Search the Community

Let me try to answer your questions as brief as possible. That is challenging, because the Mahamudra system is technically very complex with many stages. I like to compare Zen/Theravada to cutting a tree with an axe, while Mahamudra is something like a forest harvester: The axe was available already in stone-age and worked, robust and slow. The forest harvester needs precise handling and thorough understanding & training, but is waaay faster. Anyway, lets try the impossible at least roughly. Here is my main thread of the explanation on Mahamudra in the Pointing out the Great Way style (Daniel Brown, 600 page book, around 200-300 pages on the juicy main-practice-stages of Mahamudra). To give you an idea/feeling (not really possible to do in brief, but I try): The description of two main steps: Stage 1 of 4, Skill of Recognition Stage 3 of 4, Yoga of One Taste (One Taste = Nondual) Lets start with Stage 1 of 4, Skill of Recognition It is a "High-Speed-Search-Task into Nature of thoughts, into the "Unfindability/Emptiness" of thoughts. They evaporate when looking into their nature. The nature of every emerging thought/concept, emerging out of Infinite Consciousness/Absolute Reality): And the nature of thoughts is its unfindability: Thoughts have no location, they are "made"/essence out of Infinite Consciousness. Thoughts dissolve when looking into their nature (Aware Empty Infinite Consciousness). One can never "find" a thought. They dissolve when looking into their essence. They move within onself, and dissolve when looking into them And that process/phenomenon is used. and with that cutting off (=Trekchö), since its nature is empty Infinite Consciousness/Suchness. Consciousness literally stops the thought then. At one point when one is fast enough, one sees the order of emergence IN the Infinite Mind is Understanding or just some other cause Thought emergence (fully formed, fully emerging in mili-seconds, but not yet "elaborated-out" over several seconds) being elaborated out over a part of a second to several seconds) And step 3 doesn't happen then. It is cut off. THAT is was brings Awakened States (nondual, boundless, basically if done fast enough. The thought "capsules" start emerging faster and faster then, 10-20 thoughts capsules per second+, and at some point Awareness stays "on top" of even that. That is where the magic starts (Nonduality begins developing, and the mindstream can get silent, bliss starts flowing. A very discrete and "hard" psychological process). And that happens in the beginning phases still on the pillow, but can also happen very much in daily life when intensive thought activity is not necessary. Later, it becomes also possible with sophisticated intellectual/creative thinking, when Awareness has become strong enough to stay lucid THROUGH the thought-elaboration. No longer hypnotized, the creative/intellectual happening within oneself on auto-pilot. Awakened Awareness and its Infinite Intelligence tends to take over, the separate-self/ego gets out of the way. That makes it also much more effective, since the ego/separte-self tended to act as a filter. From this Awakenened Awareness all intelligence and creativity comes from anyway, that is why creativity is so highly valued and pleasurable. This Awakened Awareness is the source of bliss anyway.... So, then the next step described in this post (Stage 2, see link above, jumped due to the specific question of Leo for "daily" practice: Stage 3 of 4, Yoga of One Taste. One Taste = Nondual boundless consciousness. Getting that into daily life. When enough proficiency of creating lucid states with this High-Speed-Cutoff is generated, the Awareness/Lucidity doesn't get lost when thinking. It stays. And with it the Awakened States. And then daily life starts getting nondual, especially if no academic thinking is necessary (still large parts of the day). With academic style thinking/creative thinking, it takes more Lucidity/Training, but is doable. 2nd TOPIC OF THIS POST: God-Realization in your words, or "You become conscious of God as an Infinite Mind dreaming up reality." And this (Yoga of One Taste) brings us then to the "base camp of Full Enlightenment", the "jumping platform" where Full Enlightenment can happen (some of which main aspects you refer to with God Realization): Stage 4, Yoga of Nonmeditation. I have written elsewhere about it, see link above. The Nondual Stages of Yoga of One Taste would get confirmed in other traditions (Zen for example) as Enlightenment/Satori/Kensho. But not Great/Full Enlightenment, or God-Realization in your wording. That is an "accident", for which Stage 3&4 make accident-prone. I agree with you that Emptiness/Void is neither God Realization nor Full Enlightenment, where also that "You become conscious of God as an Infinite Mind dreaming up reality" is realized. I am starting more to understand why you emphasize that in your language/system of experience, and I agree on the importance of it. In Zen, there is a differentiation between just shallower Enlightenments (Kenshos, Satoris) into the empty nature of all appearance, or into emptiness. The separte-self can still be very alive then. The Full Enlightenment on the other side, the total dissolution of the separate-self, leaves one with exactly that realization: "You become conscious of God as an Infinite Mind dreaming up reality." Although there is no more you, nor God, but Reality itself becoming consciousness OF itself IMAGINING itself as all there ever could be. This Enlightenment is probably between 10-50 less common than the real thing of Full Enlightenment. Probably that is why you are so annoyed with the large majority of Buddhist Enlightenments (either contemporarily claimed or described in literature). Let me give you four examples of that differentiation (I could give many more, but that would blast the post. Ok, I admit, its already blasted and way too long... forgive me). 1) Huang Po https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huangbo_Xiyun "One Mind Huángbò's teaching centered on the concept of “mind” (Chinese: hsin), a central issue for Buddhism in China for the previous two centuries or more. He taught that mind cannot be sought by the mind. One of his most important sayings was “mind is the Buddha”. He said: All the Buddhas and all sentient beings are nothing but the One Mind, beside which nothing exists [red by me]. The One Mind alone is the Buddha, and there is no distinction between the Buddha and sentient beings.[8] He also said: To awaken suddenly to the fact that your own Mind is the Buddha [Nothing exists beside IT=God=Reality=True You], that there is nothing to be attained or a single action to be performed – this is the Supreme Way.[9]" 2) Yogachara school https://integrallife.com/toward-fourth-turning-buddhism/ "The very notion of the “not-twoness” of Emptiness and Form opened the door, as we briefly mentioned, to other even “stronger” versions of nonduality or (metaphoric!) Wholeness, one of the most prominent being the Yogachara, introduced by the half‑brothers Asanga (more of a brilliant innovator) and Vasubandhu (more of an acute synthesizer). Another name for their school—Vijnaptimatra—is usually translated as “Mind-only” or “Representation-only.” The point here is that the “not-twoness” of Emptiness and Form allowed some philosopher-sages to come up with other terms for the “Form” that was seamlessly conjoined with ultimate Emptiness or Shunyata, one of them being “Mind” itself. The idea was that “Mind” itself was the same as Emptiness—the Yogachara philosophers were adamant that they were talking about the same “unqualifiable” Emptiness that Nagarjuna was, but by also referring to it as “Mind” they were giving (some would say metaphorically, some would say absolutely) a type of compass that would help relate ultimate Emptiness to an everyday reality everybody was aware of (such as, namely, the Mind). The Zen saying, “The everyday mind, just that is the Tao (ultimate Truth)” is a good example of this type of Yogachara thinking. And it showed clearly how one could “bring everything to the path,” starting with your own, simple, everyday awareness. This opened so many other doors—especially Tantra and Vajrayana—that it is referred to as “The Third Turning of the Wheel of Dharma.” Buddhism has philosophically run a long way. Hinayana didn't even have the full Nondual Realization of Absolute Reality, Nagarjuna made Madyamaka (nothing can be said about Ultimate Reality). And where did it end? The philosophy all which pretty all sophisticated Tantric Buddhism system rely on? MIND-ONLY, Yogachara. We need to at least differentiate the 2500 year system of Buddhism into these development steps. If not, we are fighting with a "fossil-philosophy"... 3) The Supreme Source, one of the main texts of Dzogchen (quite close to the Mahamudra above, Brown uses Dzogchen and Mahamudra elements together): on which breathtaking beautiful absolute perpective you agreed: There is gold in Buddhism, Full Enlightenment, God Realization. And tools to make it stable in daily life. The later systems of Tantric Buddhism, but also Mahayana, have at their philosophic core Yogachara or Madhyamaka (I have written on that elsewhere). These two qualifications of Ultimate Reality are in line with what you call God Realization. 4) In Zen 3 pillars of Zen, Kapleau: Some quotes from that book: "ROSHI: With a first enlightenment the realization of oneness is usually shallow. Yet if one has genuinely perceived, even though dimly, and continues to practice devotedly for five or ten more years, this inner vision will expand in depth and magnitude as one’s character acquires flexibility and purity." The story of Bassui: "You become conscious of God as an Infinite Mind dreaming up reality." "This way is no other than the realization of your own Mind. Now what is this Mind? It is the true nature of all sentient beings, that which existed before our parents were born and hence before our own birth, and which presently exists, unchangeable and eternal. So it is called one’s Face before one’s parents were born. This Mind is intrinsically pure. When we are born it is not newly created, and when we die it does not perish. It has no distinction of male or female, nor has it any coloration of good or bad. It cannot be compared with anything, so it is called Buddha-nature. Yet countless thoughts issue from this Selfnature as waves arise in the ocean or as images are reflected in a mirror. To realize your own Mind you must first of all look into the source from which thoughts flow And: Realization Emptiness, or Void, IS NOT YET FULL ENLIGHTENMENT: "In this propitious state deepen and deepen the yearning, tirelessly, to the extreme. When the profound questioning penetrates to the very bottom, and that bottom is broken open, not the slightest doubt will remain that your own Mind is itself Buddha, the Void-universe. There will then be no anxiety about life or death, no truth to search for. In a dream you may stray and lose your way home. You ask someone to show you how to return or you pray to God or Buddhas to help you, but still you can’t get home. Once you rouse yourself from your dream-state, however, you find that you are in your own bed and realize that the only way you could have gotten home was to awaken yourself. This [kind of spiritual awakening] is called “return to the origin” or “rebirth in paradise.” It is the kind of inner realization that can be achieved with some training. Virtually all who like zazen and make an effort in practice, be they laypeople or monks, can experience to this degree. But even such [partial] awakening cannot be attained except through the practice of zazen. You would be making a serious error, however, were you to assume that this was true enlightenment in which there is no doubt about the nature of reality. You would be like one who having found copper gives up the desire for gold." Or: Not yet Full Enlightenment-Realization. "But even now repeatedly cast off what has been realized, turning back to the subject that realizes, that is, to the root bottom, and resolutely go on. Your Self-nature will then grow brighter and more transparent as your delusive feelings perish, like a gem gaining luster under repeated polishing, until at last it positively illumines the entire universe [infinite nondual mere appearance boundlessness of ones nondual limitless being then]." "You must understand that anything appearing in your consciousness or seen by your eyes is an illusion [imagined], of no enduring reality. Hence you should neither fear nor be fascinated by such phenomena. If you keep your mind as empty as space, unstained by extraneous matters, no evil spirits can disturb you even on your deathbed. While engaged in zazen, however, keep none of this counsel in mind. You must only become the question “What is this Mind?” or “What is it that hears these sounds?” When you realize this Mind you will know that it is the very source of all Buddhas and sentient beings. And that ends in Full Enlightenment: "keep asking with all your strength, “What is it that hears?” Only when you have completely exhausted the questioning will the question burst; now you will feel like someone who has come back from the dead. This is true realization. You will see the Buddhas of all the universes face-to-face and the Dharma Ancestors past and present [they all have been expressions of this Infinite Mind of yours, of the only Reality there is or could be, dreaming up all these worlds]." There is nothing else than: "You become conscious of God as an Infinite Mind dreaming up reality." And that becomes stable in daily life when there is no longer a separate-self, but only Reality. God. True Nature. Whatever one wants to call "It" then... And that Ultimate Reality is Impersonal Infinite Consciousness. "It" is both nothing/impersonal, but also everything there could be imagined. It is Reality itself. The True Core of each being. As long as something of a remaining separate-self projected on it, its not stable in daily life. The remains of that separate-self will also "colour" all higher insights/realizations. Bliss doesn't flow yet full time, so the suffering will make the being continue and refine anything that is not conforming to this Ultimate Reality, ones True being. Or according to Huang Po, The One [Infinite] Mind that dreams or imagines it all up all Reality. Water by the River PS: Ok, yours truly confesses: short is it not, the post.... But please don't hit me too hard, took some time to write, and I got plenty of other things to do also.

I think it depends more or less on the quality of consciousness. I consider Sadhguru as a very awakened being because he is consistent with his content, I never saw him say something that was in direct contradiction to reality, he is quite sharp and to the point, I would expect something like that from a highly awakened being, his composure is always consistent too. He could be a genetic freak for all I know, but an outstanding fact about Sadhguru that I never notice with the plethora of spiritual leaders out there, is that he has never played victim to the masses, never been antithetical to criticism no matter how harsh, always volunteering to teach people in the most compassionate thoughtful ways, I see this quality of him as outstandingly brilliant and exceptional. It's like the energy or vibration you feel simply feel in his presence, even through a screen, you can feel his energy has all encompassing rejuvenating compassionate and almost liberating. This I will consider as the quality of consciousness and since he has been consistent for years now, I'll call it a stage rather than just a temporary state. I'll call that awakening versus development.

Lol when did I say it was? I have already awakened to Love, To Beauty, To Authority, and to Absolute Solipsism. So why is there anything wrong with me going to a church? I went to see if our comments about the Church are valid and from my perspective we actually rail too hard on the forums against the Christian Church. When I was there the same presence I feel when I get my awakenings was there. Churches are lower developmental avenues for those on the Spiritual Path to experience the Absolute. They don't get a direct experience, it's indirect but it's a start.

No offense to her, but what she wrote was umm plainly obvious. Jesus himself said this. https://biblehub.com/john/10-34.htm What Jesus was saying, is once you have awakened to your ONENESS with God which is Life/Death/ Experience/Consciousness/Reality/Infinity/Love/Beauty/Intelligence/ Etc. then you have attained Christ. When Jesus calls himself the only begotten Son he is saying you awaken to yourself as the Son/Daughter of God when you attain Oneness. A good definition of Love, is Unfiltered Unity. When you awaken to Oneness with Totality, You achieve the trinity also gender has nothing to do with humans, gender is poetic description of how the Absolute Manifests itself or expresses itself in Creation. So Bernadette has biases she needs to clear up to properly understand what Gender is. The Trinity is this. The Holy Spirit is the Feminine Expression. The Father is the Masculine Expression. And the Son is the Awakened Human who has properly united their inner feminine and masculine aspects and have become a purified vessel in which the Absolute can flow through without distortion. St. Germain understood this too. https://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/7451986.Comte_de_Saint_Germain

Yeah that's what original spiral dynamics (like third video) talks about, while integral theory says that Indigo(coral) isnt like that, Nietzsche, übermensh philosophy, übermensh is definitely coral I feel, that is why I feel also it is so connected with solipcism as well. A god, playing the Game that is reality. Down below is visualised image and poem when I had "no-God realisation on 5meodmt trip 18mg ROA", there was intense nihilism and after standing up, burning through nihilism I had some profound liberation. "Oh, hello, the one who's stirred from dreams, Arrived at the edge of the collapsing universe, Witnessing the meaninglessness and death of self, Yet all that's left is love, and nothing else. Weak, vulnerable, and fragile too, But inherently lovable, The awakened universe, beyond words or tongue"

Eversynce my kundalini awakening journey started, I started losing my ability to focus, I feel withdrawn from everyday life, sometimes its difficult for me to answer questions because I dont understand what someone is saying eventhough they are speaking absolutely clearly, I have difficulty focusing on logical tasks such as maths or statistics, or reading difficult text. After awakening, did you guys regain your ability to focus properly, or does it stay like this? There is belief that my ego doesnt wanna surender because it wants to maintain its ability to analyze logically and follow reason., and ia afraid that its gonna lose it completely if it lets go.

Dear Leo, I am no one. But I feel you. Blessed be your soul. Maybe I'm just a dumb almost 25 year old woman. But I've awakened so much it fucking hurts. I feel you. A couple of months off will not be enough. But I hope you get back to me. To us.

One absolute. But there are many, many different kinds of awakened consciousness. So the fact that there is one absolute means little. The question is, what kind of consciousness have you accessed and what have you understood about how consciousness works? Different paths lead to very different kinds of awakenings. So then the question becomes, how do I reach the very highest, deepest, and strangest kinds? Truth be told, some of my very deepest awakenings I have only been able to reach during sleep.

Then let me have the cases which you consider fully enlightened that don't align. I will try to align them and their pointers if the pointers are about the Absolute, and the examples know what they are talking about. "Rupert Spira says that solpsism is madness. Ramana Maharshi says there are no others. Rupert Spira says consciousness is love, Ralston says love is just an emotion. " I could align that. All 4 cases know what they are talking about. Spira: Solipsism from the perspective of an unenlightened separate self is madness. From the unenlighened mindstream Solipsism is just not true, because the "I" refered to is not the Absolute, or Impersonal Infintie Consciousness, Reality itself. Ramana: From the Absolute perspective there are no others. But that needs Enlightenment, and a deep identity shift towards Infinite Impersonal Consciousness, Reality itself. If one is then inclined to talk fully from the Absolute Side of the street: No problem. Spira: Consciousness is love: Ones True Nature, Impersonal Infinite Consciousness opens the mindstream towards love and bliss, or loving all that is and arises. Very clear once enlightened. Ralston: Love an emotion in the meaning that some mindstreams show a little bit of it sometimes, others more often, the permanently enlightened mindstream needs that as basis to stay enlightened/awakened, but also produces that love as result of staying in ones nature on a consistent basis. It is a perspective on love as state that can dominate a mindstream or not. Water by the River

Try this: masterbate whenever you feel like it… if you do too much… take a break for a bit stop thinking about it move on with your life go talk to some real-life girls and realize that they’re attracted to you being an awakened man who is coming from their heart-space the more you worry about your semen the more of a problem it becomes… stop worrying about it and it stops being a problem

Reminds me of a joke: A guy dies and is sent to hell. Extremely frightened because of that, he is very surprised when he arrives; beach, palm trees, sun is shining, happy people around in shorts and bikinis. Behind the next corner there are people eating great food and there's some cool music playing. After some time of wondering, a man in an expensive suit approaches him and says: "Hi, you must be the new one. Welcome to hell, I'm the devil. As you're gonna spend eternity here, make yourself comfortable and have a drink. If anything bothers you, always feel free to ask me." The guy still doesn't really understand what's going on, this is not what he expected. But finally he decides to inspect the area. Everywhere he goes, there are people laughing and having a great time, there's games, party and fun all around. Then he arrives at a steep cliff that divides the paradise hell from an area underneath, and there is hell as we know it: demons torturing the doomed, there's fire and the smell of brimstone. Shocked, he runs to the devil and says "Devil, how can that be? Here, we have the sweet eternity and down there people are tortured and burned! How can that be?!" The devil laughs and says "Oh, that. That's the Catholics - they want it that way." Yes. Anyway, no big disagreements. You are on the path, which is all that counts. I am just making commercials of the lovely holiday-destination soon to be reached, so to say. And understanding that is extremly valueable. The contraction that kicks in shortly before fully waking up while slumbering, if you ever had that kind of experience. It is a very real and feelable contraction in the head, that at least I couldn't dissolve when I first started noticing it while waking up. It is that contraction that evaporates into/"becoming" the visual field/Infinity when nondual awakened states start to begin/kick in. And when that contraction/self-contraction is dissolved during waking-life, suffering is just not more possible. Vast spacious tension-free Suchness of Reality, no thought-arising "gripping". It is that what one searches in every experience one normally seeks. It is that self-contraction/localization (often in the head) that psychedelics tend to blast away, among doing other stuff also. Imagine you could do that with just cutting your thought-stream and staying "on-top" of it, watching it (the thought stream) spool down in you, but not "gripping" "you". That is a wonderful relief, physically and energetically felt in the body. It is not escapism, its an additional degree of freedom to live ones life from that state. That is not the end of the story, a subtle identity (althought non-localized) is still left-over after this point, but here its starts to get really lovely. Selling Water by the River

Yes. As a very experienced meditator with longterm-practice and seasoned in Awakening one can do two things a) completely shut off the thought-flow: A high-speed cut-off at the beginning stage of a thought-emergence. The thought doesn't look like a thought in this earliest emergence phase of it, more like a ripening "seed" that is cut off. Lots of training until that point... And to continue that high-speed-cutoff of emerging thought "capsules" can stop the thought-flow completely. Until having had it, hard to imagine. b) second, and much more important: Staying lucid while thinking, "riding" with ones awareness on the thought-stream. Pretty impossible to describe, stems partly from the ability to do a) . That skill allows to carry the meditation/awareness into daily life. It also causes (due to its momentum in daily life more so than a), since one cant act/work without a thought flow running) the Awakened States of nonduality/one with the visual field, mere appearance (solidity of visual field removed), timelessness (time is imagined right here in THAT), boundlessness (any limit would be imagined in THAT. All of the states that psychedelics also cause. But "without the pill". And it also it cuts the separate-self-contraction in the head which just dissolves, opening up a flow of bliss that is so strong to just overpower the suffering that the remaining separate-self tends to cause in cycles. These are "hard" states of consciousness, not some wishful thinking or some soft states. The separate-self/ego main-building block is regular suffering/being unsatisfied, rejecting or wanting something that is not present in that state, seeking it, getting it or not getting it, and suffering again. Water by the River

To be fair, as we grow in awareness we can become aware of the effects of our behaviors and words have on others, we can actually experience a first hand like experience of it and have an intimate knowledge of those effects in ways that we previously didn't have. So we don't necessarily need to project any emotion onto this, it can be something that is recognized as a sort of performative act to signal to others our intent to reconcile many different types of things as well as this simple act can make an impact on others and allow healing to happen. You declaring why he 'solely' did it may or may not be as you suggest, only Leo can answer that. Also, I'm not sure where you get the notion that you have any authority to determine what is or is not being awakened and who is or is not awakened. This isn't the first time you've said this to me and I suspect I'm not the only one you have said it to. It may have your desired effect on others who you say it to but I see through this ploy and has little to no effect other than for me to chuckle at your own arrogant hubris. I hope we don't have to go through this rhetorical dance again.

You can start then, by apologizing to me. For all of your arrogant acts on the forum. I think you have misled us in many ways. And while you may be wise in your own way - you are far from an awakened being. So I don't think your advice counts for much.

Martin W. Ball says that our ego is a set of energetic constructs, and seeking out an energetic solution is an effective way to address the problems posed by the ego. He prefers to use the word entheogen over psychedelic. An entheogen is a substance that generates the experience of god within. Fundamentally, they alter our ability to perceive and experience energy. Powerful entheogenic experiences aren't "enlightened" or "awakened" states in of themselves, rather, they're best understood as energetic expansions. Different religions, customs, rituals, and techniques have been used throughout human history to reach these heightened states of consciousness. While they may be useful in some respects, they can also be rendered obsolete when the proper understanding of the bio-energetics of the human body are taken into account. Entheogens cut past the middle-man and are vastly more effective for moving energy because they go cut directly to the source: the energetic constructs of your body. "Enlightenment," as he puts it, is the relaxing of your ego and the opening up of your energy, along with taking full responsibility for yourself and your ego. Entheogens are a very effective way of going about this, but this practice also extends into your day to day life. Integration of the experience with everyday life becomes possible when you are liberated from the prison of the ego and you've awoken to the energetic truth of reality. Just my two cents.

Probably you can plant them with great videos from actualized.org and hope that the people watching gets awakened.

this is my second language, so I I won't go deep cause I have shit to do, man faces criminal charges, but then again your ex president too so I can't be too harsh on one confused mom. listen to Leo on this! namaste! and no, just no, kids don't do opposite of what are told, where do you get all this bullshit? go read Leo's apology right now, he's most awakened person on planet and he let US politics/media to rot his brain, I'm off to listen to talyor swift! namaste vol.2!

Studying this book and following the work of Chris Bale Awakened Intent podcast is helping me to navigate on this waters a lot.

In many of Leo's videos he seems to suggest doing psychedelics hundreds of times. So maybe 52 times a year or less with 52 weeks in a year. But we are all pretty busy so maybe 3 times a month which is 26 times a year or less with 12 months in a year. I suppose the expectation is we may pursue our truth and abandon our career or change careers or abandon our relationship or find a new relationship. I suppose I am clinging to the idea of keeping my job and my relationship but somehow also becoming awakened. I am referring to 5 Meo DMT which I believe can be plugged. Thank you for all your responses.

Mostly using intellect. intellectual awakening..is taking one of the many forms of cognition ..namely reason..and elevating it above everything else.. using it to reach truths of reality by oneself.. or..being intellectually awakened to truths of reality through your very own logical capabilities.. which is possible. You don't need profound degrees of awakening to understand that God doesn't give a fuck if you have sex with a goat or if you murder someone for no reason.

The sober state is not special. But it is your default, baseline way of being conscious so you gotta take it seriously because it makes up the majority of your life. Sort of like how a planet has a default orbit which can change but in practice doesn't change much. Yes, that does happen. But your memory is tied with your state of consciousness. So really it's the state that makes all the difference. Your memory and understanding is deeply tied to your state of consciousness. The highest understanding is so deep that it cannot be held in memory, it needs to be part of your current state of consciousness. You can retain some understanding, but understanding cannot substitute for an Awakened state of consciousness. There is no substitute for state of consciousness. As an example, you have a very good understanding of what sex is, but that will never be the same as being in the middle of sex. And you can't be in the middle of sex all the time.

"I have awakened now I no longer need to sleep as much because my body and mind is more efficient" Nooooop does not apply to you, we are talking long term, short term you can survive with 0 sleep. People that can go long term in extremes like this have genetic super powers, they also always age badly. Counter-intuitive. It depends on what state your in, if the issue is "energized" that means the central nervous system is stuck in a excitatory state and cant sleep. The end result is you cant feel tired, its the opposite problem. Because of this what happens is the body keeps pushing it self until it fails like a car running on max speed with no rest for years. Ya your stuck in a excitatory state. I was like that to for years. It comes to a really bad ending. That's what stage 1 adrenal fatigue is, its the opposite of what your thinking fatigue looks like. Not being able to feel tired and rest is bad, cant you see that? If you drank non-stop coffee all day and report "i feel more energy then ever", is that a indication of progress? Its a indication of supressing the feeling of fatigue until it builds up and shows it self in different ways. How it will show it self is not by suddenly being tired, it does so by slowly feeling really really bad with headaches, organ issue, premature aging, digestive issues, and you still wont feel tired. What happends is youll trade your youth. Its a trade off, not sleeping does not come for free, something is being exchanged for it.

I love that question. My thoughts on it: Well everything that manifests itself, manifests itself from opposites. Warm as the opposite of cold, strength as the opposite of weakness and life as the opposite of death. What you are basically asking is, "can there be black without white?" I think that question comes because language only captures framents of reality and not the whole. You can speak of parts of reality which make them see like independents fragments but actually they can't be splitted at all. Because black exists only in contrast of black and therefore implements it. So when you make that sentence more holistic you could say "can there be that (black) that arises from its opposite without its opposite?" Now that sentence seems foolish. The absolute nature of god is of course immortality. So a god awakened person knows about his immortality. But no ego can become immortal. Although deception is absolute truth. So an ego could deceive itself to be immortal and be absolutely right about that in a relative sense but not in an objective sense.

Don't take the trip and the messege you get too seriously. If you feel like you have awakened and Awakening = more suffering you haven't actually Awoken. Just because you experience something doesn't mean you are it. If you have a bad trip observe you resisting it and trying to make it go away. It's okey to not be able to let go, it's a part of the process.

Today at the park lmao a little girl said to her father "its to hooooot" with a whining tone of voice and if she was awakened she would of said "why did god create this hot day to make me suffer its so unfaiiiiiiiir" with a whining tone of voice.