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But i wouldn't be sure about that last statement. Im pretty sure enlightened can view some as fools, even if knowing something deeper. Might even see his own "guy self" like fool too ? But you say you're not enlightened so maybe there are different ways those foolish bodymindspirit complexes can be pushed on the right path rather than just spiral into their delusions further. I don't subscribe to "all is well". If someone starts torturing your bodymindspirit even the most enlightened will start to question the sanity of some aspects of the absolute. It's not all well at all! When Jesus was on the cross, he questioned for a moment, why has God forsaken him... And I do have a direct experience and know the difference between someone being intentionally mean in order to hurt (satan) and those who are true to the spirit of Peace and Love (God) . I do not believe in nonduality. I actually intuited my friend had a connection with this evil spirit before he exploded. It was like a presence.. Knowing its presence could have been what triggered it. It likes to be hidden. Eckhart is on point with the pain body thing, he is exposing satan to the Light of consciousness and Love.

So here are my proposals: (all of these channels have >50.000 viewers, interviews > 1hr, with at least several videos about topics like mysticism, psychedlics, epistemology, awakening, nonduality): https://www.youtube.com/c/TheoriesofEverything/videos https://www.youtube.com/user/conscioustv/videos https://www.youtube.com/c/NewThinkingAllowed/videos https://www.youtube.com/c/RebelWisdom/videos https://www.youtube.com/c/scienceandnonduality/videos https://www.youtube.com/c/AubreyMarcusPod/videos https://www.youtube.com/c/SimulationSeries/videos https://www.youtube.com/c/CloserToTruthTV/videos https://www.youtube.com/c/timferriss/videos https://www.youtube.com/c/metaRising/videos https://www.youtube.com/c/SpiritualawakeningNetplus/videos https://www.youtube.com/c/AaronAbke/videos https://www.youtube.com/c/lexfridman/videos Do not exactly fit the above criteria but could be worth a try maybe: https://www.youtube.com/c/MindvalleyTalks/videos https://www.youtube.com/c/CosmicSkeptic/videos (connor murphy-vaccinated ) https://www.youtube.com/c/TomBilyeu/videos https://www.youtube.com/c/higherbalance/videos https://www.youtube.com/user/ThinkingAllowedTV/videos https://www.youtube.com/c/VishuddhaDas/videos German channels with >50.000 viewers which talk about psychedelics+nonduality+mysticism who almost definitely would love to have a conversation/an interview with you (in english of course): https://www.youtube.com/c/GreenRabbitMindbuilding/videos https://www.youtube.com/c/FlowFinder/videos (-> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X5iZWwe0PfQ (proof video: ayahusca and nodnual insights)) https://www.youtube.com/c/highermind/videos other (niche) channels (well researched and high quality) not relating to your orignal question but which are a great source of wisdom and maybe unknown to you: https://www.youtube.com/c/AndrewHubermanLab/videos https://www.youtube.com/c/academyofideas/videos https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC49qAywwrDrLNDgQEe3vYuA/videos

The Gospel of Thomas is an incredible resource for those who take the nondual path. Many of these sayings are spot on and provide profound insight into his teachings and the religion that spawned around his teachings, how they have become distorted, and how they can possibly be reintroduced. Back in 2017 there was a user on the Actualized forum who wrote a dissection on the various sayings of Jesus as recorded in the Gospel of Thomas.

How so? Well, I was at the point in my spiritual journey where I felt total and complete self-love. I believe it was this that allowed me to realize no self and oneness. I had a peak into Truth in these moments and it would come and go throughout my days. And like you said in one of your videos, once you have one of these experiences you start to get really serious about this work. That is exactly what happened to me. I started to get very serious about this work so I branched out towards studying other teachings (before, I had ONLY followed Leo). Then, I got introduced to Teal and it put me back into victimhood, blaming, judgment. It made me believe that I had more work to do on my emotional body and that I wasn't fully integrated so I needed emotional healing. And so I say it "fucked me up" because now I am just so absorbed in my past, thoughts, experiences, that I have lost touch with Truth. I can find Truth when I want but my focus is on reintegration instead of just Being/Truth. It's hard for me to know, is this what I need? Emotional integration? Or, is it because I was fully integrated in the first place that I was even able to reach self-love and thus, my nondual and no self realizations. When Teal talks about 'False Self' I think, hm. Was my self-love a false self? She talks about fragmentation which makes me feel only one aspect of myself realized Truth but I have other aspects of myself that haven't. She also talks a lot about shadow work so I think I have a lot more shadow work to do. I really don't want to discount how far I came in realizing self-love, no self, nonduality. But I also feel that regression is sometimes necessary for fuller or 'integrated' progression. I should also put that my mom has a false self. She thinks she has self-love but she's still at a very low vibration. So this is what is scaring me into believing that I too, am like my mom. And deceived myself into self-love. But my self-love was so empowering. The moments I felt it, it was like I didn't need anything else in the world ever because I could give it to myself. I also was inspired to give it to others and help them get it themselves.

Your radical spiritual Truths will likely have a small effect on helping people to awaken on your Facebook. Bottom line — it’s your social media. You want to express yourself. I say just fucking do it. You can hide your true self from your social media if you want, but this only adds to the esotericism, stigma, etc. If you’re doing covert-ops nonduality practice and no one knows that it’s one of your main passions, it just seems like a double loss. They don’t see the true you, you don’t express yourself, and they have less of a chance of being exposed to Truth which their soul is certainly searching for at some level. You might plant the seed in someone’s mind which leads them to dig deeper and discover themselves as Infinity, Love, etc. I used to post to Facebook 40 times a day during manic episodes in straight up Connor Murphy fashion. You know what that did? The people who didn’t matter much in my life are gone (and that includes some old close friends who weren’t right for me and I was no longer right for them), and now I have people who truly support me as who I spend my time talking to. You can dance perfectly for fake people who could give a rat’s ass about yourself by hiding what you want to post and who you are, or you could just express yourself as you wish. I know what I prefer.

I know much of what the OP is talking about. People getting into petty corrections such as “but there is no I. Who is this I?” far too often when both parties already fully well understand this aspect of Nonduality. It’s a fruitless nondual pissing contest which usually goes nowhere or is simply a waste of time compared to the rest of the discussion. My criticism is that people need to be clear when they are using common words in specified ways. The example of Leo with the word omniscience comes to mind. If you have a very nuanced meaning for a word which is quite different from accepted definitions and connotations, it’s only counterproductive to write without clarifying your personal meaning for the word at least a little bit.

@ivankiss There is no knower from a nondual perspective. Nonduality would mean collapse of knower - known into absolute being. @Mason Riggle so direct experience is only source of knowledge? And you cannot know anything you've not experienced is what you're saying?

When viewed as the other side of the coin as self inquiry, surrender = Ignore and relax all experience/intention/thought except for the experience/intention/thought of ignoring and relaxing all experience/intention/thought. Relax all intention except for the intention to relax all intention. Neither action nor inaction. Then (once Witnessing or at least deep quietude emerges) apply that intention to itself. Ignore even the thought of ignoring thought. Relax even the intention to relax all intention. What is revealed cannot be described. It's not an achievement. It sounds like he's contradicting himself because it's a reflection of nonduality in experience, which isn't real, so paradox is inevitable; action is inaction.

@RMQualtrough Yes. You can't unite anything that wasn't divided in the first place. Even to speak of "cessation" is already saying to much, because cessation implies division. For there to be the sense of "unity" (/nonduality) there must at least be the possibility of the illusion of division (thought). Your feeling of being an individual, of being cut off from the universe, of separation in any way shape or form, that feeling is the exact same as nonduality. There is no difference at all. Precisely because there is no real division, there can exist the illusion of division. You wouldn't know what you meant by "reality" unless you also knew what you meant by "unreality"(/"illusion").

When you become Reality, the manifestation of _____ is endlessly creative. "As individuals, we can have the view of totality only if we have some realization of Total Being, because the view of totality is not simply a mental view but the very openness at the heart of Total Being. We cannot hold or embody the view of totality if our realization is limited to nondual truth, or to unilocal unity, or of course if we have no realization at all. Because Total Being is free to manifest any view, whichever face it presents is what we typically then call reality. We don’t usually know this kind of freedom, we don’t even ordinarily expect it, because most of us are caught in a particular view, and we believe that is the only way reality can be. We mostly live within the dualistic view, until we recognize or realize the true nature of reality. Because of this, for most of us the realizations that tend to happen most readily are within the nondual view; sometimes we might even experience realization within the unilocal view, but rarely do we encounter the view of totality". The first and second turnings, which culminate in the enlightenment of nonduality, are consistent but incomplete insofar as they do not include, for instance, unilocal unity or the realization of not being anything. As I discussed in Runaway Realization, there are many subtle concepts—of self, of time, of space, of causation, of emptiness—that persist in the classical enlightenment of unity or nonduality, and these preclude other experiences of reality. The view of totality, in the fourth turning, begins to address this incompleteness by including all possible views of reality". "The meaning of Total Being expands as our experience of true nature reveals more and more of itself. Total Being can shift from being the totality of the individual to the total being of the whole universe to the mysterious total being beyond time and space. True nature allows us to perceive everything in a new light. We recognize that where we are in the moment is not other than anything else. Everything else is within us, and not only everything else but everything else at all other times and places. When we are not experiencing ourselves this way, then we are experiencing ourselves only as the individual and not the unilocal nature of the individual. It’s true that as an individual, we are in time and space. But we are also the true nature of the individual that interpenetrates all time and all space, bringing everything in time and space to one singular point".

HEY guys, I do agree with Leo that non-duality is just one mode of existence. One lens of perception. This is why I distinguish between non-duality, non-locality and uni-locality. You could say that those are all different stages of non-duality, but there are on the relative level degrees of non-duality. Here are some quotes from AH ALmaas's website that most resonate to my current mode of development, and might point out some of those difference (Beyond non duality) All Forms Exist Within One Another "The Freedom Vehicle makes it possible to have these types of unity experiences – we call them experiences of unilocal unity, or unilocality – with another person, a group, or the whole universe. Unilocality is the view of reality related to a nothingness that has no sense of space, extension or distance. The experience of being in union in this nondimensional nothingness is unilocal unity. It can arise as the experience of two or more individuals sharing the same location often experienced as being inside each other. Unilocality is neither dual nor nondual. We are not talking here about an ocean of consciousness that unites all forms as they arise within it – the nonduality of the boundless dimensions; nor is it dual, when individual forms are separate and relating spatially. In unilocality, all forms exist within one another. As we become comfortable exercising the view of totality, we can consider all kinds of other questions from its perspective. One of the central issues that we deal with in this book is the relationship between duality and nonduality. Discerning the implications inherent in the nondual view opens up whole new possibilities of experience. We will spend some time exploring these new frontiers by examining the nature of time and space, the role of the particular individual, the paradox of nondoing, and the various mysteries of emptiness—all from the perspective of totality. What is revealed as we do this is that reality is far more indeterminate, far more mysterious than anything we can conceive of. No single view—whether dual, nondual, unilocal, or something else entirely—can capture the dynamism of reality. Freedom is the freedom of reality to reveal its dynamism, to express itself as form, as formlessness, as both, or as neither. No single feature and no combination of features can exhaust the potential of reality. It is a mystery without end. Reality is always revealing itself by knowing itself; and knowing reality and living it becomes the fulfillment of our life. The purity of reality expresses itself to us, through us, and as us, all at once. Our life becomes the life of true nature—the purity at the heart of reality—living consciously and expressing itself as us"

This is still within the context of a thing called "death". This is the standard realm we are all familiar with. Yet Sunny clearly stated he was not in this realm (or wanted to transcend it). He said it was not an escape nor an ending. It was a transcendence. He was happy and had a great life. Based on what we know, he wasn't trying to escape and end suffering. He wasn't trying to end this life in hope for a better reincarnated life. This is difficult for most people to understand because they are so oriented toward escaping suffering and gaining joy. An analogy, imagine you are walking in a forest and encounter a mountain lion. You will feel fear and want to escape from the lion. You want to survive. You have a gf and are planning on having a child. This is at the human/personal level. The person identifies as me and wants to do whats best for me. Here's the hard part. Imagine identification is with the entire forest. Now "me" = "the forest". So now what is best for "me"? Well, if "me" is the forest than it might be best that the lion eats the person. Notice how it's all "me". This sounds insane from a personal level, yet it is not insane from a transcendent level. . . In the opposite direction, there are misfolded proteins in your cells that get digested and recycled. Yet you don't care because "me" isn't a misfolded protein and you aren't concerned what's best for that misfolded protein. Rather "me" is ALL of the cells in "my" body and I care about what's best for the entire body. If misfolded proteins accumulate, all sorts of diseases result. Therefore it's best that those misfolded proteins get digested and recycled. From personal/human perspective, this won't make sense and it may even seem psychotic. . . How could someone compare a human being to a misfolded protein!!?? Yet from a transcendent perspective, notice how there is no "escape" or "ending". In the first example, after the person is eaten by a lion, "me" (the forest) still exists. The forest hasn't escaped itself or ended. Similarly, after the misfolded protein is digested there is still the human being. There was no "escape" or "ending". Now imagine a person is oscillating back and forth between identifying as "me" being the human body and "me" being the forest. Sometimes the identification is the entire forest, sometimes it is contracted within the human body. There may be desire to transcend attachment / identification to the human body and become the entire forest. At the human/personal level, this is madness and insanity. Yet at a transhuman metaphysical level, it is sane. And this isn't unique to actualized. Humans have been reaching these transcendent states for thousands of years. Analogies that life is a dream goes waaaay back in time. This is nothing new. Yes, at a human/personal level is was scattered and misunderstood reasoning. Yet at a transhuman metaphysical level, it gets trickier. I'm in no way suggesting killing oneself. Yet from a transhuman metaphysical level, the idea of "killing", "oneself" and "death" are very different. Notice how in spiritual circles there is metaphysical talk about how there is no birth or death. Yet when a being kills themself, the spiritual circle immediately snaps back to the human/personal level and says "Oh wait. . . yea. There is death. Believing there is no death is foolish". At this time, Leo is only willing to discuss the issue at the personal / human level. Not a transhuman / metaphysical level. @RendHeaven I agree with you. Yet I want to strongly stress that these are not Leo's teachings or actualized. Teachings about transcending the human mind-body, death is illusory, everything is a dream etc. is standard nonduality and metaphysics. We might consider it advanced, yet it is not unique to Leo or actualized. People like Deepak Chopra talk in these terms regularly. As well, Leo promotes transcendence via psychedelics. I understand why Leo would revert to the personal/human level because he is dealing with others at the personal/human level. If he communicated at a transhuman/metaphysical level (like we are in this thread), it would be misinterpreted and there would be a huge backlash. Yet at the same time, I'm really disappointed that Sunny has been portrayed as a "fool that misinterpreted teachings" and very few people on the forum questioned it. I thought more people were at a higher conscious level. I think it's a real issue regarding transcendence that should be addressed, rather than swept under the rug. I also think it is good that Leo is now stressing "ego death" rather than "physical death". Again, I am not condoning suicide for transcendence. I'm trying to understand the conscious state in which a being would take their physical life to transcend it. I think this mentality is important to understand how we communicate.

Murder, Mystery and Makeup Baily Sarian is a YT personality. In her videos, she tells stories of mysterious serial killers as she puts on makeup. She is a very good story teller and very good with makeup. She is a type of artist. Her videos get millions of views - nearly all women. I'd estimate 99% women. Why are many women fascinated by serial killers? It seems counter-intuitive. Women are the victims of serial killers that have deranged, violent minds. Yet here we have millions of women watching Baily Sarian tell stories about serial killers. In my own life experience, I've met many women with fascination with serial killers. Many of my female students have revealed to me their fascination in private. Yet they keep it secret. I've never seen a woman be openly transparent. It's too taboo, which I think fuels the fascination. To get a sense if a woman might have this intrigue, I may casually state my interest in abnormal psychology - weird ways the mind works. Safer topics would be things like depression or schizophrenia. Next level would be sociopathy or psychopathy. Yet there can't be an energy of stigma, judgement or creepiness. It's a very sensitive area. Then, one might casually say "Yea, I watched a documentary on serial killers which was fascinating". . . I've noticed it's much harder for a man to connect with a woman on this intrigue. I imagine it would be much easier for two women to chat about this intrigue together. What is the reaction of most people to the mindset of serial killers. Most people react with repulsion and label the person a sicko that deserves to rot in jail. This has some truth to it, yet it is also a block to exploring other aspects. This mindset won't allow for curiosity about how a serial killer is formed and what their mentality is. There behavior is horrendous from one perspective, yet they've also led interesting lives. To see this takes a higher level of open-mindedness and curiosity. One of the blocks is that if someone is curious to learn about a serial killer, then they are condoning the behavior and they themself have sick mind. The next level is a deeper curiosity of what that mindset is actually like to the point one almost experiences it and 'gets it' from the perspective of the serial killer. This isn't an observer from a distance, it's actually crawling into the mind 1st person. This takes a special mind to do since there are risks of trauma and psychosis. An example would be a method actor. This is a method in which the actor immerses themself in environments that displace an old mindset with a new mindset - so they actually become the new mindset. Yet this has risks. Some method actors couldn't come back from the new character they adopted. The woman in the movie Psycho was a method actor that got so deep into becoming a woman being murdered, that she lost touch with what was "real" and what was "imagined". Other method actors have gone insane or committed suicide during or after their movie roles. I have a fascination with both "abnormal" psychology and delving into different mindsets to get a sense of what it's actually like. Yet from a personal view, this has a danger of not being able to restabalize. For example, I've gone deep into what it would be like to be held in solitary confinement, postpartum disorder, multiple personality and psychopathy. I've gone so deep into this method acting, that I've needed professional therapy to pull me out. And there were aspects of mini-traumas. One thing I've learned to help me shift back toward "normal" is to change my relationship to it as if it was a dream. We've all had deeply disturbing dreams, yet the impact isn't deep when the mind categorizes it as "just a dream". You could have a deeply disturbing dream and wake up shaking in tears, yet then realize "Oh, it was just a dream", then shake it off and move on with your day. For example, one might dream that they were psychotic and being abused in mental institution, then wake up and realize it was just a dream. It might have some lingering effects, yet it wouldn't be traumatic as if it actually happened. Yet this is much more difficult to do in "real" life. If someone experienced the harm anxiety of postpartum in real life, there is a much deeper impact on the mind and body. It's much more difficult to shake it off as "just a dream". The mind and body becomes entangled with the experience and identity. For a couple years, I tried to learn how to lucid dream. I tried reality checks, wake-sleep-wake cycles, dream journaling etc. I didn't have much success. Yet oddly, I had moments of lucid dreaming while "awake". I honestly didn't know if I was awake or dreaming. I started doing reality checks while awake to see if I was awake. Then distinctions between dream and awake begin to break down. Often, spiritual people use the metaphor that "life is a dream", yet this is a concept. The direct experience is very different. I'm quite intrigued by Sunny's story - his experience and mindset. If you have labeled Sunny a "fool that misinterpreted teachings", you will confine yourself to one realm and will not be able to enter other realms of exploration. This is a self-protection mechanism. If a mind labels Sunny "a fool that misinterpreted teachings", it can stay in it's safe zone. Similar to labeling someone "crazy" or "psychotic". One can distance themself and avoid going there, because going there can be threatening. Above I described three levels of exploration: 1) Labeling as "foolish", "psychotic" and pushing away, 2) having curiosity to learn about a mindset and 3) having curiosity so deep to experience the mindset. Overall, the forum is at level 1. The main reason is that there is a strong authoritarian leader that has set a narrative of "he was a fool, mentally ill" etc. that misinterpreted teachings. This has truth, yet is contracted within one realm. It also serves to stabalize an unstable community into one shared narrative. As well, it helps to protect a community from outside threats. Notice how nearly the entire forum community as accepted the narrative. It takes metacognition to see that this is only one realm within a larger network of realms. Very few minds can do this. One reason I'm able to do it is because of direct experiential learning and curiosity to explore. When someone tells me "this is how it is", my orientation is to see that ISness and then see other perspectives. Sunny was both foolish and non-foolish. Sunny had understandings of dualities integrated with nonduality. In his writings, he asks questions of whether to jump was foolish or non-foolish. I'm curious if Leo is consciously aware that he is contracting the story into one realm and has rationalized doing so. Or, if he is contracted within that realm and can only consciously see the "foolish" side to Sunny. There are a lot of pressures on him to only see the "foolish" side. Inspecting the non-foolish side is the hard road and would take effort and risk. The secondary reason for the forum being at level 1 is because it's a simple, easy narrative to say Sunny was "foolish and misinterpreted teachings". It takes much more effort and curiosity to explore Sunny's experience and potential mindset. My prediction is that if the situation was framed differently the majority of people on the forum would be open and curious to explore level 2. For example, suppose this occurred to someone in another spiritual community that actualized had no relation to. Imagine there was a documentary produced that went deep into lucid dreaming, spirituality, transcendence and death. In this case, I can see the majority of the forum being open to discuss and explore this. I could see an active thread on it. This is happening with other spiritual communities. I have a friend in another spiritual community that has never heard of actualized. We recently had a conversation about life as a dream, lucid dreaming, transcendence and death. Since she didn't label Sunny as a "fool" and has no attachment/identification to actualized, we were able to explore various mindsets together. Yet I predict very few people would want to venture into level 3. People have other stuff going into life and don't want to spend time and effort diving into mindsets of lucid dreaming and transcendence. As well, it is threatening. Most people would not want to dive so deep into the mindset that they know what it's like because that conscious space involves transcending a life dream via jumping. Over the last two days, I've explored these waters using my previous experience, Sunny's writings, my imagination and trying to energetically/empathically connect. A key through an initial door is to come to understand that it isn't an escape or end - it is a transcendence - as Sunny wrote. Again, this is a different realm and very few minds would want to enter that realm to see what it's like. I myself have had to pull myself back form going to deep into the waters for my own mental health and stability. Yet it adds a new twist. Previously, I would pull back from deep waters by changing my relationship with it to "it was just a dream". Yet the twist here is that the deep waters itself contains "it's just a dream". To me, those waters are both intriguing and dangerous.

Stan Grof is probably the one with the deepest understanding and the most practical experience. He has lots of great books like: The Way of the Psychonaut and LSD Doorway to the Numinous. Ralph Metzner also has lots of experience with psychedelic therapy and a great summarizing book: ALLIES for AWAKENING Guidelines for productive and safe experiences with entheogens LSD and the Mind of the Universe by Christopher M. Bache is not particularly about therapy but he uses Stan Grof's methode to explore the mind and you will learn lots of useful stuff in this book. Entheogenic Liberation: Unraveling the Enigma of Nonduality with 5-MeO-DMT Energetic Therapy by Martin Ball is also helpful even if you don't use 5-MeO-DMT. Also you should check out Marin Balls podcast there are a few episodes where he talks with psychedelic therapists. You can go down the rabbit hole and find endless stuff and also lots of bad information's so be careful.. If you dive into Stan Grof's work you can't go wrong but as you probably know reading about it and doing it is a totally different thing. Of course it's good to study the literature but this work is highly individual and your experience will most likely be very different from what you have read. I would suggest to start with long lasting psychedelics in moderate doses like 100ug lsd and then slowly increase the dose over your sessions. The psychedelic will basically teach you everything you have to know but you have to experiment a bit and find whats the best methode for you.

It is a confusing topic and I think it is because of the terms. As you said it might make sense for a crusty old man, but everything is "now", both your own birth and death occur in the "now", you as a toddler and you as that crusty old man happens "now". That can be shown via words (since we never experience anything unless it is happening presently, the past only exists to us by memories which are also accessed in the "now"). Regarding the matter in general, I do not see that it would be different to enter death consciously or unconsciously. If a person gets shot in the head, why would death be different than death for a person who enters it in this Mahasamdhi type manner? I suspect that when death occurs every single person is immediately "enlightened" to a level infinitely beyond any living person ever was or ever could be. There will be no "experience of death" only of "dying". Once death occurs everyone and everything is equal is what I think. My main overarching idea of course being nonduality. The fundamental nature of everyone and everything is the same thing, it is all one... When "there", a monk with a lifetime of spiritual practice vs a murderer will be identical because, literally, they were never real and were always just this to begin with... Leo, me, whoever else posts, being as real as a thought or emotion... Hence regardless of how a person gets there I suspect the end result is completely identical.

Dealing with My Spiritual Ego: The Dangers of the Spiritual Ego and Why People Should Be Careful Some. of. yall. bout. to. be. real. mad. at. me. but. it. must. be. said. While I do get a lot of value out of spirituality and Actualized.org, there are things that I'm very hesitant and even skeptical about. This might look like me turning on this community or not aligning with the main values of this place but I honestly don't care. The two main things that I'm really hesitant about involve the dating advice here, especially for guys who can't get laid, and the enlightenment related things there. I'm not going to talk about the first one because I already wrote about that but I am going to focus on the second one. I suppose that I'm far from having any concerns about enlightenment and transcendence. I think I'm at a place where integration and building a solid foundation to build my life on in order to ground me is much more important. I think getting on the path to enlightenment prematurely can be incredibly dangerous without proper integration. Maybe I'll get to a point where I'll care more about existential and absolute truths years down the road or maybe I won't I don't know. But I know that if I ever get on that path, I want to be able to have some type of framework and some solid foundation because diving in head first without preparation is irresponsible for me and the people around me. There are some methods of getting there that I don't particularly agree with (if you do agree with it idc, no judgement I don't know what's best for everyone) and those include things like psychedelics, fasting, and isolating yourself from your loved ones and abandoning your hobbies and interests because all of your attention should be towards enlightenment. I feel that those things are rather extreme and are things that are definitely not for the vast majority of people. Also, I'm hesitant with drugs in general. I don't care if other people uses them granted they are doing so safely, responsibly, and legally but it's not for me especially when that advice is coming from a talking head on the internet. Upon recent events, this video by Adeptus Psychonautica came out. Some people are triggered because they think it makes actualized.org look bad but I think it's incredibly beneficial for people from the outside critiquing actualized.org because being super insular usually doesn't end well for a variety of reasons whether it be because of self bias all the way to cult like tendencies. I guess I'm not particularly attached to actualized.org and spirituality in general so when people critique these things, I don't feel particularly triggered because to me it's simply a source. I think it can be easy for people to get attached to some sources and some teachers because of the benefits that one gets from their content because it does have to do with those people's survival emotionally and psychologically. Especially if you get help in a vulnerable place and even if you get out of that vulnerable place, there is an attachment that forms, almost like a baby blanket after you grow up imo. I've had something like this come up for me once personally and even though I've never got to the point of needing to defend that source I got value from, it does sting because part of you identifies with the source and teachings therefore when someone critiques that source or teaching, it's like they're critiquing you. I went ahead and watched Adeptus's livestream and I feel like most of it was valid despite what other people may think on here. At no point did I feel that there was slander or that Actualized.org was being dragged through the mud. There are also points where Adeptus talks about the positives of the way Leo is handling different issues such as the phone call he had with Connor Murphey and one of the posts he made on the thread discussing recent events( Around 1:08:00-1:17:00). They talked about how Leo or any of the mods are trying to do anything malicious or create a cult but sometimes it seems like there is one forming around Leo anyway (basically collective ego). Overall, @AdeptusPsychonautica, I loved this video and I think It's important to contemplate on the darker aspects of spirituality and self improvement rather than idealizing it. Here are somethings that I found were really valuable that I want to include in my journal.: Around the 15 minute mark: Mackenzie talks about how these teachings aren't things that were made up by the community rather they are things that were taught by ancient teachers and how back then there were teachers who had communities but since it was in person, the teacher can gage were the students are at and how much they can handle. However, this aspect gets lost when its all on YouTube and on a forum when anyone regardless of how stable they are can access it. There aren't checks and balances. I think this is a very valid critique. It's not so much a direct attack on actualized.org but it's talking about how systemically there are problems and shortcomings. At the 20-24 minute mark, I can see why some people in this community can get triggered. They are critiquing how a lot of the followers think that they are a finished product and they are so enlightened and they egg each other on in order to keep up with the master and meanwhile the master is here talking about "i've gone deeper, I've become more awakened, I encountered a new level of awakening, you can't understand where I've been." And this challenges people to do more and more and more to where it can become compulsive especially because Leo talks in these absolute terms. Adeptus talks about how this might be Leo's personal truth and how he isn't saying Leo is lying or anything like that but it's the way he goes about it. This is honestly part of the reason why I avoid parts of this forum. I personally found that this type of thing doesn't help me and how this type of thing can become very compulsive, especially when it comes to Leo's fanboys. Around the 31 minute mark: If truth realization is not your Moby Dick to where you want to sacrifice everything, go for human adulthood meaning the integration of your spiritual, emotional, relational, physical self to be your most mature self. If you don't want to sacrifice everything, point your hunger toward integration and self actualization. Then in the 37 minute mark, Mackenzie talks about her experiences with nonduality how she felt all the love and light in the moment but then she came back down to just being human again and still having all of her problems that she had before the experience and how that can be discouraging and therefore cause people to go on these endless seeking journeys. I feel like this is where I'm at with my views on spirituality and self realization. I do care more about integration and building a fulfilling life than simply transcending everything and joining the void. Because based on some of the interactions I've had on this forum, teachers that I have learned about in history, and interacting with Leo himself is that even if they get an enlightenment experience, there is still plenty of human shit and blind spots you'll still have. And I think to go towards actualization is to deal with that in a slow consistent way rather than dealing with nonduality and transcendence. Around the 40 minute mark: Mackenzie talks about cleaning up her nihilism she encountered from spirituality and how she started building meaning in the form of close relationships, books, etc. to slowly start rebuilding her ego to care about existing. And then she realized that that was the process that she wanted all along and because she grew up in the shadow of new age culture where ego death, nonduality, mysticism, love and light are more a part of the conversation than anything, she thought that was the way to fix herself. But for her it was more along the lines of deep psychological work, embodiment, and healing that she realized she wanted more of a complete human experience instead of transcending the human experience because that was the thing sold to her as a way to deal with being here. In order to deal with being here, you don't have to leave. You just have to be present and accept the present moment instead of constantly feeling like you have to do more and more to reach a higher and higher state of consciousness in order to be at peace with the present moment. In spiritual communities its like there is always some place else to get to. It goes back to the 27 minute mark where Mackenzie talks about how there are two levels. There is truth realization and done. Once you reach done, that's it there is no more self discovery of lets go see what else I can find. Once you're enlightened, the seeker disappears so if you're seeking more experiences, you're still seeking which can get compulsive. I love this section. While I never became nihilistic, I've had a point where I got really attached to detaching. I journaled about this before and how it relates to my relationship to actualized.org. Basically it wasn't cute. I had a friend who was like "I don't think you even know who you are anymore" because I got caught in this cycle of even detaching from the healthier forms of my ego like my personality, my hobbies and interests etc. It wasn't this enlightenment thing that people often talk about here. And from then on I took a step back from spirituality and self help in order to be more gentle with myself so I can build myself back up again. This was the post I was talking about and here is the part that I think is most applicable to this post: Around the 47 minute mark: I also like how they discuss how people turn spiral dynamics is another dick measuring contest lol. Also Adeptus talks about how it's not about the model itself rather it's about how people use it to judge others and turn it into a dogma. Then Mackenzie talks about how it's important ot just see it as a model rather than THE TRUTH that explains and solves everything because that can be the indication that this is probably a defensive ego mechanism. Reminds me of something I wrote elsewhere in this journal: Around the 1 hour 3 minute mark: Mackenzie talks about how some teachings are vague or are gatekept because the highest teachings can be dangerous. Vague teachings will only make sense when people ponder it for a while and then when the reach a certain place in their journey it will make sense. And that bread crumbing your way to truth is part of a gradual process of direct experience where you figure it out on your own, therefore if something goes wrong, you can still back track. However with psychedelics, you're kind of thrown into the truth and then you may or may not be able or ready to deal with it which can be dangerous if someone doesn't have proper integration. Granted I've never experimented with psychedelics and I don't plan to any time soon, but I do 100% agree with the need for proper integration and the importance of pacing yourself in the journey to find truth. It reminds me of Leo's video on ego backlash where if there is a sudden change, even if it's for the better it can lead to a huge backlash because individually and collectively we want to aim towards homeostasis rather than growth because homeostasis feels safe while growth is a leap into the unknown. And these backlashes, even though they may look like a step back after taking a step forward, are important so that you don't do too much too soon and throw everything off and cause chaos while aiming for growth. The bigger the growth, the bigger the backlash. To me that's important to take into consideration because to me that means taking on too much too soon can yield to a huge backlash which can be pretty detrimental. And to me, it means that it's important to take your time on the journey and pace yourself so that you don't have a backlash that is so devastating that it takes away all of your progress. It simply isn't sustainable. That's something I also learned this year as I've been trying to take a more gentle, slow approach to discipline rather than a rigorous strict way to discipline. It goes back to that feeling of always wanting to get somewhere rather than appreciating where you are now. The spiritual ego wants to be enlightened as soon as possible and if it means taking a shit ton of LSD or 5meo, it will take that route over a slower and more sustainable way like through meditation, self-inquiry, and working on yourself in general. I don't think there is anything wrong with those substances and that there is a time and place for them but when you have a spiritual ego that wants to get more and more enlightenment experiences that last longer and longer and go deeper and deeper, I can see how that can turn very dysfunctional to where someone might contemplate on ending their life so that they are in that state of bliss forever. 1:21:00: "What are things about yourself that you are trying to avoid by transcending that? That's where to start. What are you trying to transcend, why are you so fucking eager to transcend it." I just really like this part. I think a lot of people need to contemplate this tbh and I think this is a good quote to end this post at.

@Florian totally agree with this post, I got deep into this path the exact same time Leo did so I was almost following along with his own development and having say 6 years of nonduality and meditation training helps alot before taking psychedelics. If someome new finds his most recent work its prob to much for them to take. You need alot of grounding before you can integrate this and not loose your mind.

I am one of the people Leo is talking about. I have experienced and uncovered so much stuff on my own that you cannot even imagine I've done psychedelics trips, lucid dreams, I habe hundreds of pages written in my journal about metaphysic, existential questions, nonduality, relationships, mindsets and so on, I read books and so on. I simply do not have time to share All this info or to help people around on this forum. Either I do my work or I keep posting here. No time for both.

Maybe there could be another section of the forum just for the most dedicated to the path? One for amateurs who are just starting out in their journey. A place where they can ask the basics, discuss things at that level, and get advice from more experienced peoples. And another for those who more advanced on the path, who can discuss the deepest depths of Nonduality/God-Consciousness/Love/Infinity with others at that same level. Think of it like school. Would you have people in grades 6 -12 in the same class, discussing the same subjects, with the peoples in Masters and Doctorate programs? Of course not. It neither benefits those at the 6-12 stage, nor the people at the Masters stage of education. The only way a University Masters class works, for the Professor to be able to teach topics at that level, is if everyone in that class has the same level of education and understanding. And those at the 6-12 stage of education can get confused and frustrated by the Masters class subject matter, potentially hindering their development at the stage that they are at. What if there was a Actualized.org Masters class forum, where people had to earn admittance, through their applied dedication to their spiritual path. And if they display tendencies that don't meet the standard set for that forum, instead of banning them, they simply get put back into the general audience forum. And, as they grow, if they so desire, they can apply again. Isn't Actualized.org an education of a subject matter, in this case Nonduality/God-Consciousness/Love/Infinity? Why shouldn't it operate like an education system, with tiers, instead of all lumped together? Any education system where all levels of education/understanding/knowledge are all lumped together, would run into major issues.

I greatly appreciate having a forum where one can ask deeply existential questions concerning their spiritual journey. I can't think of anywhere else that one can ask questions of Nonduality and God Realization, and not only not get judged for these questions, but get thoughtful guidance from others that have gone through or are going through the same things. It's immensely valuable as one navigates the complexities, traps, struggles, suffering, traumas, joys, madness, and breakthroughs of the spiritual journey. There has been lots of debate on this forum of what it is and what it should be. With a great deal of people pushing against any moderation or censorship or banning of peoples who are disruptions. I am on the opposite end of the spectrum. There is a great deal of people on this forum that have no interest in the spiritual journey. They are bored people who come to the forum to spout off opinions, get offended, start fights to appease their egos, to be right, and to feed their need for drama. To them it's just another forum to waste time on. If I was Leo, I would have waaay stricter policies for the forum. If someone shows they are not serious of a spiritual path, they can go somewhere else for their entertainment. The lower the consciousness of the forum, the more it will drive higher consciousness peoples away. If you cater to the lowest common dominator, that's what you get. If one is on a dedicated spiritual journey, why would they ask a lofty question, when the responses are from people who have no idea what they are talking about and just leave their ego responses for attention? If I was Leo, I would scrub the forum of anyone who has demonstrated that they have no interest in Nonduality, Awakening, the spiritual journey, or the concepts that Leo teaches. If someone is just on the forum for entertainment or ego stroking, to argue, fight against the teachings, they should be deleted, so they can go get their entertainment elsewhere, and allow those who are serious to have a safe space to support each other on our journeys. Just my 2 cents. This is for Leo, if he is deciding what to do with the forum going forward. If you disagree or want to spout off your opinion on this, don't bother. I don't give a shit about your opinion.

I don't think reincarnation should have a place in nondual teachings. To have knowledge of whether or not such a thing happens someone has to go beyond the point of no return... And then they can't come back and tell anyone what happens... I've always felt that karma is a way nondual religions have found to inject Western ideas of good and bad etc onto nonduality. It is total speculation. I feel sure both forms of death would be equivalent... Upon death none of self remains at ALLLLL. And also in mystical states, there is no such thing anymore... What happens when you remove everything "monk" about a monk and everything "Hitler" about "Hitler"? What is left is indistinguishable. It is pure consciousness. How a person gets "there" to me does not seem like it would or even could matter. Conversely, to abandon your life is ignoring relative experience. There is a good reason people actually buy and watch movies. Everyone knows they are actors etc. it does not stop us from enjoying them and getting lost in them as though they were real. So why not life? This is a movie for us to enjoy, but in first person view.

I second this. I think clearing up issues with absolute truth and relative truth is an important step in making this type of work safer for people who are just getting into it. I have seen people use the absolute perspective in situations where it isn't appropriate nor constructive. I do remember there being threads and posts of people talking about how rape isn't evil. In a philosophical discussion one can make the argument that evil is a label we project on to things to ensure we keep ourselves safe, but when you use that same statement in the context of dating advice or something of that sort, it can be incredibly damaging and gaslighting for people who have dealt with things such as rape or any other form of sexual harassment. Additionally, differentiating between absolute and relative truth and knowing where to apply it is important given the context of the situation. Blanketing over an issue with platitudes of absolute truth can result in things like false equivalency which can also lead to things like zen devilry. I'll use survival as an example. In the absolute sense everything is survival but in the relative sense there are different ways to go about it ranging from healthy and conscious to dysfunctional and unconscious. While the absolute truth that everything is survival isn't false or misleading, it can mesh together healthy forms of survival and unhealthy forms of survival resulting in the false equivalency problem. Some people can look at that without knowing how to differentiate when to implement relative and absolute truths and be feel justified in dysfunctional practices. Same with things like nonduality. While I have limited experience and knowledge regarding this subject and I'm still on the journey of figuring things out on my own, I do believe that for concepts in nonduality, again, there is a time and place for it and it's important to be able to discern that especially when advice is given. This is a good place to go through a vetting process of sorts and try to determine where people are at based on the discussion they are having and meet those people where they're at. Like for instance if someone is in a toxic situation and they can't get out due to logistical issues, it's more important to empathize and validate that experience along with giving that person coping skills in the meantime instead of telling that person that this is a dream and is all in their head since that can do more harm than good. While I do see most users understanding this, sometimes I do encounter people getting so spiritual to where they forget how to behave like normal human beings. I think addressing the time and place to effectively use what we know on an absolute and relative level can work through much of these problems. That will clarify a lot of things that people misconstrue imo. Part of learning is being able to make distinctions and having accurate discernment.

I am likely completely finished with psychedelics, last time I used I got utterly raped. From here my interest is philosophical and intellectual, no more realizations. I had nondual experiences and "no-self", as I understand from Leo on another thread he thinks no-self is also prevalent on Salvia. That is also something I used often. But the DMT triggered nonduality trips were mostly different. But anyway, this is what I am curious on... If you were talking to a 5 year old boy in a way they could understand instead of technical wording and absolute reality type stuff, when he says he would take the universe with him, to a 5 year old with no grasp on nonduality, does that mean their life ends with Leo's? Or does Leo end and other life continue? Being hung up on absolutism would be like "there are no others" but that is not what I am trying to figure he meant.

Sunny was not a 1 in a million random person that misinterpreted teachings. He was a daily poster on the forum. There are only about 30-40 members that post daily. Sunny was in the inner circle of actualized. He had a dreamboard he learned about on actualized. He wrote actualized members names on his dreamboard. He came to the forum for guidance through his first psychedelic experiences. He sought guidance via actualized before he took his life. He trusted members here. It breaks my heart to see so many people try to rapidly distance themselves from him. For a community that often speaks about how there is no separate individuals and we are all inter-connected, it's ironic how fast 100% responsibility is pinned onto a separate individual. No introspection about how the actualized community discusses topics like death, illusions of self, life as a dream etc. Yet when someone takes their life, it gets real fast and a lot of distancing occurs. . . If the self, life and death is illusory, then there was no "Sunny", his suicide is illusory and he didn't leave any family behind. Yet this would not be a tenable position to hold. On the forum, there is a lot of conflation between personal and transpersonal realms and it can cause harm to individuals. Yet some benefit as well. And a lot of good can come out be mass distribution of nondual teachings. The world is filled with intense selfishness, conflict, violence and absurd conspiracy theories. Teachings like Spiral Dynamics, relativity, nonduality etc. can help. Yet I also think there are also some gaps and structural issues. Notice the tone of conversation after Sunny's death. Mostly skepticism if it was real, distancing and finger pointing. In a healthy community, there would be an open discussion. The leader would get together with moderators in-person or via zoom. They would introspect and brainstorm ways we could improve. Then ideas would be brought back to the larger community for feedback. Yet this isn't the way actualized is structured or Leo's skillset. He is much more a top-down leader that makes decisions and he isn't into in person social meetings and discussions. I've been a mod here several years and we've never had a single meeting to discuss forum issues. It's not Leo's jam. In an effort to create more human connection, I'm happy to skype/zoom with anyone regarding nonduality, mysticism, breathwork, psychedelics, personality constructs etc. Just send me a pm and we can set something up. I think person-to-person communication is important. Sorry @Loving Radiance, I hadn't checked my journal for a bit. I think you have a good introspective question. Yes, I think allowing space to question ones own beliefs / epistemic grounds is super important. Yet unfortunately this is rare. And not just rare in spiritual communities, it can also be rare in the sciences. Scientists are often very open-minded and introspective - yet only within their whirlpool of the scientific paradigm. A couple years ago, I went to a scientific presentation on epigenetics. The researcher described data which suggests fish can predict seasonal temperature variations and epigenetically alter the gene expression of their offspring to better prepare them. After the presentation, I spoke with the scientist about the mechanics of his work. I then asked "Couldn't we consider this a form of intelligence?". There was a long pause of contemplation. It was like noone had approached him from this angle before. He responded "I suppose it could be. . . ". We then had a conversation of 'what is intelligence'? I could tell this was outside of his paradigm grounding and it was nice to see him questioning his own framework of what intelligence is. I definitely gave lots of space and I even 'played dumb' at times as if I was processing it for the first time as well. If I came at him knowing-it-all and saying "You are contracted within a scientific paradigm of intelligence with a human bias. You cannot see the higher systemic forms of intelligence" - he would have shut down.

Have you read up on Kashmir Shaivism? I find this the most accessible. It is more obscure than Advaita Vedanta. All nondual philosophies are essentially identical except in how they present things... In Shaivism they will say not that everything is illusion, but that everything is real, just that it is all "that". So in dream logic they'd say all the characters in the dream are real. Nothing is imaginary. Just it is all made of the dreamer inside of the dreamer exactly like a dream. Different semantics same meaning. Certainly it is hard to draw any distinction or line between what is real and what is not. We can agree on what is ULTIMATELY real, that is "the Source", Brahman, God, I, many such terms... How you define the appeaeances to it is down to semantics. I personally freely flip between them as it suits understanding. If explaining it to an outsider I will use full dualistic terminology with metaphors until the very end then rug pull to nonduality. I've explained it to average Joe friends this way.