are one with the soul but we are different in sprit too. so which positions we take? dual or non dual?

When I want to figure something out I become obsessed. As a result my exploration of nonduality has seeped into dreams. I had quite a curious experience where in the dream I was considering, as though it was waking life (I was not lucid), that the world around me might be my own mind. But I could not make myself fully get or believe it as I thought I was awake. Then I woke up in bed for real, and realized it in fact was all my own mind.

Nonduality is NOT solipsism. But the ego-mind may not see it that way at first. It is true that you are the only thing in existence. You created every human being that exists. Of course the trick is, we're talking about the universal YOU, not the personal you. It's very simple logic: if nonduality is true, there is no division between anything. There is certainly no division between you/other. You are your own mother. You created Actualized.org to help you awaken. You even wrote this sentence. You are God in every literal sense. The ego is of course afraid of this. And it may be a shock to the system when you first start to realize how radical nonduality really it. It may feel like madness. Of course it's not madness. It's TRUTH. But TRUTH is a radical thing. It requires a very deep surrender. In the end, once you fully surrender, it will be fine. Great even. Nonduality, at the highest degrees of it, is extremely radical. It will shock and terrify the ego-mind. That is the #1 obstacle which keeps people unenlightened. You have to surrender to the radicalness of it. You have to surrender to the madness. It's not really madness. But it will appear to be madness relative to the normie paradigm you are used to. Enlightened people are basically insane by all conventional standards. They just happen to be insane in a functional way. And they don't frame it that way because it would scare off newbies. The lite degrees of nonduality can feel pleasant and nice. The deepest degrees of nonduality can feel downright terrifying and depressing. And the final stage is peace and wonder.

I just truly discovered this notion of "wholeness", "unity" or "oneness" from non-duality. This idea is very frightening for me.. because it collapses my experience of reality. Awareness is all that there is.. every other thing is a mind-created concept So, Non-Duality is awareness itself. There is no separation of ego/thought or object/subject. Precisely because experience is all it Is.. and experience IS consciousness. There is no experiential state if there is no awareness, therefore "being" is all there truly is. This is without having this "I" that is assumed to be doing the experiencing. For some this mystical ego-transcendence is beautiful, because of the divine nature of it(How this pure state of awareness feels). And also because it is the ultimate truth. It is the true nature of nature. Duality is the greatest enemy to non-duality (Obviously). But get this, in order to reach non-duality you MUST purge the duality of the mind. So, having a firmly dualistic mind will not comprehend this in any way. Because non-duality is experienced, it is not known by a rational explanation. For the explanation of it is dualistic in nature, because language is dualistic and always implies separation. People engage in meditation to reach this perceptual change of awareness. My biggest fear is knowing that everything I have experienced up until now has been an illusion. A product of the mind's intrinsic tendency to dualism. Everything seems false, nothing is real. Truth is just one. Up until now my philosophical "truths"(Or any thought of that matter) have been dualistic. So, I reach some sort of existential crisis or nihilistic crisis in nature. Not only that, but all of my dreams, hopes, my personal realizations are far from truth. Any meaning becomes meaningless. It is not worth living for something at it is just a concept, a construct of the mind that separates me and true reality. In a crude way, it is all fake. I can't even think without separation so it troubles me more. I think the most terrifying thing is looking out into space and realising that that for the most part.. is reality - this yawning near-void filled with things that would kill you. Here we are.. little fragile Flatlanders hugging the increasingly disordered surface of one planet.. with the yawning hungry cosmos poised to take us all back.

I feel a sense of love more when imagining God's awareness as separate and in a dual framework, even if it's not true. Like, my head being filled with awareness made of and by God, feels like a divine kiss on the forehead. On this topic that I posted originally, there is an automatic refutation of how a physicalist would react, because they too propose a magical conjuring trick AKA "emergence". All nonduality is doing is saying that brains are part OF this magical "emergence" thing. There is nothing at all but unmanifest infinite potentiality, and manifest perception. All manifest is one, all unmanifest exists in nothing, and both added together = reality = the Tao = absolute Oneness.

I agree with all that. I was pointing to something entirely different than the story of the Big Bang, which seems to be true in the story, as you seem to indicate. I was pointing out a view which itself points to nonduality. This is timelessly the Big Bang right here and now, but as the unconditioned.

Warning: Complete Transparency! I go deep into detail here! I spent two or three nights with 'J' since my last entry. I'm not entirely sure.. Time seems to be distorted AF lately. I'm not always sure if something happened yesterday or three days ago, or is it about to happen tomorrow. Linearity is fading - big time. I sometimes struggle to keep track of things. Thank God I like writing. I will not do a separate entry for each night. There are too many similarities. I don't want to repeat stuff here. In direct experience though; I've got nothing against repetition. Especially if I'm repeating nights of epic sex lol. In this entry; I will write about the night that stood out the most to me. It was sort of a breakthrough. A threshold to a higher level of connection, closeness, pleasure, etc. Buckle up. It's gonna be a long and wild ride. I'm already giving myself a boner. Build - up It was a rainy Summer night. I was so grateful the air cooled down a bit. I could not wait to finish working and go home to make sweet love to the sound of the rain. J and I happened to finish at our jobs pretty much at the same time that night. She was done a few minutes before I was. She texted me that she's with a coworker at her workplace, waiting for me. As soon as I'm done, I head there. They're in front of the building, smoking a cigarette, talking and giggling. I recognize J's coworker as soon as I see her. I remember her flirting with me earlier that day during lunchtime. I could sense she wanted to fuck me, even then. What I did not know is that she was kinda close with J. And of course she now knew J and I were fucking. So yeah. I can sense a lot of tension in the air. Maybe this is an opportunity for a threesome... Will see. We exchanged a few words. Small talk. Nothing sexual. But still, the tension was there. We said goodbye and then J and I left. Straight to my place. On our way; we talk about work a bit, but quickly bring the frame back onto us and our 'thing' that we've got going on. I start emphasizing why this 'thing' of ours is not a relationship and what it would mean if it was. I even mention her I'm pretty active on a self-help forum and that I asked of people's opinions on the matter. She finds it very cool. She agrees that this indeed is not a relationship. She has her reasons why she does not want a relationship, too. It's not only me. She shares those with me and reassures me that there's nothing weird going on. But.. she also admits she kinda has a tendency to get attached real quick, real hard.. I'm not surprised. It's a very common trait.. We reach a point where we kinda agree on being real good friends and having real good sex, while we see it fit. And when the time comes; we simply stop having sex and remain good friends. Or you know.. whatever. The air is as clear as it can be. We are both breathing freely and with a smile on our faces. And so we arrive to me place. Climax There is so much porn going on here before anything sexual even happens. Sorry about that, dear reader. I simply cannot leave it out. These moments of magic mean the world to me. As usual; I can't stop talking around her. It's just so easy. So effortles. So smooth. I say everything I want to say, and much, much more. I keep surprising myself in the back of my mind. She absolutely loves listening to all my stories and philosophies. I can tell she's truly invested. Paying close attention. Feeling my words. Not just hearing them. Things become a bit heavy at some point. But heavy in the most beautiful possible way. I was speaking of some dark stuff from my past... She nearly broke down in tears. And so did I. It was a moment of complete connection, empathy, compassion. It seemed like she truly felt a portion of that 'pain of mine'. She jumps into my lap and hugs me tightly. Trying to soothe me, comfort me. She speaks gently into my ear: 'It's ok. It's over now. Everything is alright...' I cannot tell you how many nights I stood awake; wishing for someone to do that for me. To hear me out. To tell me it's all good. To put their heart against mine and simply be present with me... Needless to say; I started melting. Disintegrating. Dissolving into Nothing. But.. I would not let that happen. I did not want to go there. It felt too soon. Too big. Too... much. Not what this night is all about. I quickly shifted and altered my state of being. I said something along the lines of: 'That's enough of wining now! We're here to have fun!' She laughs and ofcourse matches the frequency immediately. I can tell she's got a lot of emotional intelligence and maturity going on. What a girl... Good for her. We start talking about art.. She wants to hear my music. I show her a few projects of mine, and her mind is pretty much blown away. Pussy probably wet. I'd dare to bet on it. There is so much passion and excitement in the room it could kill a man. I decide to give her a short tour of my world. I know it's completely alien to her. Unknown territory. I show her more, incredible, genius music/art. She loves all of it. We discuss self-expression a lot and what it is that makes an artist truly unique. We also smoke a blunt or two while talking. Then...*get this*...we proceed to have a full-blown conversation about Nonduality. Say what now?! How the fuck did we get this high, this quick? I can tell she's awake. Present. Conscious. She is not really familiar with all these spiritual/nondual concepts.. And I doubt she had any truly deep nondual realizations.. But she's definitely awake. Definitely conscious. Just not conscious of her actually being God. She's conscious of The One, but not yet that she is The One. We spoke about the matter in a very down-to-earth way. No woo woo spiritual language. We kept it real and direct. Straight forward. At one moment we kinda both questioned whether the other one existed haha. It was a bit scary. But we laughed it off quickly and agreed that there is no real way for us to know. I finally drag myself to the bathroom to take a shower. My mind was silent for so long that when a thought passed through my awareness it felt like an invasion. It kinda disturbed me for a few moments... but I shook it off quickly. I get out of the shower, feeling all fresh and ready. And then I walk into a scene that felt like a dream come true. J is on the bed with my acoustic guitar in her hands. Struggling to play the intro of 'nothing else matters'. You gotta be kidding me... Can the night get any more magical? Jesus Christ. My heart melts instantly and I sit down to listen to her playing. She's being all cute and embarrassed. It's so hot to me when she's shy. I am looking up her mini-skirt. I can see her panties... Oh my God... I could not dream up this stuff. She distracts me from being distracted and yells with a girly voice: 'You play it!' - handing me over the guitar. I really don't wanna show off but I also kinda do, so I take the guitar and nail that intro. She's amazed. And turned on. We fool around a bit more with the guitar, I teach her the first few notes of the song, and then we put the guitar away. Now it's her turn to take a shower. I proceed to roll another joint. Listening to awesome music and hanging out here on the forum. *This is where things start turning sexual* She comes out of the bathroom... naked. My window wide open. People could easily see in. She does not seem to give a fuck. She walks to me in slow motion and sits in my lap. That's it. My dick is in charge now. I'm taking the passenger's seat. My first impulse is to suck on her tiny, pink nipples. Oh God. It makes me crazy. Like, stupid crazy. I grab on her boobs hard. I'm really getting in there. I'm an animal now. A wild beast. I suck and I lick like savage. I pull her hair and start making out with her. She's rubbing my cock through my shorts. I know she wants it bad. My hands are still nowhere near her pussy. They're occupied with her ass, tits and hair - mainly. We make out like this for a while. Then... She stands up and sits on a chair across me. Smiling and looking at me like she's about to eat me alive. Man... What a tease. We say little to nothing. Only looking at each-other, with fire in our eyes. Our blood boiling. We take a few puffs, I put on this album: https://youtu.be/znV9KDsNtXY and that's it... Enough of playing around. We're fucking. Now. We skip the long, romantic honeymoon intro. My dick straight into her mouth. She's sitting on my bed. I'm standing up. I like looking down on her from up here. She seems so small and fragile. My big, fat dick in her gentle, little palms. She's a pro. She's not only mindlessly strocking up and down. She's twisting my dick hard while sucking on the tip. It's no joke when she locks into a rhythm. I could easily cum real quick. But I'm no ordinary beast, either. I know my craft. Know myself. Know my dick. Holding back is no issue to me. I'm just the perfect guy to fuck her brains out. The way she truly deserves it. Although we were clearly in Heaven once again... there was also something hellish in the atmosphere. I felt a bit like a Devil that night. I wanted to be more dirty with her than before. I wanted to dominate her more. I wanted to be more rough. I'm sure I was influenced by the album I chose to play in the background. It was just the perfect vibe. She has a pony tail tonight. I wrap it around my arm and start choking her with my cock. She swallows more than half of it. I'm impressed. But I'm not releasing her that easily. She's being trained now. She's my little slave. And oh boy is she loving it! She's gasping for air. Her saliva all over my dick. Some of it on her tits. Some on the floor. Tears running down her face. Her make-up all fucked up. Just a lovely scene. I remember thinking to myself: 'Easy, Ivan. This is not your common, trasy, street whore. She's knew to all this. She's way too innocent and fragile.' You must understand that this girl did not have all that many sexual experiences so far. She had a boyfriend for a few years, and from what I understood; he was kinda boring, lazy and generic. I assume he fucked her that way too. She told me I'm definitely the best she ever had. And also the biggest. By far. So yeah... A lot of firsts and a lot of news. I feel honored. Kinda humbled, too. Also; proud. Very, very proud. So... I decide to hit the breaks a bit and start projecting some warmth into the act. Enough of discipline and torture - for now. I'm not even thinking of pulling out my whip or tying her down yet. It's way too soon. But I'm now sure she's open for exploring those waters. She's definitely excited about this whole new world I'm slowly revealing to her. The role I have in this dynamic is way beyond satisfying. I absolutely love it. I turn her around and now she's on her knees, on my bed. Her lovely, round, heart-shaped butt up in the air. I'm standing behind her. My cock pulsing - ready to explode. I'm not as hard as this with every girl and everytime. It's only so with the 'special ones'. If I don't vibe with the girl I can't get it up. Or I can - but barely. It happened a few times already. It's just how I'm wired. I kneel down and bury my face deep into that perfect ass. My God. The smell. The taste. The feel. The every-fucking-thing. It's just indescribable. Words completely fail me. My tongue in her tiny, little hole. I'm pushing as deep as I can. Twisting it inside of her sugar-wall. Both of my hands on her ass-cheeks. Spreading them wide open. I suck on her clit. Then I slide my thumb in her pussy. I'm grabbing hard on her thighs. Occasionally reaching out to her beautiful tits. I would not dare to neglected them. I cannot take it anymore. I must fuck her, now! I reach out and grab some lube from the night shel. She's already wet as fuck - but I want her extra moisturized now. I don't want to go slow this time. I want to enter hard and quick. I put a fair amount of lube on my dick. And then some on my two fingers that I bury deep inside her pussy. I spread it real good. All over her tight, warm sugar-walls. I pull her lengs together and lower her back. Her ass way up in the air. Her head down on the bed. Arms behind her back. I put the tip of my dick on her clit and jerk her a bit. She's starts moaning louder. 'Fuck me!' - she yells. I spread her ass-cheeks as far as possible and slide my dick into her. I can't believe it. It went surprisingly smooth. Still tight as fuck. Still a little bit painful. But in it went right away. All the way up and against the wall. She coughs a bit. I punched the breath out of her with my dick. It was kinda hot. I lose no more time. I start digging. Creating space and dimensions inside of her. Her pussy is now my playground. I get to play out my wildest imagination inside of her. I slap her ass hard. Maybe a bit too hard. She screams a bit in pain, but does not stop pounding back against my dick. I'm pulling on her long-ass pony tail. Red led lights shining right bellow her ass. The view... is breathtaking. I turn her around and pull her up. Now we're both standing next to my bed. I put her on leg on the bed and slide my dick into her from behind. She's completely surrendered. Leaning against my body. My hand on both of her tits. I'm licking and biting her neck and ear. My fingers on her clit. She's locked into a cage of pleasure. She cannot move. There is ecstasy coming from all angels. Pointing in all of her pleasure spots. Some of which she never knew she even had. I'm fucking her real hard. There is still something romantic about it... But it's mostly just hardcore, animalistic fucking. It's as hot as it is wild. I feel like I wanna roar on the top of my lungs. It's incredibly empowering. It makes you feel like you can move mountains. Again we change the position. Now I'm sitting on the bed. My lengs touching the floor and spread wide. She's standing in front of me, turning her back on me. Her tighs tightly sealed. She leans forward and slowly sits on my dick. Holding onto my legs. Again. The skill. The will. How?! How did this girl learn to ride and please a man like this?! I'm pretty sure she's just a natural.. No other explanation. She has been blessed with a gift. And I'm enjoying the fuck out if it. She's definitely a giver. Very, very generous. I lay back and relax. She keeps riding, ofcourse. Like the best, obedient, little whore. This gives me the opportunity to melt into the centre of the Universe once again, and disappear. I lose myself completely. Yet I am more here and more now than ever. I am all. I spiral in and out, up and down. I don't care one bit about anything at all. I might as well die this very moment. Next thing I know; she's laying on me. Her back against my chest. Her cute little butt still working my dick. Again; my one hand on her tits, the other one playing with her clit. We're making out. Sucking on each-other's tongues. H - O - T. Somehow we end up in 69. But not before I pull out a vibrator out of my toy-box... It's always under my bed. Waiting patiently. J's very, very pleasantly surprised. She giggles and gets a bit shy again. It makes me go nuts. She's sitting on my face now. If this is not Heaven, I don't know what is. I lick her clit like a mad man. I suck on it. Circle around it with my tongue as fast as (in)humanly possible. The dildo, which is significantly smaller than my dick, is now deep in her pussy. Vibrating... semi-fast. She is moaning, nearly screaming in ecstasy. With my dick in her mouth, of course. She comes all over my face. I cum deep into her throat. And the Earth stops spinning. At this point we kinda made peace with the fact that we'll just keep blowing each-other's minds. We obviously won't stop going higher and higher for a while. So we might as well get used to it. I was beyond happy when she said she's cool with swallowing cum. I brought the matter up at some point earlier that night. I could not wait to cum inside her. Even if inside her mouth, only. That's one of the reasons I kinda have a thing for anal. Because I can cum inside like a boss. But anal is definitely out of the picture with J. Her asshole is just waaay to tiny. Fucking her pussy already feels like anal lol. She mentioned she's thinking about the pill... We'll see. For now, I'm beyond satisfied with cumming in her mouth, only. Anyways... The night is not over yet. That's right, you horny mofo. There is more action. We eat some pizza, put a movie on and I role another blunt on her ass. That's right. On her, beautiful, round, juicy ass. We're both naked, obviously. We smoke, we laugh, talk a bit... and soon enough we're fucking again. In missionary. I grunt and talk dirty in her ear. Fast, hard and sudden strokes. Again I'm punching the breath out of her. Now repeatedly. She exited this plane of existence. Her eyes roll back. She comes all over my dick. Her body completely outside of her control. Shaking like mad. It was a full-body orgasm. She definitely reached a new level of surrender with me. She can cum much easier now. And much, much harder. She rides me some more. Then I fuck her gorgeous titties for some time and again cum in her throat. It's around 6AM now. We pretty much fucked the entire night. Pure, mother-fucking WIN. That's how you live life fully, people. I actually remember us high-fiving and fist-bumping several times during the night lol. It was very cool. We fall asleep like babies. A few hours later, I wake up with a boner next to a hot, naked brunette. Instinctively I fuck her. It was an awesome 'quicky'. She finally leaves my place around noon. We both had to start working at 2PM. What a fucking ride. Thanks, God. I really, truly appreciate it. I could not ask for more. Final thoughts: You see this? All of this? This right here... is Passion. I could not think up and in front all this and organize it this perfectly - even if I wanted to. It just happens on its own. It must happen on it's own. I simply have to let it take over. And boom! Magic! Sex! This right here... Is why J and I fuck so good. It is why we communicate so good. It is why she was attracted to me in the first place. Passion... Passion is sex.

The mystical states are produced in the finite self by manipulation of the brain. This does not matter when you understand nonduality. Nonduality cannot be experienced fully by a finite self, it causes "cessation", so you can only come very close. The finite self that you mean right now is a brain. Like how to experience a dream you must be localized in the dream (proveable), to experience the dream called material universe you must be localized in it. Which we are. As brains. The brain causes the finite self to interpret raw data in an array of ways (qualia), it does not itself PRODUCE the qualia or consciousness. Imagine there is a canvas covered in many colors. On top is a blank white piece of cardboard. That represents the finite self (brain). Now take a hole punch and make some holes in the cardboard so the colors on the canvas show. That is what your brain is doing. Just like when a magician pulls a rabbit put of the hat, only a fool believes the rabbit was not already there.

“If a tree falls in the woods and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound?” That old joke remains quite mysterious, until the flaw in the proposition is recognized. The setup implies there are two; the hearer, and the tree which makes the sound. No hearer, no sound experience… no tree falling, no sound experience. What if you didn’t believe you’re a hearer, any more or less than you believe you’re a tree? The punchline, nonduality, suggests there are not two, such as a thinker of thoughts, a perceiver of perceived, a creator of creation, a hearer of sound, or someone doing something, or anyone doing anything really. If you & I wanna have a party, we gotta rent a place, hire a band, book Gallagher, hang the disco balls, paint ourselves, establish wingman-ship, order the kegs and strippers, etc, etc. You know how it is. But when Not A Thing wants to have a party, it just be’s the whole party… and sometimes mid-party it’s all ‘is there really this “No Thing” or not? That’s a helluva party if you think about it. Or is it if you don’t? Dunno.

@Windappreciator I'm guessing you haven't seen it. It's not just a personal diary sort of thing, you know. https://actualized.org/insights Leo's Blog: Infinite Insights Miscellaneous bits of wisdom about personal development, philosophy, epistemology, nonduality, life purpose, psychedelics, etc. Published randomly throughout the week.

@Dazgwny Psychedelics gave me total ego dissolution and turned me on to nonduality as a result. But I have made much more progress sober, going over the logic of the metaphysics and considering things in my daily life. It might be of no use for Spira to use psychedelic drugs if he is already enlightened. I have no interest in being enlightened but some elements come with the package of belief without much choice in the matter.

If that's how you define God, then you're right.. you are not God. You think 'God' and 'the laws of physics' are 2 different things. Because all words are metaphors, and as metaphors go it's a fairly commonly understood one, even though (you and I might agree) it carries a lot of baggage and there is much disagreement about what it means. We could use other words.. like 'Everything' or 'Consciousness' or 'The Universe' if you prefer.. all just metaphors. You are Everything. You are Consciousness. You are the Universe. These sentences all point to the same thing, but it's tricky to understand what is being pointed to, especially if you don't deeply grasp what a metaphor is, what duality/nonduality is and how it works, etc. It's similar to saying, 'The inside is the outside'.. this sentence seems contradictory, but it's really not. Inside implies an outside, outside implies an inside. The word 'inside' only has meaning relative to 'outside'. There is no such thing as 'just the inside' of something. Inside only has meaning relative to outside. You are only 'who you are' relative to 'that which is not you'. That which is not you defines who you are. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ I don't think anyone on this thread uses the word 'God' to mean, 'some magic entity which exists outside of reality who can manipulate reality', but this is the definition you are arguing against, because that's how you define it. This is a such a silly semantic argument.. it's like telling someone who says, 'I'm going to run to the store real quick.' that they'd get there quicker by driving. When they said 'run to the store' they meant 'drive to the store', but by purposely misrepresenting what they meant, you give yourself the opportunity for a quick pedantic zinger. If you meant drive, why use the word 'run'"? Well, because 'run to the store' is a commonly understood metaphor that many people understand to mean 'drive to the store', and so in this instance 'run' doesn't mean 'jog quickly'... but if metaphor is completely lost on you, you won't get it.

In 2009 I took about 5 gms of mushrooms on the beach of the Oregon Coast. I felt a pull from my chest, that I naturally resisted. But I had the thought, "lets see what happens if I stop resisting it?". Once I did I left reality and went to the place of white nothingness, and knew that it was all one. I knew that there was no separation of anything, and that it was inconsequential if I went back, as it didn't matter, as it is the same thing. This was my very first Spiritual/Mystical/Awakening experience, a decade before I learned what any of that meant. Weird thing was, that day, I could have an Awakening at will, meaning I could choose to leave my body and go to the place of white oneness, by choosing to do so. I did at least 5 times throughout the evening. Each time longer than the last. The last time I did, I was gone so long, hours, that it was night time by the time I came back. My legs were so numb, I had to rock back and forth, to get the feeling back in my legs, to be able to even walk. That night, my girlfriend and I were able to talk to each other through thought (telepathy). And I was able to manifest impossible things to happen at will. Such as, it was then nighttime and dark out. There was miles of dunes ahead of us. I said to my GF, telepathically through thought "we need to find your sandals", as she had taken them off somewhere on one of those thousands of sand dunes. At that moment, I stopped and looked down, and they were there in front of me. Crazy day for sure. It wasn't till a decade later did I learn about Spirituality and Nonduality. Now that day on the beach makes much more sense as to what happen. My question is, has anyone ever heard of someone being able to, on a psychedelic, be able to have numerous Awakenings at will, to be able to go back and forth by choice, and stay as long as you want? How common is it to have telepathy when on a psychedelic?

When you encounter the divine, God is an intuitive term. Like saying love when you feel love for a person. It might not be a literal sky daddy God or any of this, but the term is what springs to mind when confronted with something of such intense power. I considered my own experiences of heavy DMT breakthroughs to have been religious experiences. Nonduality when realized is something very much divine.

While I have been exploring "truth" through experience, there is one area that I really feel is quite unclear for me. In another thread someone posted this video where he attempts to explain "Oneness". (Not necessary to watch it). While I certainly fully grasp the idea of Oneness, Nonduality and/or Holism, how do you explain Solipsism (or lack thereof) as a truth? Example: I get it. There is no tree without the sun, the rain etc and from my perspective, I am creating separations between things. I also understand oneness from the perspective that fields of consciousness must in someway or another belong to some grand scheme of "everything"/Brahman. What I don't get is, how WE are all one, if we, as unique experiential fields are "infinitely" separate from one another, from an experiential point of view? I understand that there is no separation between different people, as physical objects, but at the end of the day, I still experience a "me" and I trust that other people are also experiencing a "me". I feel like Leo tends to sidestep this discussion and often makes comments like "for all I know, you are just my mind playing tricks on me" bla bla. and I have seen other people (mods) saying things like "who said other people are conscious"? What are your thoughts on this? How have you guys made conclusions on this? I hope for something more elaborate than "I can't explain it in words". EDIT: Sorry for this obnoxious comment but please do not reply to this thread if your reply will simply be a one-liners like "all is one" "because it is" etc. "isn't it so?". Please take a moment to elaborate your thought. I understand that not all things can be explained through words, but please at least try.

Holism & Holistic Thinking - Part 2 "Aberrations of the human mind are to a large extent due to the obsessional pursuit of some part-truth, treated as if it were the whole truth." -- Arthur Koestler Essence: The higher elevation perspective helps melt away problems since new solutions arise which weren’t available before. Many of your problems stem from a lack of holism and often you don’t see it. Goal: Experience the shift and start to see how important and serious holism is. It’s a massive tree trunk and people just dismiss it as a hippy idea of alternative medicine. You can’t just compartmentalize science from nutrition, diet from psychological well-being, well-being from relationships, etc. They’re not separate things. Collective problems: Environment & ecology Littering and introducing new animals in foreign territory. When you don’t see all the interconnections of systems you overlook a lot and things spiral out of control. Western medicine The lack of holism is almost criminal, and, in the future, you’ll be able to sue a doctor for behaving this way. They’ll only look at a very narrow band of problems that you have. If it matches their little list of symptoms, they might help you. If it doesn’t, they don’t even think it’s a serious problem. Holism = health Nutrition Consider nutrition as a whole. Nutrition is not limited to any one of those things. That which causes you to lose fat does not necessarily mean it’s healthy for you long term. And being a vegetarian or vegan for ethical reasons also doesn’t mean it’s healthy for you long term. You can be a vegan and eat garbage food. (Fake sausage & cheese, potato chips, sugar) People get stuck debating the minutiae of these various diets, get tribal about it, missing the big picture. Fad diets will reduce nutrition down to either calories, carbs, protein, or fat. There are many different variations of all these. There's much more data to be listed on the back of products and in restaurants. Capitalism and business The way business is conducted today ignores so many important and huge domains and aspects of human life. Art, spirituality, the environment, health, social well-being and cohesiveness, the health of the society, and ignores the health of humanity at large. It also ignores the impact that this has on your epistemology and on your worldview. It's just looking to extract money from these things and isn't participating for the sake of it. Marketing Extremely unhealthy & toxic right now. Ignores societal well-being, the psychological ecosystem of human minds that it infects and corrupts with the mind viruses that it feeds. One of the greatest scandals of the last 50 years is the toxic effect that marketing has had on human minds. A scandal that nobody even talks or thinks about or understands at all. Zoomers are using technology even earlier than past generations and it keeps getting worse. All of that combined together leads to everyone shitting in the pool and soon enough we're all swimming in a pool of shit. It's subtle because marketing is not a tangible thing like a war happening. "Especially when we're talking about the health of society as a whole, we need to be extremely holistic and take all of these factors into account and find the proper balances." Geopolitics A lack of holism in geopolitics leads to something like the Iraq war. War is a lack of holism. Science Science ignores metaphysics and epistemology and dismissed these as unnecessary to the work of science. This is extremely ignorant and unholistic. The scientist assumes we can keep doing science as we've always been doing it all without questioning the deepest assumptions. But the scientific method itself hinges upon an implicit metaphysics and epistemology that you have. Materialism for most scientists and it's taken as truth, the default position. Our education system doesn't train them any better. And with that attitude, we keep on doing materialistic and reductionistic science staying confused as to why it isn't progressing, and certain problems can't be resolved. Those who've gone beyond scientific materialism have resolved the mind-body problem, but to academic scientists, it's still very mysterious and thorny. Science ignores consciousness and spirituality dismissing them as unscientific and unworthy of scientific study or unexplainable by science. They think that matter is one thing and consciousness is something else. Many of the best epistemic and metaphysical lessons discovered 100 years ago in quantum mechanics are not generalized out to other domains enough. Entanglement, subject-object duality, superposition, etc. Mathematics Gödel's incompleteness theorem. Episode: The Metaphysical Implications of Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem Generalizing it out to other domains requires holism. Scientists, mathematicians, and logicians are very locked into their own little bubble. This conservativism makes them not care about anything beyond their formalized logic or formalized subdomain. Psychology It ignores spirituality, nonduality, philosophy, and the importance of metaphysical, epistemic, and existential considerations when treating patients. That's why therapists doing psychoanalysis and talk therapy tend to have very poor results with curing patients. Usually, the patients have a deeper problem at the spiritual/existential level, at the epistemic/metaphysical level. Most psychologists are not trained for that and might even consider those things to be nonsense and not real medicine. They understand human psychology and behavior at a surface level because you can't without deep spiritual work on yourself personally. You can't be psychologically healthy without understanding the ego and the above. Logic Logicism during the early 1900s by Frege, Russel, Whitehead, Hilbert. The idea that mathematics was nothing more than the logic behind it and the shuffling of logical symbols in a formalized way. Tried to reduce all of mathematical truth to that, miserably failing at it. Gödel's IT and Russel's Paradox put the nail in the coffin after 30 years of that. He didn't consider the paradoxical nature of consciousness and of symbolic understanding. Logical Positivism All of science can simply be boiled down to simple true or false statements about the nature of reality. Is the sky blue? True or false? Is the sun hot? True or false? It's ridiculously reductionistic and ultimately self-contradictory and false. But at some point, some of the greatest philosophers in the world believed in this. "This is the history of Western intellectual tradition and how deeply reductionistic it used to be and how badly that failed because reductionism fails. That's the problem with reductionism, is that it keeps failing. And the reason it keeps failing is because reality is a Unity! And if it is a Unity you can only understand it as a whole, not as bits and pieces." Science ignoring psychedelics Treating it as though it's an unscientific thing. "The real breakthrough will be when serious scientists start taking psychedelics themselves and using them to see the limitations of science, that'd be true holism right there, but we're a long way from that." Technology A lot of ethics are ignored. A lot of technologies are just invented for the sake of inventing them for business purposes because technology and business are closely related. It's much harder to do business holistically than unholistically. Einstein's Relativity First developed special relativity, a very narrow application of relativity to just velocity in one direction, a very special case. Einstein wasn't fully happy with that. What about accelerations, rotational forces, and intuited that relativity needs to apply to those things as well. Came up with general relativity, expanding the narrow discovery to something much larger. Space-time and that really gravity was just the mass exerting a distortion within space-time, four-dimensional space. But we can't stop there… If he was truly holistic in his thinking, he'd generalize relativity, even more, applying the concept of relativity to everything in the universe. Including the human mind, science, religion, different cultures, the actual physical existence of objects, and the physical existence of the universe. Absolute Relativity = Awakening He stayed stuck within the little domain of physics and didn't break through that. Episode: Understanding Relativism Education Perhaps the biggest source of social problems. Ignores personal development, EQ, Love, epistemology, metaphysics, spirituality, nutrition, health. Leading you to believe, after 12 years of ignoring these, that 'they don't even exist or if they did they would have taught me!' Really the education system should be Actualized.org curriculum. Actualized.org spawned rather organically from Leo's holistic orientation and interest in researching and finding the deepest lessons that one can learn in life. Scientific studies in general They're extremely narrow and unholistically designed leading to very narrow results which can easily be recontextualized in the future by other data and studies. Individual problems: Living a hedonistic lifestyle & eating junk food You're not thinking about how this affects your longevity, health, how this contributes to your ability to do your work and fulfill your life purpose, to love and have sex, to raise children. Same thing with when you're not exercising. Staying at a job that pays very well but doesn't satisfy you It doesn't satisfy you because it doesn't align with your life purpose and highest values. This is the bigger problem that needs to be addressed. Workaholic lifestyle Seems nice at first thinking in terms of the next year or two but thinking about your career and business and your productive output over the span of your entire lifetime these things are laughably stupid. Not considering how their work connects with their relationships, marriage, sex life, health, children, friends, family. You need all those things to be in balance to have a happy life. Avoiding going to the doctor Starting a work project but then losing track of the ultimate goal of what the project is about It's very easy to get stuck in one thing. Being cheap when hiring employees This requires a long-term holistic approach. Lying in relationships A long-term honest relationship can't be built on lies. An unholistic person is not thinking about how to sustain the health of the relationship. Not just from your selfish personal needs. The third holon is the relationship itself which requires a lot of selflessness. Pickup community Ridiculously unholistic. All about the male perspective, as though the female perspective isn't even important. Gamers can get laid effectively, but when it comes to having deep fulfilling relationships with women, these pickup guys are so far away from being able to do that. In fact, pickup makes it even worse because it trains you with a very unholistic, deeply self-biased attitude towards sex, dating, and relationships. Episode: A rant against the pickup community Staying married for the sake of children Ripping off your customers when doing business Not going to work out long-term. Dismissing the importance of theory Your practice will be very limited. Theory shows you new ways to practice and allows you to introspect deeply about your practice and that maybe it's useless. How do you know the practice you're doing is the best one? Only through theory. An unholistic duality. Episode: Theory vs practice balance Loans and credit Super unholistic economical idea both collectively and individually. Not doing spiritual work Can't just skate by without any existential consideration. You'll suffer deeply because of this especially when getting older and facing death. The last few years or decades will be one of your most miserable years. The duality between the individual and collective level is itself brokenness and fragmentation in consciousness. Think of them as the two strands of the DNA helix. Contemplate: How many problems in the world are the result of unholistic thinking? How many of your personal problems, or the problems of people you know, are the result of unholistic thinking? Beware of teachings, endeavors, or projects which are not holistic: Success-based, materialistic, self-help teachings or business of that same nature. Western medicine, physics, mathematics, philosophical schools, religions, or even spiritual schools, cults, and political ideologies. Buying into any of these things too much and taking them as the ultimate truth is going to lead to problems; disease, suffering, and brokenness. Why is what's being said in this episode so important? Lack of holism = paradigm lock. What's defined as "evil" is defined by whatever paradigm you've locked yourself into. The most powerful tool for breaking out of these paradigms is holism. This ultimately leads to jailbreaking the mind, infinite holism. The mind jails you by getting you comfortable in a less than infinitely holistic way of thinking about reality. Corruption Corruption = a lack of holistic intelligence. Episode: How Corruption Works Catch-22 of holism: "Thinking holistically requires appreciating the value of holism. But, to see and appreciate the value of holism requires that you're seeing holistically." Hence all the examples of how problematic it is to not be infinitely holistic in your understanding of reality. It directly leads to suffering for you and for all of mankind. It's a hedonic treadmill, the path to hell. The holistic path leads to the opposite, not easy, requires wisdom, but deeply rewarding. Many aspects of life and reality cannot be understood without significant holism: Sexual dynamics between men and women within relationships. Conflict and war. Trauma, evil, corruption. How to create a healthy society. ...etc If you value understanding you have to be holistic. Components of holistic thinking: Taking all levels of being into account, the higher and the lower. Taking responsibility for everything, which makes it so challenging. Awareness of your effect on the whole. Internalizing externalities. Accounts for systemic emergent properties. (Example) Accounts for backfiring mechanisms, counter-intuitiveness, and non-linearity of reality. Sees how the part fits into the whole valuing both the whole and the parts. Sees how all dualities must ultimately all reunite. Requires a long-time horizon, vision-logic. Requires considering relevance, priority, context, and balance. Requires considering the greatest good for all without selfish needs. Do you genuinely care about the whole? Are you willing to be selfless for the sake of the whole? The highest leverage to becoming holistic is first and foremost to solve your survival challenges permanently in a healthy way. Different degrees of holism: Politics Politics is about fighting off those evil other guys. Politics is about money, sex, power, and domination. Politics is about creating a better and fairer society; it's about reducing suffering. Politics is about elevating the consciousness of mankind and increasing collective love. "Our politics is so fucked up because virtually nobody understands this." Politics is about the Universe becoming ever more self-conscious, self-aware, and interconnected with itself, ultimately leading to infinite Love. Science Science is about manipulating reality. Science is about measuring things. Science is about understanding nature and all of its different phenomena. Science is about expanding our understanding of the physical universe. Science is about expanding our understanding of life and consciousness. Science is the Universe becoming conscious of itself as God and Love. Science is identical to spirituality. "Science is God exploring itself because it's curious about itself because it's in love with itself." … everything is done at different levels and tiers of holism -- filmmaking, game design, writing, sex, etc. How to develop holistic thinking? Ask higher quality questions. Episodes: The power of asking questions, Contemplation, 64 most fascinating questions. Psychedelics, awakening, God-realization, spiritual practice. Psychedelics are especially powerful at increasing your holism. Developing your intuition. Episode: How to harness your intuition Don't sell for one-dimensional, linear, reductionistic, dualistic answers. Keep questioning, keep wanting higher answers, this will push you to explore new perspectives and read. Study many perspectives. As many perspectives as possible. It'll expand your appreciation for the diversity of perspectives. Deconstruct the materialistic/mechanical paradigm. It's straight jacketing your holistic thinking ability. Study systems thinking. Episode: Intro to systems thinking. Start to consider externalities and collateral damage. Learn from Ken Wilber, Fritjof Capra, David Bohm, Einstein, Buckminster Fuller, etc. Step outside of your survival concerns The highest leverage to becoming holistic is first and foremost to solve your survival challenges permanently in a healthy way. Study your own self-biases Episodes: Self-bias, Developing introspection. Develop a long-time horizon Look for top-down, bottom-up, and sideways causal forces Eliminate judging and criticizing as much as possible Nothing will hurt your holistic thinking ability more than judging and criticizing. Adopt Ken Wilber's attitude of "everyone is right." In partial ways and in different degrees. Questions to help you think holistically: How are X and Y interconnected? What is the big picture here? What is the larger context of this? What is the ultimate point of all this? Why am I doing this at all? How is this a part of something larger? And what is that larger thing? How does this part serve the larger whole? How is this part of a duality? How will this boomerang? What is best for the health of the whole? How should the parts be rebalanced for the good of the whole? Which parts are out of balance leaching selfishly from the whole? How is this fragmented? How can it be unified and healed? How am I drawing the boundary of the system? How can I redraw the boundary to expand the boundary? How am I involved in the situation? How would God see this situation? God's thinking about a thing is unbiased, selfless, unattached, fearless, benevolent, all-loving, all-understanding, non-judgmental, self-accepting, and seeking exquisite balance for the good of all. This question is especially powerful because this is the power that created the entire universe. How can I better serve the greatest whole? Align your life with that question to ace life. Warnings: Studying the whole for personal gain is not holism, it's devilry. You can't separate holism from selflessness. Distinguish holism from Holism. holism = as the polar opposite of reductionism, creating a duality. Holism = incorporating reductionism into it and the unholistic people and things going on everywhere. Holism is so high that it even integrates evil. holism still thinks that there is a good and a bad, which isn't truly Holistic. Holism requires surrendering a lot. All the robbing, scamming, hurting, attacking, killing, enslaving, and exploiting is just an aspect of Yourself, the Universe. Different manifestations of Love at various densities. This would be true Holism. The ultimate form of Holism isn't thinking at all, but pure infinite Consciousness. Your state of consciousness determines how holistic you are more than anything that you think. It's still important, but there's trans-rationality. The changing of your state of consciousness is actually the highest lever you can pull to become more holistic. This is why psychedelics feel so holistic. In conclusion: A fragmented mind creates a fragmented world. To heal the world, we must unify our minds. The only question is: Do you want to heal the world? Or are you going to say 'not my problem?' Every problem has both holistic and unholistic solutions. Be careful not to get suckered into unholistic solutions, kicking the can down the road, multiplying the problem. "If you encounter a problem in your life that you feel is impossible to solve, most likely it's simply because your approach to that problem was not holistic enough." How is my thinking not sufficiently holistic enough to crack this problem? Division, fragmentation, and reductionism are not bad, it's only so in the relative sense. Nothing is bad, everything is Good. Highest Good = highest Holism. "He or she who is most holistic wins the game of life."

Thats th e sort of evil that is on this world yes, but saying that's God's plan is just a mistake in my view. In your worldview there is no free will and it is all God's will correct? Well this is not at all the God of Christianity, its the whole thing, the battle of the forces of darkness and the light, on a grand scale. Stop believing nonduality and that all is the will of God. I fully believe in judgement day and those wicked should get what they deserve. My hopes are that those who sin, but are not wicked will get God's mercy. And even the wicked, after rehab in hell.... I just hope! But yeah I would not assume everything that happens in our reality is God's will.

Well, that's the key to nonduality.

I'm on a place in my journey where I look back at my life i see I have spiralled into all sort of hedonistic practices, because I want to get max value out of life, I would often indulge myself and have fun. Lots of wise souls on here, why is hedonism not THE thing, if nonduality would say there is no problem with it, all good. Also, living here and now, for the moment, often for me implies hedonism. There are so many people who live for tomorrow, for next year, even some living for the afterlife (without guarantee of one) ! How do they live for something that is not now instead of hanging out with this girl and that girl now for example.. Or getting drunk/high now, instead of being sober now for a better future .. How and why would one deprive oneself of life's goodies when there is no guarantee of afterlife and this could be our only opportunity to have it. Just contemplating, wondering.. I value your responses!