Search the Community

Still feeling quite sick today. Putting off going to the store until tomorrow so that I don't spread my illness around. Super snotty, super coughy. Sneezy wheezy. Hope it's not Covid. Been thinking a bit about opinions this morning. I know I have a lot of them, but I also realize that most opinions are bullshit. They're just kind of humanly end-all be-all door stoppers to keep a sense of reality afloat. "I feel this way about this, or that way about that." Generally though, life is extremely nuanced and it's damned near impossible to have a world-view that encompasses all the view points. I notice that I tend to stop at, "I like thing, I don't like thing." And not to go much further into it, and think that maybe I should spend more time expanding on my worldviews. I had a friend who used to follow me around on this website years ago who chose the name, "I like thing" for this very reason. I miss him. Hope he is doing well. I've been expanding on my little world while resting in my bed, as there really isn't much else to do while resting. I've hit a road block on a few things, but I have the hunting down, it's kind of hard for me to imagine the specifics of it - I'm not very good at the gritty technical details when it comes to world building. So, how these creatures hunt. Their world is held together by yin energy, the darkness, a miasma. They live pretty much forever, and deaths are almost unheard of. The entire planet is composed of this energy, but through a collective imaginative effort, they are able to manifest an actual planet, complete with medium sized cities, farmland, forests - and such things. It's a mid-tier density level planet in the beginning portions of the astral realm. There are still bodies, and structures and things of this nature, but it is seen to be illusory and are held together for the simple reason of having cohesion and a sense of civilization. These creatures would be considered a step or two above the human realm, which is very dense, it is hard to manifest things into it, and the illusory nature of reality is not so readily apparent. While hunting, these creatures create hunting parties. Different aptitudes and body types will go to a hunting building, put in their name and specifics and wait in a line until an entire hunting party is established. You get to choose the type of creature to wish to take down as well. They work together to take down animals in the same formation that wolf packs use. When a party is created, they are moved into a room together and dissolve the boundaries of their semi-physical reality to return to the dark miasma from which they come. Like removing the boundaries of time and space, but in a select area. While in this space, being made from the same material as the darkness, they turn into these very dark smoke-like creatures that can run along the top and sides of the darkness, as if it was a solid. Within the miasma, all sorts of creatures exist. Some of them are beings made of pure light that travel long distances in between the different points of light, like little whales in their own right swimming through a vast black ocean of nothingness. When one is spotted - there are a few different species - they lack detail and are generally the silver-white outlines of creatures and are easily seen on contrast to the night - they are hunted down to the point of exhaustion and then the "wolf" in front goes in for the kill, grabs it by the neck, gives it a few quick shakes and the deed is done. Then the entire hunting party collectively creates consensus reality again and find themselves back in the hunting room, where they work together de-flesh the animal, to take the parts that they need, put them in bags and take them home to make food out of. Light is sustenance for them. They only hunt creatures of the light that are migrating from different light points, and the society is built so that the numbers and patterns of the different animals hunted are taken into account. They never take more than their share - and have worked hard to create a balanced society. Despite being made from the same substance that "evil" is made from, it is still able to, it it's own right, create a well-meaning hard-working society of entities. This just isn't as common of an occurrence. It is quite an anomaly to have a well-structured society of dark-oriented beings. But they have found that if they don't take too much, focus their immeasurably long lives on balance, that the light permits a reasonable number of sacrifices. Consciousness needs to expand and it doesn't care what your orientation is - light or dark. Those that are on the dark side need to consume light in order to function, but light does not need to consume dark. They have plants, vegetables and things of this nature, but they come from the planet, which is made from the dark miasma and so hunting is an essential part of this culture. My boo Matt likes to be in the front of the pack alignment when he hunts and likes to be the one to go in for the kill. He enjoys when the little creatures squeal their last little breaths as he shakes the life out of them in between his sharp teeth. I mean, despite enjoying humans, he is a demon after all, and demons do like to hunt. It's what they do. The reason why his species is neutral towards humans, why they don't attack or harm human souls while on their way back to source is because humans are a grey area. We aren't all light or all dark, we're both and we are given the free will to choose one or the other. No human lives its entire life completely in the light or the darkness. Because of this, humans are not viewed as food. When moving up through the astral plane, there is a tunnel that human souls go through, and occasionally, maybe one out of 20 million, accidentally get re-routed to this dark planet. They're viewed as a neutral phenomena, and because they aren't food nor contribute to maintaining the structure of the society, if a human soul lands on this planet, they are generally left alone to their own devices. This species of demon is extremely neutral and don't want to shift the delicate balance of their culture by getting involved in anything. After a period of time, God, or sometimes other beings will come to retrieve the human's soul and will reroute it back to where it is destined to go. Matt started to actively search for them, after stumbling across a confused girl - after helping her, letting her stay with him, sharing a bit of his culture and knowledge with her, he began to fancy them. She did end up being retrieved by members of her soul group, and after this experience he decided he would help more. After being one of the top hunters and an accomplish multi-restaurant owner for over a thousand years, he let that go, became depressed and spent the next 500 years in his mansion at the top of one of the richest hills in the city. He would occasionally go hunting for large game, enough to bring home a decent amount so that he didn't have to hunt very often. He would still search for human souls, he would corral them in the neighborhood with a black smoke made from his consciousness and then would bring them to his home until they were gathered up by whomever was destined to come for them. He had a decent social life, many women who were interested in him and a career that he loved - but when he realized that the lock would not activate in his chest he became very depressed. A huge portion of growing, of creating, of living, was to open up this vortex. If you can't do it, what's the point of anything else? So he left it all behind, and would occasionally help the rare human who landed there, but for the most part spent his time alone - sans a few close friends who would check up on him. He had two friends that he did see on a weekly basis, a couple, Wyatt and Maya. He had given Wyatt all his businesses when he retired. They liked to hunt together, and Maya was a beaming socialite who often tried to set him up with new friends that she found. He hated every minute of it, but went along with it to make her happy. Despite all of it, he was a good friend and a decent demon-creature with a big fuzzy heart. He would go to dinner with Wyatt, Maya and whoever she would bring along with her, or at times he would bring them all back to his home and he would show off his cooking skills. Usually at the end of the night, he would wish them all well and send them on their way but occasionally someone who seemed like they could possibly be a good match, he would invite them to stay for a night. But it never worked out. The energy center, that was supposed to activate under the conditions of being able to fall in love, just never happened for him. He became increasingly more depressed. A huge part of being alive, of being this sort of entity, was having that portion of yourself open. It's what all of the prior work that was done was for. Their culture, traditions and civilization was built upon opening this lock and key system, which was a huge contributor in helping to build and maintain the cohesive structure of their reality. They learned early on, that if you don't have love, you don't have a functioning society. But bringing humans home, he felt delighted around them. They were so small compared to him. Generally a foot or two shorter. When moving from one ethereal plane to another, human souls remained relatively young, usually between the ages of 6-20. They didn't have the memories or residue of their previous lives, as this was stripped away from them during the process of death. Occasionally he could access the Akashic records to find information on the life that the human had lived prior to coming there, but this did not happen very often. He built his understanding of the human world and their lives around what he did learn from these chance encounters and came to the conclusion that human life was dense, harsh, and unconnected and he related to the human condition. Humans didn't have a lock and key system, they would never come to understand love the way his kind could, and yet so many of them spent their little, short lives looking for this intangible thing, most of them passing away with only a few short tastes of what it could really be and was. He felt that they were precious in their lack of balance, how they consumed everything in sight without having any understanding into the balance of the universe. He found it interesting that beings of darkness were more loving and aware than these creatures with free will and a grey area in their nature. Some of them could be very beautiful and sweet and some of them commit the most horrible of crimes. They were destined to return to earth time and time again until they had cleared their karma and were eligible to move onto the next level of development. They weren't held down by structure and tradition and culture quite in the same way that he was, they were in their own way, more free and he admired this about them. When they found their way to his home, due to not having any memories, they didn't have the darkness in them that they had accumulated on earth and so he attributed their harmful actions more to the density of the planet/dimension that they came from, and the lack of seeing the entire structure of reality and the consequences that came from the lack of balance with natural harmony. He would teach these things to them, would have them try his people's food, and would show them how to manifest certain things into their reality. Reality in this dimension was a bit more lucid, but you still had to follow some rules. After a day to a month had passed, either God or the human's soul family would create a portal/passage way that allowed the soul to transcend. He had no idea if they retained his lessons or not, but teaching them about his life and his people during the short time that they were there was the only thing that gave him joy in his celibate, dry life. That's all I got for now. I'll think on it today and tomorrow I will write on the lock and key system.

There are two paths to infinity. There is the no self path, or the all self path. The belief that there is no self or ego is another illusion. God is the manifestation of infinity selves, infinity selves= no self. So you can reach infinity through either no identification, or identification with all. When you identify with all you experience Universal Love. When you detach from all identification you experience nothingness the No-Self. Both are the same. Most who follow the traditional Buddhist path have a bias against love awakenings.

Yeah, so you'll never be truly able to experience other people because you are only yourself. But from another standpoint, you really are already completed united with everyone else, that meaning your body and your mind able to dissolve barriers with the others if it is so chosen. As for other singularities/experiences, I am making the claim they exist, but they have to be in the same Nothingness. So two experiences united by the same Void, but they can't know each other because they are only parts without a whole.

Watch from 12:20

They're from the beginning of the Savitri, which is the longest known English poem written in the 20th century! I don't know how to reconcile Nothingness as both Infinite Blackness and Infinite Light, without bridging formlessness and form through something like an eternal recurrence. There's a poem by Charles Baudelaire called Châtiment de l'orgueil, the English translation as "Punishment for Pride":

Very nice. Is it all one poem? Starting as being ‘arraigned by the dark Power that hates all bliss’ and ending as ‘rapt in the heart-beats of God’s ecstasy’ seems appropriate. I particularly like the way the earlier poems describe finding oneself entrenched in the machinations of illusion; it reminds me of the mortification and the Black Sun of the alchemical process. Of course. I have no illusions about what is possible or realistic today; we have to face the realities of our situation. If even in Aristotle's day, prior to the ready availability of sensual delights and overstimulation of every kind, it was true that 'the majority of men are evidently quite slavish in their tastes, preferring a life suitable to beasts,’ how much more true must this be today? The difference in our case is that Western society has ceased to serve any other purpose than catering to the tastes of these “slavish beasts". Those who are so mired in externality and the greed for mere experience, living only for the intoxication of the senses, will of course have a frivolous and sacrilegious attitude towards the sacred. There can be no going back, though. In what Hesiod described as the Heroic Age, situated between the Bronze and the Iron Age, there was the possibility of a temporary restoration of the primordial Golden Age. In the Iron Age, however, there can be no restoration: the only way out is through the dark night; excluding of course the realisation that it is all imaginary anyway. I’m sure that will all sound like a lot of made up nonsense to you. Never mind… Nietzsche has a wonderful insight in this regard: I love the sentence: 'Nothing avails: one must go forward — step by step further into decadence (that is my definition of modern "progress")'! I didn’t mean to imply that Nothingness is actually dark. It is often symbolically represented as such, however, because anything that you positively ascribe to it is false; any ascription is a limitation, and we are talking about that which is beyond limitation. Ah, yes. I actually couldn’t remember where I had heard those funny designations. It must have been when I was reading about him. I’m only really familiar with him through the references of a rather peculiar English occultist called Kenneth Grant. Some of his art seems nice though; that being said, the man he has dubbed “Carl Junk” was undoubtedly a better artist!

@Someone here All the qualia of the present moment and the sights, sounds, smells, taste, touch are deconstructible into Love and Nothingness.

You're referencing Austin Osman Spare? Young Jung could be construed as casually racist (just because of the times he was in), referring to "the lower races" to describe people, like the Aborigines as an example. So when he later used "primitive man" it is actually a lot less offensive, and just pointing out a connection which is the difference between nonlinear mythic thinking you might get from tribal dance and modern rational thinking you'd get at a university. Whether or not this difference of consciousness applies cross-culturally to more importantly historical examples than those in Australia, we could of course point out that none of the pattern could be replicated exactly from place to place, but there has to be a simplicity to complexity or undifferentiation to differentiation somewhere along the lines, in lieu of the serpent and the Tree of Knowledge. I don't know what your proposed alternative to something like the Aboriginal-type analogies is. What is an individual supposed to make of this? It's a very bafflingly complex web of totems, sea of fetishes, and systemic world of sacrifices. Whatever's identifiable is difficult to deal with, and there's a lot that, still, is shadow. Hopefully you should be able to see that an approach like this would be entirely ineffectual. Nobody, literally or metaphorically, is going to in the ages of modernity or postmodernity circumambulate around darkness ritualistically when they are distracted, lured, pulled aside by the lights of various meanings and technologies. The esoteric will frequently become less dark and more illumined by the false lights, as nothing remains internal and everything is spread out to the exterior multitude, or otherwise the individual must, to survive and influence, anyway encounter the brightness of God, a Void, an Everything. The only reason Jesus was obscure was that he was dead, in Nothingness. But Nothingness is not dark: it's completely colorless, and luminously in positive terms upon touching Everythingness. Which is how transient Everything and intransient Nothing meet in psychological aspects.

Have you ever, when you were a child, or perhaps now, felt the call of adventure? Do you know that there are people who voluntarily go to war, who sail alone through Antarctica, who find fulfillment in a knife fight? why do you think this happens? That would be you if you weren't afraid. Do you like movies where the protagonist faces death, torture? why would you like something like that? why does everyone like that? because it is deep, it is diving into the wells of existence. Do you think that God, the very existence that arises from unlimited nothingness and is perfect love, brilliant goodness, would be afraid to give himself up to martyrdom for the sake of depth, of greater love?

@Someone here Black is like nighttime: it's the unknown, the unseen, the shadows, the invisible, the out-of-consciousness. At night, everything is more difficult to see under a lens of obscurity. When you lose contact with all of the outside world by shutting your eyes and not really viewing anything, you see a black screen or shifting behind-eyelids colors or whatnot (maybe you'll have visions). That's why people associate blackness with night, shadows, sleep, closed eyelids, and since people have a difficult time becoming aware of actual Nothingness, they're left with this pseudo-Nothingness, they think of the closest thing they have to Nothingness (sleep) but have a hard time thinking about what sleep actually is (because deep dreamlessness is something they can't truly be aware of); so they associate it with the next closest thing (falling asleep or looking behind your eyelids so that you are effectively but not technically blind). If you want to actually "see" Nothingness, since we're using the traits of various colors, try analyzing all of your visual field, all of the colors. Then move to your peripheral vision. Then move outside of your peripheral vision! You'll notice that there's Nothing there, just a Void. And hopefully you'll be able to recognize that that same Void is inside your visual field as well and is the substance of all of reality.

This is just a problem of you not being directly aware of what it is. It's not black: people just think of it as black because that's what they might see when they close their eyes to sleep at night, which they associate with the idea of nothingness or unconsciousness or a void. But the real thing is complete colorless and infinitely unqualifiable Emptiness.

// Meta-Content // I'm mainly creating this journal to study various nuances and going meta on subjects that i found within myself and the world cause both are really one apparently now. And also if anyone is going through any of this spiral as me, could benefit from this or might gain some perspective here and there. // My objectives for this Journal // History - Time to leave relativistic stage and integrating those lessons Mainly I've been in the relativistic domain for too long and now i can see myself suffering through this endless meaningless-ness. Lately, my mind see through with heart even this concept of me trying to accept meaningless is meaningless - cause this is so meaningless. Anystep am taking to combat meaningless is meaningless before i understood intellectually but now i've understood to the level of the authentic heart perse. What made the breakthrough from green to see the yellow? Personally i believe what was happened, i had stage blue approach to green mentality. I was clinging to the dogma, if everything is meaningless, i should not even try and also if everything is meaningless what's the point in even trying. I became or kinda having these thoughts like where do it even coming from, and i realize how i construct meaning for meaningless-ness in a way. And i don't want to construct negative meaning on meaningless-ness in a sense. I was painfully aware that am making shit out of my life, if i hold onto to this thought and inherently the truth of the meaningless and the real meaningless ness differs a lot. Which again understood while in the self inquiry. Where i compared myself when i was in the no-mind consciousness and whenever i clinged to the belief of nothingness which provided me a breakthrough i guess. Also in my current state of mind, i can tell there's nothing important to do other than being authentic - Pursing the truth with you being the authentic driver - Yes sometimes you can go through the spirals of doubting yourself and wanting to be something else - but nothing is gonna be as important as you being authentic admitting your true intentions and allowing to be consumed by your shadow self to understand and know better of yourself ever more deeply. What else gonna be important to do. I don't know, even pursing god seems okay, but pushing myself for god can be done. But now i can understand that is not what i really want. And i thought, i have to go for god all the time and now it's seems okay to be myself and to just be. // Learning Stage Yellow & Impacts // I've just watched maybe 7 hours of content of stage yellow, trying to understand and within even an hour or two of content for a day. To be honest it made my life easier, yes obviously from my point of view. I been mostly neurotic about things especially understanding truths and god realization, so clingy i feared losing this one way ticket and the only ticket for all those sufferings i thought to myself. For me i want to escape myself cause there were some unwanted fears within myself which i was recognized and which is so much harder to face, i shuve it each time it comes and it's more worse each time as it comes. Which one of it was meaningless ness and my actions which are going to have no impact whatsoever not in a fame oriented manner but more like pragamtic thinking what's the point? but i pushed myself into thinking in more relativistic fashion as it's relative or whatever. I ackonwledge those parts within myself and i realized a deep truth within them and i could see their need. I could finally learn to learn integrate them as some of the parts i could strike balance within myself. These non-balancing life brought the balance and i came to now understood why an yellow mind can hold a paradox very well. Yes i heard this statement previously but now i understand more than the previous time, why it's possible to have a contradictive and paradoxical thoughts. It's so integrated and also it has no need for a dogma, cause dogma keep the mind stuck.

I've heard that the nothingness that people experience after death is actually both black and white. Not only is it one or the other, but both and at the same time.

Of course the self is invented.....everything is invented. The Creator and Creation are one. Literally ONE. That's it. Nothing more nothing less. God is imagination. So anything you experience is God. Even the ego. We say the ego is imaginary to help you to get to the bottom of the rabbit whole....but here is a secret...GOD IS IMAGINARY. You say the self is invented? God INVENTED ITSELF. God is just an infinite void of nothingness. A void of nothingness that is aware. So God decided to create and through creation...God has a self. That's why they refer to God as a HIGHER SELF. The moment God creates anything God becomes a self because its creation is its self!!! Once you understand all this then it will click!!!

Yea you have to deconstruct everything if you want to awaken. Even notions of "love " and "nothingness "..all of that has to be throwed in the trash can .until all you are left with is the raw qualia of the present moment. Sights. Sounds .smells. tastes. Touch. Thought. Mental images .that's all that reality is .anything else is complete horseshit .and I know I will be criticized for saying so .but it is what it is .I'm being honest as per my awakening.

You have to learn to let your ego be one layer below you. Let your ego be itself. Just don't get caught up in it, and identify it. You are nothingness. You cannot take one step in the world or one breath without the ego. It's the ego which desires to mark the world with itself. Let it do that. Observe your ego. Don't identify with it. Witness how your ego defines itself against your fears, against that which you choose to not be concious of. Just observe our ego, that's really the main idea. Over time your ego will become thinner and thinner, and the duality between concious and unconscious within you which creates your ego will become more tangible to you. You will learn to surrender your ego and enter Samadhi more easily, more often. You can only do so by experience and developing your intuitive sense of your beingness.

The problem of evil refutes the theistic conception of god. This leaves only a deist god which is an amoral first cause. Nature is amoral so if it has a designer then this designer would also be amoral. So why have anything at all? The deist god which I cannot discount, obviously gave no thought to the pain which is a byproduct of sentient existence. Nothingness would have been better.

Note: This document is a work-in-progress and will be improved and supplemented over time. ----------------------- So you wanna become enlightened, eh? Good! That's where this journey starts. A burning desire for TRUTH is essential to success in this. Don't let people confuse you with talk of how "desire is bad", "seeking is delusion". No! Seeking is essential to breakthrough. Don't burn your ship before you've crossed the ocean! That would be foolish. Rather than filling your mind with beliefs and ideas about enlightenment, let me give you a bare-bones structure for how to actually make progress towards enlightenment. There are at least 20 totally different ways that I know for how to get enlightened. What I'm going to share with you here is just ONE way out of dozens. It is however a very direct way. This method is highly effective. It may not work for everyone, but then again, no method works for everyone. I call this method self-observation or Leo's version of self-inquiry. "Self-inquiry" as classically taught by Ramana Maharishi is technically different. Anyways... First, let's be very clear what we're talking about when we speak of enlightenment. So... What this basically means is that YOU are deeply confused about who you think you are. Right now you think that you're a human being, sitting there, reading this text on your screen. This is false. Pure fantasy. You are in fact not that thing at all. What we have here is a case of mistaken identity. You think you're a body, but you're not. You think you're a mind, but you're not. You think you're an entity living inside your head, but you're not. You think you are a physical object but you are not! Take a moment to seriously consider the magnitude of my claim. IF I happen to be right, and you happen to be wrong, then what that means is: you are NOT a human being, or even a physical object! Not metaphorically-speaking; not as some philosophical curiosity; but literally! How could such an outrageous thing be possible?????? How could you be mistaken about what you actually are????? Very easily actually! Recall how you've met people in your life who you knew were indoctrinated from birth with silly religious beliefs about Jesus and all sorts of other nonsense. Recall how little children believe that Santa Claus exists because they don't know any better. Recall how terrorists believe they are killing civilians in the name of Allah and will go to heaven with 72 virgins waiting for them. Recall how racists insist they are right for persecuting minorities. Well... here's something you're not gonna like hearing: that same delusion mechanism which existed in them, is operating FULL-FORCE within you right now! Yup! You too have been indoctrinated by ignorant parents and teachers from birth into believing a fairy-tale. Except in this case, the indoctrinated idea was: you are a human being. What a mind fuck! Now, in this work of "self-observation", you will discover -- for yourself -- what you REALLY are. Important: I am not asking you to believe me. You will have to demonstrate empirically, for yourself, that what I say is accurate. You can be skeptical all you want here. It won't upset me. "Okay" you say. "So what am I then if I'm not a human being or a physical object?" Great question! Sorry to tell you this, but your ENTIRE identity and life story is just a giant optical illusion. Like this non-existent triangle: There's nothing really there! Although it sure seems convincing, doesn't it? The problem is that you cannot know what you are rationally or logically because the mind is the source of the confusion. See.... No matter how cleverly or deeply or long you think, all the mind can ever do is symbolize stuff. It can only create maps and models. But you are not a symbol or a map or a model! You are not an idea or a thought! So you have to directly experience what you are. This MAY take months or years of very careful self-investigation. Note: I am saying that you have NEVER IN YOUR ENTIRE LIFE ever experienced yourself before! You've only experienced phenomena, none of which is essentially YOU! So what is this mysterious "essential you"? Let me spoil the surprise because otherwise you will waste YEARS searching in the wrong places, thinking you've found yourself when you really just found another false belief. So... as directly as possible now: the entity who thinks it's reading this sentence does NOT exist! Again, please try to fathom the magnitude of what is being said. This is extremely radical (but nevertheless true). Since you are pure awareness, all your focus goes toward shining "light" on sensory phenomena so it's really hard to "see" yourself. Pure awareness is very subtle, which means you have to develop extraordinary mindfulness abilities to "see" yourself. "But Leo?! You can't be serious! This sounds like a crazy New Age hippy conspiracy!" Let me assure you it's not. I am no hippy. I'm probably more rational and logical than you are. But I do recognize the limits of logic and rationality. The problem here is that you've been so brainwashed by society that what I'm telling you right now sounds crazy. That's okay. Just keep your mind open to the possibility that what I'm claiming can be directly verified by you. Nothing here has to be believed. But you do have to be willing to take it on as a temporary hypothesis to be verified or falsified. Leo's Patented () Step-By-Step Process To Become Enlightened: Find a quiet, comfortable place to sit alone. (You don't need to sit cross-legged.) Turn off your smart phone and disconnect from all distractions Set a digital timer for 60 minutes Now sit silently and start to genuinely wonder: "What am I if I'm not the body?" Do NOT meditate! Sit and carefully observe your direct experience. Notice that direct experience is THE ONLY THING you have of reality. Nothing else is real. Realizing this should make you very "present". Try to locate yourself within direct experience. Be very specific and clear with yourself: What are you? Are you a foot? A hand? A face? A mind? A brain? The envelop of the skin? The picture of yourself in the mind's eye? A feeling in the chest? What? Seriously! WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU????????????? Notice that anything you might point to as being "your true self" cannot be true, because that's just another experience arising. Here's the logic of it: Firstly, it isn't constant. It fades in and out throughout the day, so it cannot be you. Secondly, you are observing it, so it cannot be you because "you" are the one doing the observation. So again, WHAT ARE YOU? Open your mind to the possibility that you are mistaken about being a human body or mind. Just sit there and keep genuinely wondering about what you really could be. Try to locate the one who's perceiving things. Do not philosophize or come up with theories. Focus 100% on what your direct experience is telling you. This is ABSOLUTELY CRITICAL!!!!!!!! The bulk of the work happens right here at this step. You have to slowly become aware that all your thoughts and ideas and feelings about "you" are not really you. They are just symbols and stories. For example: notice that the image of your body that you have in your mind is NOT actually your body! It's just an image! And the same goes for the feelings that make up your body. Those feelings are real, but they are not actually you! As any theories arise of what you think you are, notice that what that is, is a thought! And no thought can be you because you are the one perceiving the thought, and also because your existence does not depend on any particular thought's existence. Notice you don't cease to exist in between thoughts. Just sit and keep doing this for 60 minutes without getting distracted in irrelevant thoughts. As your mind wanders off track (and it will wander a lot) don't beat yourself up. Just bring your focus back on the self-observation. After 60 minutes, stop and notice what happened. Notice if your mind feels "elevated" or more aware. Frustration and confusion are OF COURSE going to arise. Do NOT be discouraged by frustration or confusion. Believe it or not, these are signs of progress. Do not expect instant results. You must be very methodical and patient like a crocodile. Repeat this process every day for at least 60 minutes for the next few months. Be very patient. It will take several months just to start to get your bearings straight. And by that I don't mean you will become enlightened. I mean you merely begin to realize the magnitude of your ignorance. In this time span of 3 months -- let's say -- you will get a strong sense that it really isn't possible to locate yourself. This may seem like you've failed, but actually this is a huge advance. Now you've finally started to realize that you've never really met yourself before. Now the journey towards enlightenment can begin in earnest! Just keep doing the process without discouragement. At some point, your mind will crack and you will surrender to the realization that there's no one home. That life has always run with you. And BAAAAAMMMMM!!!!!!! Enlightenment has occurred! Notice, I did not say YOU got enlightened. Rather, enlightenment has occurred. So who got enlightened? No one. Tips For Self-Observation: Don't just do this process mechanically, you MUST be genuinely curious about the truth of what you are. Try to establish a daily habit of self-observation. You need to build consistency and momentum. Be very careful about coming up with theories about what you are. We don't care about theories here. Every theory is NOT it. We only care about direct experience. REPEAT: ALL THEORIES AND IDEAS ARE DISTRACTIONS! Spend time asking yourself who you really believe that you are under the conventional worldview. Are you a body or are you the owner of the body? Are you inside the skull? If so, where exactly? The point of doing this is so you're clear and honest about your present beliefs, even if you intellectually know they are false. It's very important to get clear what exactly your false beliefs are. Do not be vague in your answers to the query of What are you? It's vital that you be precise and specific. Answers such as, "Well, I dunno, I'm just in the skull somewhere." are NOT GOOD ENOUGH!!! What EXACTLY are you identifying with? Hint: it will either be a thought, a body sensation, an emotion, a visual perception, or a combination of the above. But all of those cannot be the true you because they are not constant. Create an active sense of doubt that you are a human being or a physical object Any belief, thought, or idea about who you really are is automatically FALSE! Drop it. Any sensory experience about who you really are is automatically FALSE! Drop it. All scientific theories or models are automatically FALSE! Drop it. All spiritual, New Age, or religious ideas about who you really are, are FALSE! Drop it. You are NOT a visible object or "thing" so stop looking for yourself like you would look for a missing dog. You are NOT located in any area of space, so stop looking for yourself as a point or hidden object somewhere. You are NOT located inside "your" head You are NOT located inside "your" body There is nothing magical to discover in this process. You are not some kind of unicorn or fairytale creature. There is nothing hidden. Everything you see before you is exactly what there is, nothing more, nothing less. It is not possible to find yourself, so this process is futile. But you need to realize that through doing the process. Not by believing me. You will get VERY frustrated during this process and want to quit. Just accept the frustration and keep going. This process will surface deep emotional issues from our subconscious mind. You will experience emotional turmoil and anguish. Just accept it and keep going. You will feel depressed at times. Just accept it and keep going. Your mind will use every excuse in the book to distract you and get you to stop looking. Stay vigilant to all these tricks and keep looking. DO NOT GET TRICKED INTO STOPPING! The truth of what you are is ever-present. It is always HERE and NOW. You don't need to go anywhere or do anything to see it. You are you right now! Be prepared for this self-observation process to take several years if necessary. Understand that enlightenment happens always only in the NOW. Never in the future. You can be enlightened RIGHT THIS SECOND! You don't need to wait 3 years. Always intend to become enlightened right now! Enlightenment/Truth is NOT an emotional state. Enlightenment is occurring always, even when you're watching TV or sitting on the toilet. Meditation is NOT enlightenment. A psychedelic high is NOT enlightenment. A powerful energetic experience is NOT enlightenment. A vision or hallucination (however real it may feel) is NOT enlightenment. Enlightenment is what's absolutely true without ever changing. Don't forget the possibility that you may not be a thing! Don't forget the possibility that there might be nothing to find There is no you to become enlightened. When this is realized, that's enlightenment! Hint: it's MUCH simpler than you think. A HUGE HINT: The thing you're looking for but aren't finding... THAT'S YOU!!! Don't expect it to have any attributes. Don't expect the mind to have anything whatsoever to latch onto. You cannot grab NOTHINGNESS by the collar. You can only realize you're already it. Think of it this way: you are looking for a needle in a haystack, but this is no ordinary needle. In this case the needle is literally the realization there was no needle to begin with! A cosmic joke! You've been punked by God (yourself). Best Self-Observation Questions: What am I? No, seriously now... WHAT THE FUCK AM I????? No, cut the shit! What am I -- RIGHT NOW -- in my direct experience???? Who is aware of reality? Who is aware of me? Who is perceiving? Who is the owner of the body? Who is the owner of the mind? Who is feeling pain? Who is asking all these questions? What was I before I was born? What am I when I'm in deep sleep? What could I be if I'm not the human body/mind? What connects and unifies all of my different senses? What is true independent of ever-changing sense experience? What is true independent of my life and my death? Why do I believe I'm the body? Why do I believe I'm the mind? Where to do thoughts arise from? If I'm the body, what is everything else that I'm seeing? Why do I trust my feeling that I'm the body? Is a feeling really evidence of TRUTH? Why must I be an object? What if the "perciever" has no attributes or properties? When I close my eyes, where did the world disappear to? Where is sound occurring? Where are thoughts occurring? Where are body sensations occurring? What is the relationship between physical body sensations and my visual field? What if I don't exist? What if I can't locate myself because I am "empty" or without form or attribute? What if I'm addicted to looking only for objects or perceptions, but my true nature is neither of those? What if I'm just an idea? What if my entire paradigm of physical reality is just an idea? Could my body and brain just be ideas? Is any physical object actually permanent according to direct experience? What distinguishes one object from another? Do boundaries between things really exist, or are they ideas? What would happen if I stopped distinguishing existence from non-existence? How To Tell If You're Enlightened: This is very simple. Answer the following questions honesty: Did a major shift in awareness occur? Are you absolutely clear now of what you are? Are you the physical human body you've always thought you were? Do you feel infinite, without boundaries or location? Do you actually understand, or are you in a temporary meditative high? If you answered: "YES! YES! NO! YES! I UNDERSTAND!" then there's a pretty good chance you're enlightened. If your answers were not: "YES! YES! YES! NO! YES! I UNDERSTAND!" then chances are you aren't enlightened. Keep trying. If in doubt, find an enlightened master to help you verify the depth of your realization. Don't get cocky, remember, there is more than one enlightenment breakthrough to be had. You ain't gonna become Buddha with just a few years of self-observation. Is it worth the struggle? Abso-fucking-luty! Awakening is divine. Videos Explaining Enlightenment In More Depth: https://www.actualized.org/articles/spiritual-enlightenment-intro https://www.actualized.org/articles/what-to-do-next-after-learning-about-enlightenment https://www.actualized.org/articles/spiritual-enlightenment-part-2 https://www.actualized.org/articles/spiritual-enlightenment-part-3 https://www.actualized.org/articles/enlightenment-faq-part-1 https://www.actualized.org/articles/enlightenment-faq-part-2 https://www.actualized.org/articles/how-to-become-enlightened https://www.actualized.org/articles/my-enlightenment-experience https://www.actualized.org/articles/being-a-spiritual-seeker-good-or-bad https://www.actualized.org/articles/radical-openmindedness https://www.actualized.org/articles/mindfulness-meditation https://www.actualized.org/articles/understanding-awareness https://www.actualized.org/articles/the-enlightened-self https://www.actualized.org/articles/the-benefits-of-enlightenment https://www.actualized.org/articles/how-your-mind-distorts-reality https://www.actualized.org/articles/enlightenment-guided-inquiry https://www.actualized.org/articles/grasping-the-illusory-nature-of-thought https://www.actualized.org/articles/what-is-god https://www.actualized.org/articles/the-dark-side-of-meditation https://www.actualized.org/articles/mystical-traditions-around-the-world https://www.actualized.org/articles/becoming-a-zen-devil List Of Enlightenment Exercises: https://www.actualized.org/forum/topic/7587-list-of-enlightenment-exercises/

Since reality is imaginary (everything is your imagnitive mind's product. I can't really explain this here ..I did it before in previous threads of mine )Then whatever you imagine becomes real for you . So if you imagine and firmly believe that after death you will go to hell ..you will. And if you imagine that after death you go to a paradise..you will. And if you imagine and believe that after death you will reincarnate as a new human being (or an animal)..you will. And if you imagine and believe that after death its just pure nothingness forever..then that's what's gonna happen. So take responsibility for what you are imagining/believing . "Be careful what you wish for " as they say . I can't really explain how I came to this conclusion..if you understand that the entire universe is something you are imagining (just like how you imagine the universe in your dreams ) then you are creating whatever experience you are having . So ,you die every night when you fall asleep and then you imagine a dream world .or sometimes you don't dream at all and it's pitch black . Well..that's the case with physical death as well..you imagine what comes next . This is why it's important to explore your subconscious mind and purfiy it. Because it created reality .you need to align the subconscious mind with the conscious mind to work together in harmony to create the next dream. Now I can't deny it ..this is somewhat speculative perspective of mine. So take it with a grain of salt and validate for yourself in your own direct experience and awakening work.

Beyond all energy you will find the nothingness when reality reaches its ultimatum maximum. In this state you will find that when energy is so high, that it is not physical. It is consciousness that remains until reality collapses upon itself and is formed into a new creation, beyond what it currently is now. Forever, until the collapse of space itself, time (or what can be referred to as evolution) will remain in place. Until it is not needed and the Everything will dissolve into Nothing and Creation will create a new Reality beyond that of its previous self, learning how it was flawed. How it could have created something more loving. More conscious. And in that moment of rebirth, it will forget its past, as it is something so new, that it is so overwhelming to where only itself could ever exist. And through this all: we now know what God is. This is God. This is Love. This is Consciousness. Once you know this, this is all of life’s big questions answered. In some short paragraphs.

A dreamed space time continuum is an illusion consisting of nothing. And just as your sleeping dream's spacetime is an illusion born out of nothingness, so also is your waking world spacetime continuum an illusion. So the simple answer to your question is, if other dream characters of yours are dreaming up other dream characters within their own dream(of which you would be one of them) then their dream isn't happening anywhere because it's exactly the same as your dreams which aren't tacking place anywhere or within any mechanical system.

Ok, so you posit nothingness as your reduction base. When you do that, then by default, you no longer require an explanation for nothingness, but also in a similar vein, nothingness cannot explain anything by itself, or it's at least not a very useful explanation (e.g. "why can I not read your thoughts?" – "nothingness"). If you want your metaphysics to be able to make useful explanations for different stuff (maybe you don't), then where do you go from here?

Nothingness can't be reduced to anything else, and it doesn't require any explanation for its own being since nothingness needs no creation. Quite simplistic really. I thought that was a very common recognization in strong ego death, the fact of our fundamental nothingness? I hope so, because outwardly it sounds like philosophy BS or theory, when it isn't...

It is the same. People don't have consciousness, consciousness has people. Isolated by itself, it is nothing. I'm not grabbing a book and reciting some "deep" sentences, I am telling you for real it is nothing. And I don't see how even in theory you could have different nothings, since nothing is nothing. If the problematic and counterintuitive "consciousness" term was swapped out for Western-intuitive terms like existence, reality... Then it would be obvious: "Are you telling me a drunk person's realness is the same as a sober person's?" You see how, now, it is so blatantly obvious? A drunk person exists as much as a sober person. NOW it makes sense???? That is what all of this is. All of it. This is, we are, everything is, nothingness is (again: nothingness is what "your consciousness" is, and that can be explained also) quite literally, existence itself. We are literally existence itself. We are reality itself. That is "Brahman". And how easy to wrap your head around is that? Probably much moreso. You are existence itself reading these words. You are existence itself feeling emotions. You are existence itself seeing from your eyes. And all of these things are, also, existence itself. Existence itself is all encompassing, it is EVERYTHING.

Okay so you just straight aren't ever going to recognize it then... Vedanta takes randomers who have not had these bizarre experiences and will tell you, "you are not your thoughts", etc (as I mentioned they do that whole neti neti process thing)... Now you will say back to them "but that's duality! I am my thoughts!" And it's like, well okay then guess you'll just have literally no chance of ever understanding it whatsoever... You're just talking about something you have never recognized as if you have recognized it, and because of that you will never recognize it... And that is ultimately why you think you "become" God and start performing magic. You will never "become" what you are. You can only ever possibly recognize what you are, but it is what you already and always were. There will never be such a thing as a level of consciousness, there isn't any tier that is higher or lower than what is rigidly the only one there ever was, which encompasses all there is and ever could be. There isn't space for it to grow into, it is itself and it is whole with nothing outside it, not even nothingness (since nothingness is fundamentally what you are), hence why: nowhere for it to grow into. All things happen WITHIN it, like the swirling images on a screen. All you are ever doing, it is not growing outwards into bigger and bigger pictures but seeing "through" the pictures so to speak. It is more like moving the opposite direction. Except you are already there...... Take this. You're at a cinema, super engrossed in the film, lost in it. Suddenly the movie cuts out. And you suddenly feel yourself in the seat there. You didn't "go to" the seat, or "become more seated". You were already and always there, ALWAYS just as seated and just as present in that chair. But you didn't realize because you were distracted by the movie. Leo would understand what I am saying but he doesn't really bother to post lately.