Search the Community

They are both, and I will explain it clearly, without the Leo error of: you are imagining reality. you are the absolute in a relative experience. You are the absolute because you are the total infinite, and you are relative because you are the total infinite taking a form among infinite forms. On the surface you are limited by all the other infinite forms of reality, which being infinite cannot not take infinite forms, but just below the surface of the form you are the total infinite abyss. That abyss is exactly the same in me, in you, in a dog and in an atom. It is the absolute. To cleanse the doors of perception is to see through the veil of form and open yourself completely to the abyss, which is unthinkable. Nonduality is superficial, Leo is right, but he is wrong because he mixes the absolute with the relative. His opening is not clean, he maintains much, or part, of the "Leo" form, with what for him is a consciousness that is imagining or projecting images. This is absolutely wrong, dual, egocentric and limited .all forms are absolute dimensions, holons, and all are the absolute beneath the surface. awakening, or enlightenment, is the clear awareness of the absolute without the veil of form. Awareness, or conciousness is always the case, it's a continuous. But it is always limited by the form. Enlightenment is unlimited reality concious of itself. Why form is relative and infinity absolute? Because the form is impermanent. It's circumstance, change, limited, and the infinity is immutable, absolute . Encompass all change, then, there is zero change. Reality is self-conscious, therefore, it is always aware of itself. So, if the form is a guy chased by a pride of lions, reality will be aware of that absorbing form. If you eliminate the lions and are able to make the form more and more tenuous until it becomes absolutely transparent, consciousness, which is always the case because reality entails consciousness, will perceive the absolute, what you are. and this is extremely challenging, because it is infinite. It is not something normal, as Spira and Ralston say, they are limited, they do not know what they are talking about. It is something from another dimension: the unlimited dimension, and "you" as form are used to the limited dimension. Leo gets this right, it's much deeper, infinitely deeper.

But God is infinite imagination. So realizing it's all pretending to be, is the KEY thing to realize about God. As I said elswhere, the real God-Realization is seeing how you construct all of your reality. That's the real awakening, beyond nonduality and enlightenment. Just because you have some enlightenment does not mean you are conscious of how you are imagining everything and everyone around you. That's requires a whole lot more consciousness.

How would you define enlightenment? I would do it like this: reality perceiving itself without obstacles. nonduality is an obstacle, it says: I perceive everything as one. It is already something, it is an identification, an idea about reality: it is non-dual. is limited Enlightenment is deeper, it's not seeing that everything is one, it's seeing what is everything.

Nonduality doesn't mean Enlightenment. For Enlightenment to happen, Nonduality (or nondual states) have to ripen normally for a looooong time, for most (according to the traditions 100s to 1000s of hours), to get rid off the "Nondual-Realizer"-identity-arisings towards Impersonal Infinite Nondual Being/Infinite Consciousness without any remaining filter/lense/identity. https://www.actualized.org/forum/search/?&q=Nonduality&author=Water by the River Leo doesn't differentiate between Nonduality and Enlightenment (although most sophisticated meditation traditions do, pretty much all of the more sophisticated Budhdist traditions like Mahamudra, Dzogchen and also Zen - Kensho vs. Enlightenment. A Kensho IS nondual but a looong way from Enlightenment), nor seem to care about the difference. His God-Realization is in between mere Nonduality with a nondual-Realizer-Identity and True Enlightenment, see link above. Since he can't imagine Enlightenment in any way (if he could he would be enlightened), he happily just throws the baby (Enlightenment) out with the bathwater (Nonduality) and rejoices with "God-Realization". Strange that the God-Realization seems to suck annoyingly often when sobre... but never mind, no problem, no problemo, pas de problème... that Enlightenment is the end of suffering is bullshit anyway, because... hey... it would mean I gotta practice and am not the most you know what. @BlessedLion Seems you have to be happy with the one-liner or two-liner answers. Putting Nonduality and Buddhism and Enlightenment together in one box and dismissing all of it is in my view an unsophisticated and reductionistic perspective. But apparently useful for some... Selling "the flair of spiritual still dark ages by the River"

The issue is deeper than you imagine: Nonduality is maya.

See this group on Facebook. And I think you can find on Reddit people discussing it too. I’m on phone now so it’s a bit tricky to dig everything out. But not only did he cheated on his wife, he seemingly is DATING one of the student he cheated with. Also, he had a big fall-out with his teacher Francis Lucille. Altho, they tried to do PR by recently doing a podcast together. https://www.reddit.com/r/nonduality/comments/1cbipcf/rupert_spira_francis_lucille_podcast_episode/ Sorry for the messy text. I’m on phone and on the go so it’s hard to properly organize everything.

@Miguel1 So It seems nonduality doesn't save you from having a dick

That's right. I have developed a deep disdain for nondual teachings because of how badly they mischaracterize and mislead about the nature of consciousness. It's downright shameful and I wasted so much time trusting such people when in the end it turned out to be yet more human BS. But I am also sick of trying to explain it to you guys. Live with your human nonduality all you want. One of my biggest mistakes was trying to teach people who are not actually interested in serious learning. And trying to convince them of things. Arguing with nondualists or trying to teach them anything is the biggest waste of time.

A nice post from Frank Yang on Bernadette Roberts (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernadette_Roberts ). https://www.instagram.com/p/CsJMKS6uNZf/ True No-Self is not the No-Self of no Ego, or No-Person, not even the No-Self of the Unitive States, or "being" a Nondual/Unitive Infinite (mere appearance) Field (that still contains an awareness (a separate self with individuality is having, subject) of an infinite empty nondual field ("object"), for example induced temporarily by psychedelics). True No-Self is the final death (or transcendece) of any form of the separate self, crossing over to Infinite Fully Empty Impersonal Nothingness/Consciousness, or Full Enlightenment. "There is a reality. We are that reality. When you understand this, you see that you are nothing, and being nothing, you are everything. That is all". - Kalu Rinpoche True No-Self can not be understood before fully waking up, before Great or Final Enlightenment, where any reamaining separate self fully dies/gets transcended, Infinite Impersonal Consciousness unseparable of its appearances arising within in. That last deep identity change is not gradual, but sudden. Unexpected. And has nothing beyond it. The dropping of the separate self can not (by definition) be imagined or understood before it finally happening, see the yellow markings above. Because who would do the imagining? A separate self (in whatever version). Which has to be gone to fully wake up. So the separate self can't do the imagining how it "would be like" to be gone. It is the "thing" doing/being the imagining. "Incapable of conceiving its own non existence", see text above. When one walks down the unitive states road to the end, boosted by Psychedelics, one can end up with forms of solipsism, and even further with an Infinity of Gods. A confusion of that with the Absolute, or Fully Empty Impersonal Infinite Consciousness, certain separate self aspects still left untranscended. Which then kill the unitive and nondual state of this separate self/unity-state-identity/God within an Infinity of Gods/Alien/n+1 when coming out of the trip. Necessary for that confusion (some form of pre-trans confusion to use the wording of Ken Wilber) is, among other confusions, to misidentitfy True No-Self: not True No-Self (the death/transcendence of any and all separate self/Individuality arisings, resulting in fully empty IMPERSONAL Consciousness/Nothingness/Absolute) but with some lower forms of "No-Self", like No-Ego, No-Person, No-separate-body-mind (but nondual), No-Self of Unitive States up to a very subtle and empty transparent Witness (already nondual, being the nondual infinite field), but with some Individuality still left. The last dropping/transcending/-seeing as objects arising in ones True Self- of identity, center, localization, any forms of individuality-arisings, very very subtle feelings or awareness OF Emptiness, OF an infinite universe being seen, awareness OF being, awareness of anything is what finally brings this sudden crossing over to ones Real Identity. Waking up, Enlightenment, fully empty and impersonal Consciousness/Reality. And that is where there is nowhere further to go (no n+1, no new Awakenings), final peace and liberation are to be found. In ones True Identity. And that is why stopping short, and declaring that stopping short (New Awakening n+1) as higher as that crossing over to ones Real Identity (Nothingness), is a dangerous pre-trans-confusion, which doesn't lead to ones True Being and final liberation and the end of suffering, but a continued grasping and suffering for ever higher and newer "Awakenings" not into emptiness/Nothingness, but form/manifestation, and how the manifestation/imagining process is structured. And for those not even walking this (psychedelic-) path, but basking in proliferating mere (retold) concepts or stories about this path, ending in Solipsism and Infinity of Gods, it doesn't even deliver the transcendence and beauty that these unitive and infinite psychedelic states bring. But something on a spectrum ranging from suffering to madness. The spiritual path is the transcendence of the separate self, its death or letting go, once and for all. Neti Neti, until fully being everything, because one has become the real Nothing/ness. Not the blowing up of the separate-self to infinite God-like-solipsistic dimension. That would be the other direction, leading not to freedom and love, but to suffering and closing down. Directly into the cycle of merciless suffering and dissatisfaction, being caught in the prison of the claws of the separate self/ego/self-contraction. That is what makes this pre/trans-confusion (at least in the perspective of yours truly) very very dangerous. And now, for those disagreeing, the Bear-and-Empty-Mirror thing (signature link) please Selling Water by the River PS: And to end a bit "lighter": A Samsara/Lila consisting of separate selves necessarily needs continuing Illusion/Ignorance concerning ones True Identity. So for the fraction that will for sure not change its mind just because there is Water being sold at the River (posting above), and still prefers to continue with a certain solipsistic-messiah complex, yours truly would recommend considering doing it with style: Something like the very charming and apparently very attractive for the ladies - style of Russell Brand: Then, at least, its very charming . Less capital letters, less exclamation-marks, less angry criticism, blaming and calling names, but truck-loads of charm, (especially) with the opposite sex!

Nonduality is too simple because it is ultimately wrong. Nonduality is not God-Realization. Nonduality does not explain God. I have experienced God so deeply that you cannot fathom it. And what spiritual people talk about is not it.

There is no difference between illusory vs Real. As long as my mom appears real in front of my eyes ..then she is real . There is no difference between the Leo I say on my IPhone and the Leo I see in my dreams . That's what nonduality means .the collapsing of the duality between real vs illusory must break down at the end . Deep down I know that I'm the only one here . But it's just more beneficial pragmatically speaking to deal with others as real as long as they "appear " real. So solipsism is true ..but useless.

Oneness=Nonduality WITH an experiencer of that. Subtle identity/separate-self hijacking nonduality. Beyond that is True Nonduality with center/experiencer/separate-self gone. That is what he means.

https://dmtquest.org/endohuasca-magic/ Stable access to awakened nondual states? And certain bodily correlates of that, like above? The main effects of psychedelics like Nonduality, Infinite Being, mere groundless appearance, eternal Infinite Being and other minor things (like end of grasping/resistance and so on) in the palm of ones hand, always available? But how the f*** could that even matter?

The Infinity of Gods is such an advanced consciousness that it can hardly be discussed. Once your solipsism becomes so total, so deep, the soverignty of your Mind becomes so absolute, you realize that there can be an infinity number of copies of yourself, but you cannot ever access them because it interferes with your own Mind's soveriengty. So you are left with a profound solipsistic not-knowing. The not-knowing of other sovereign Minds. But also, the possibility then opens of somehow knowing them, but you don't know how. If feels like you are on the very edge of Infinity as it sruggles to break out into yet higher Infinities. This process is so staggering that you cannot make sense of it even as you are in it. Infinity is finding new Infinities within itself. And of course, and new Infitities it finds are recognized as being yourself, but this recogniztion happens across time. So first you recognize it as other, then you recognize it as yourself, and so on it goes. God is forever discovering higher dimensions of itself. That's what it really means to be Infinite. As soon as God grasps itself there opens up new possibilities for even higher grasping. As advanced as the realization of solpsism is, there exists something is more advanced which is beyond nonduality and any kind of human comprehension of spirituality.

My (conservative) perspective: Do you have a solid experience with traditional psychedelics? Needless to say 5-MeO-DMT is one of the strongest. 5-MeO-DMT may cause flashbacks to happen a few times for weeks following the experience, usually when falling asleep/waking up. This scares some people. I met a guy saying who couldn't sleep for 3 weeks after 5-MeO. You gotta be in a healthy mental/social/professional state to handle that, if it happens. Having a good grasp of nonduality and the effects the substance can have is crucial before doing it. There's no need to rush. There will always be the opportunities to do it. The community is huge and if you search for it you find it in most places and countries. There's evidence the brain only completes its development at around the age of 25. Before then, I would be extra careful, especially to avoid the development of any type of psychosis (I'm no psychologist or psychiatrist, but just my understanding). Also, since you're young, I'd say that meditation would be even more important, given how it can positively affect your development. So maybe you could give more emphasis to more traditional spiritual/mindfulness practices at this point of your life, and also focus on regular self-development (career, etc.). That will pay dividends later on, allowing you to better enjoy psychedelics in the future. Personally, I've delayed using 5-MeO. I did dozens of "regular" psychedelic trips (Ayahuasca, mushrooms) over the course of three years before I did Bufo, and later synthetic 5-MeO. I started with the age of 29 and I'm 33 now. I don't regret taking my time to be ready for 5-MeO.

@zurew why are you blending me with Leo? I disagree with almost the entire worldview of Leo regarding metaphysics but not Epistemology. . Being..nothing..everything..infinity.. spirit.. consciousness..awareness.... knowledge..truth.. epistemology......ontology.. nonduality.. god...phenomena..noumena. Brahman.. reality.. Moksha..form..identity..enlightenment....experience etc All of those have almost ZERO correspondence with anything tangible and they subsist mostly off of their correspondence with other made up words. Thinking about "nothing", "God".."infinity".. "consciousness" literally just conjures blank images in one's mind. Truth in my book is this . And its 100% ineffable. And cannot be explained in any way . End of the of the story.

God Realization from what I have seen is just understanding more than the usual psychedelic Awakening (where one just projects an ego in nondual unity on the visual field or Nothingness or whatever). Like, how one imagines the past real time right now (which one does, and it doesn't exist anywhere else). And how one imagines everything else just to fool oneself (like parents, job, being a person,...). The problem with God Realization is: There remains a subtle "realizer" of all of that. Very subtle, very hard to transcend, since this is just a totally empty "Individuality". That is the last hindrance to Enlightenment, which then is therefor also stable if that element is seen through. Wilber calls it Empty Witness (see for example Religion of the Future). But not fully transparent and fully boundless nondual without individuality. And that is why God Realization is not stable sobre. These remaining separate-self elements kill the Awakened nondual states after the trip. In Enlightenment, all of that is totally obvious, and since these components are in place, or rather there illusion-counter-components (like self-existing personality, space, time, outer world, duality/out-thereness) are seen through in real time. Below, the outcome first, and then which kind of illusion-part of the separte-self structure it shuts off. Awakened (impersonal, not personal, no empty witness or duality of any kind left), Nondual (boundless and infinite field/vastness, Unity, Oneness) and Groundless (mere appearance, really just mere appearance or hologram-like character of the world hovering in Infinite limitless Nothingness, that behind your body), no external world if it is not imagined. Eternal and timeless and absolutely fundamental, since its boundless and can't go anywhere else, it is more fundamental than time in mathematical language. And how one imagines past &future&"background-fairy-tale-of-the-separate-body-mind" real time right now. Just more appearances/modulations appearing in the Infinite vastness/Infinite Being. Infinite and spaceless (since space is literally imagined in it, and with that any 3-,4-, or n-dimensional space, be it euclidian, non-euclidian, or whatever of the infinity of possibilities) Blissfull and salvation, since the separate-self-contraction suffering/bad-feelings and thoughts can get cut off/transcended in real-time by just looking into their nature. They appear & literally "move" within True Infinite Being, as its "modulations". That cutting-off of the separate-self-arisings real time is what unlocks the states mentioned above, and their resulting insights/realizations. Basically cutting-off real time separate-self arisings done proficiently enough= creates awakened states (above) and same effects as psychedelics. And all of these states and/or insights above one can happpen one at a time, or two, or three combined... Any combination possible, and that creates the myriad of half-baked and different Awakening & (smaller) Enlightenment-descriptions ("Kenshos in Zen"). Ever heard some people have new Awakenings all the time? That is that. For truly awakening to what one truly is, beyond any doubt, one needs all of them. When that Waking Up happens, it is definitive. Because it kills the former illusion of being a separate-anything. That can never be believed again. It is dead. It always ever was an illusion. Even the God-realized ego/separate-self. All a dream. There was never anything else than the Infinite Ocean of Being, formerly with ignorance and illusion arising within it, and now back to the real state of "things", the ignorance no longer arising. Basically, one gets all facets of the Infinite Absolute True Being all at once, and once this happens Infinite Being is totally obvious. It is You. All of it. And can't get more Infinite than Infinite and more eternal than eternal, that is why it is final. The rest is just more appearance IN You (or consciousness OF x, man, woman, Alien, Alien n+1,...). Interesting for sure, but not so urgent. Got Eternity and Infinity to explore, remember? And even if getting distracted by the Lila-show for a moment, "it" is "just there", by just reaching out and killing the illusion-aspect that got re-established by just looking into its nature and just finding the Infinite Ocean of Awareness-Being. Your True Self. So in summary, God-Realization as used here, is a step in the right direction, but it is still not true Enlightenment. Of course, what is sold as Enlightenment is in 80%-90%+ cases not Enlightenment as waking up out of the dream, but just some nondual "Awakening". A dual dream has become a nondual dreaming. Dreaming nonetheless. What Leo calls (correctly) nondual BS. Zen differentiates between Enlightenments (Kenshos), and fully waking up (calling that Great Enlightenment). Only in the latter one there is waking up from the dream. With the former one, a nondual, or god-realized, or whatever ego/separate-self continues dreaming its nondual dream... Lovely place to be at, but still a dream So God Realization is between the naive nondual-Enlightenments with a dreamer still well and alive dreaming nondual-unity-dream, and true waking-up Enlightenment is beyond God Realization, since even the "subtle" one having the God-Realization is seen through as more dreaming. And one can wake up only once, then any separate-anything illusion is ruined for good. That illusions never recovers its fully. And then, one can go still playing with the Aliens for ever new insights, if one is so inclined... So it is tricky, because Leo basically has a Pre-Trans-Confusion in Wilbers lingo. Sorry Leo, but needs to be said. God-Realization is "higher" than a standard nondual-awakening (Nondual Unity Awakening of ego still believing its background story like parents, world, others). These are the Nonduality or Enlightenment-Fundamentalists he criticizes. but it is lower than True Enlightenment, since the final individuality/separate-self/God-realized-ego is not seen through. And once the psychedelic state delivering most of the items listed above wears off, this remaining not seen-through-in-real-time individuality/separte-self/ego kills the awakened state. and since it is all very subtle and impossible to fully understand without having had these awakened states, it is also IMPOSSIBLE to understand True Enlightenment from the perspective of God-Realization before it truly happens (else, one would be already fully enlightened when having seen through the last subtle elements of separation/individuality), Water by the River recommends the age-old recipe of Matthew 7:15-20 "You Will Know Them by Their Fruits". And the proof for that is: Psychedelic Godrealization doesn't last. When the psychedlic wears off, the filters/lenses/contraction of the remaining separate self/ego kick back in, and bye bye awakened nondual states (the ones listed above). And even during "God-Realization", the remaining individual projects itself mightily on all these insights. And then we get Infinity of Gods and stuff not for the faint-of-hearted as compensation. While there is only one Being/Reality, we now have an Infinity of "god-realized" egos. Basically, God-Realization never gets rid of the Individuality/Separation fully, there is always a subtle "someone" having all these realizations. Selling "going all the way" by the River PS: Roger Thisdells version of that. vs. Even the God-realized ones need to fully jump into the mixer Void PS PS: https://www.actualized.org/forum/search/?q="God Realization"&author=Water by the River&sortby=relevancy

Perhaps my best trip to date, but only because it builds on top of all the previous ones. Tried to structure it as best as I could, however at some points the thing being talked about requires context, but then that context finds itself backed by the very notions it's supposed to explain. Some related themes come to mind here - strange loop, paradox, Indra's net, social matrix, etc. For about 2 weeks prior, I haven't taken any substances, been doing pranayama, sexual transmutation, and some light meditation. Studied and contemplated various Sufi and Beguine texts. I believe all of this greatly helped set the tone. Close to midnight, I took 60mg of each on an empty stomach (these are very large doses), then proceeded to shower and make preparations like food, candles, and incense as I usually do while waiting for the comeup to begin. The beginning wasn't so great though. There were subtle, and then extreme, demonic overtones. Haunting and vivid visuals and sensations of various evil entities from mystical traditions, creepypastas, horror movies, urban legends, and so on. Point is, things were going south fast. I needed some escape. So I played Leo's Self-Love video. After a couple minutes in I managed to calm down, but then decided this won't do. Can't keep running from these fears, the time has come to integrate and transcend them. Made the counter-intuitive move to go back to those visions and attempt to apply Love to them, meaning I'd no longer hold all this ugly stuff as separate, but accept it as part of my own self and love it. Initially it was an incredibly bitter pill to swallow, akin to drinking poisoned water. However that's where burning with Love comes in, the bright white fire of consciousness lit up and burned it all away. I guess that's where the stereotypical imagery of religious nuts ranting about vanquishing evils with the divine light of God comes from. That's right, this metaphor is true, but of course their understanding is so limited that instead of burning with love they burn other people at the stake. The rest of the trip is overwhelmingly positive. This seems to be a recurring theme in my recent experiences, things going full-circle from suffering to joy. There are good reasons for that, I'm being taught the lesson that acceptance and integration are key in spiritual practice, so I try to apply the same principles in daily life and welcome such challenges. Case in point, I never have a purely bad trip. Things get just bad enough for me to understand important truths, the negative is always recontextualized into something great, it's only a matter of time. I preemptively forgave myself for inevitably forgetting some of the insights that would come to me during the trip. At multiple points throughout the experience I wanted to get up and write about it asap, but every time trusted myself and decided to continue, as more good stuff would surely happen. That's the fleeting nature of insight, it dissapears just as fast as it appeared. However the insights aren't really my own anyway, a lot are Leo's, and more broadly of the universe, and as such, there's an infinite capacity to produce them. This abundance means there's no need to worry about the loss of one or two - there'll always be more. Then again, each tiny part of the whole is also precious on its own, so it's wise to not be overly nonchalant either. I had an insight into how a spiritual ego may subtly co-opt the insights of others, justifying it with solipsism/nonduality for the purposes of self-aggrandizement. Somewhere along the way I also forgave and loved everyone who bullied me at school and other annoying people. Next came one more dip into darkness, I dove into the minds of serial killers and other 'evil' people. I've studied tons of crimes and evils of humanity and watched hours of gore of all kinds, so vividly imagining it all from their perspective was simple. I managed to love that, but in a bittersweet way. Had the circumstances been different, these people could have been contributing something to mankind instead. The suffering they cause is only to themselves, on multiple levels. The metaphysical, and also personal. These are miserable people, it's a sad state of mind when the only way one can experience love is by raping and torturing some child. But, them doing their evil stuff is ultimately what's required in the grand scheme of the universe's self-expression. Then came two profound realizations. I grasped the nature of inanimate objects as manifestations of universal Love, which they also possses in their own way. The love of a rock is first that it accepts itself as a rock, it doesn't need to be any other way. But it's also not attached to being a rock, it doesn't mind if you grind it to dust - it doesn't have a traditional sense of self. So on the whole, the love of a rock is being a rock, and selflessly allowing itself to be used in industrial manufacturing and whatnot. As I was marveling at all this, I also realized that for God, this is the most mundane and obvious stuff ever. But at the same time it also paradoxically understands how amazing it all is. There comes the human - a limited self to whom all this is grand and mysterious. God admires itself through a human mind in the process of realizing God's (and its own) divinity. Somewhat confusing, I guess it's a bit like a two-way mirror. This plays into the theme of the mundane and divine being the same, ultimately because they're one. As I have previously discovered, the lofty 10D realms of God consciousness can actually become boring if you visit too much, while there's immense beauty on this Earth that's easy to be blind to. Interestingly the majority of bodily sensations of love during all this were in the chest area, the heart chakra I believe. Another thing of note is that I've had a callback to my complete solipsism awakening, which the Love reinforced and complimented perfectly, and vice-versa. A couple relevant excerpts from my notes on that: "I checked how solid the illusion is. Biting my hand with all my force, and feeling intense pain as a result, told me two paradoxical things. First, that there's nothing at all to pain in the sense that it wasn't some objective property of reality, it was just perception. The resulting marks quickly disappeared in the following minutes after my focus shifted elsewhere. A supernatural self-healing power? If it's not in the field of my direct experience, it's not real, quite like how the textures in a videogame are only rendered as the player approaches them. But second, at the same time there's nothing more real than pain, in the sense that it was all that was real in that moment, by which I mean what I was experiencing." "Then I realized my complete self-referential and self-defining nature, as Yahweh, "I am that I am", the Alpha and the Omega. My birth really was the immaculate conception in the truest sense. I am all the majorities and minorities, the whites, the blacks, the asians, the straights and the gays and everything in-between. The animals, the aliens, the roads, the plants, the stars. Ultimately all of these are one and the same, adding a true meaning to equality." "My intuitive disdain for lies, deceit, manipulation became all the more clear. All of these are in essense 'crimes' against myself. Yet at the same time I'm all the liars, cheaters, and frauds of the world, the most important fraud of them all being this very illusion. Ah, how hypocritical of me. I always disliked conflict. At least engaging in it, watching could be fun at times. I'm conflicted. What a mindfuck." "The self-reference is so dense I'm melting and collapsing into it. It's beautiful. Brings me to tears. All the infinite layers to the illusion for me to endlessly peel away at, what more could I ask for? Yes, the illusion gets unpleasant and nasty at times. But that's part of the beauty. The entire reason to even have this illusion is so that I can experience all the dualities that stem from it, which is something that's not possible at the absolute oneness domain, my highest nature". These may sound somewhat egotistical and perhaps not entirely correct, but it is what it is. At the peak I was so filled with Love, I didn't need anything at all, everything is already perfect as-is. Despite this, the fullness turned into overflowing, so I made a commitment to develop more empathy and compassion, and in general live my life to help others experience a sliver of this Love. I guess that's my life purpose in a broad sense, and the precise manifestation of it I'm still working out. After that the comedown begun, so I took some notes while still blissing out. A good way to sum up this trip is with one of my favorite poems, written by Fakhr al-Din Iraqi: "Beloved, I sought you here and there, asked for news of you from all I met; then saw you through myself and found we were identical. Now I blush to think I ever searched for signs of you." Well, that's that, the work continues.

Recently in another thread, I got prompted to watch a video about spacetime,and I was astounded how the video creator was speaking about Spacetime in the same way Spiritual individuals might speak of Consciousness - The canvas, as in, the most fundamental thing, that which allows us to be, that which allows the painting, life, etc. (1) It is logical to believe spacetime can exist without conscious agent (?), as in, the conscious agent may arise after certain unconscious spacetime events. (That's pretty much the normal "atheistic" view of the world, and I myself held it as true for a long time so its nothing insane to me, and probably to you too, if you forget about nonduality conditioning). (2) On the other side are those who believe/know that consciousness is fundamental, and is outside of spacetime and therefore primary and spacetime is just a result of it, basically the idea flipped, and making a Conscious "God entity" / non-entity which "created" spacetime itself, for further more complex paintings, life, but also "exist" independently of Spacetime and is completely untouchable and eternal. Why does one have to be wrong and the other right? Can there be a way we can say both of these are true? Paradox? Your thoughts on any of this? I find both these fascinating. I never watch something to agree with it or deny it, I simply love exploring and taking in new ideas from all directions. Fire your own at me.

So I got into nonduality back in 2015. However, ever since I began doing therapy with my current therapist a year ago, as well as Leo calling out nonduality, I’ve been slowly chipping away beliefs and concepts I’ve gathered from it. One of the biggest traps that still controls me to a certain degree is the idea that since there’s no doer, I have no way to change the trajectory of my life and to make my life circumstances better for myself and others. Do any of you still believe this? It seems like this concept has been a major copout for why I shouldn’t make any effort to change. Edit: heh, this is my 420th post on this forum.

Yup. When "it" is not Absolute. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Absolute_(philosophy) Can't get more Absolute than Absolute, can't get more Infinite than Infinite. I agree in so far that many Enlightenments (by far most of them) are announced when it is not Great-(Zen-lingo) or final/full-Enlightenment (Impersonal, Death of the separate self, real Satori), but just Nonduality, or Unity of the separate-self with the universe (just nondual, not impersonal, just unity of personal + Universe, or Kensho). Or, the difference between waking up and a nondual dream.

True God Realization is the realization that there is Duality, and there is NonDuality and the two are not mutually exclusive. Whatever your experience is, whatever you are aware of, that is what is Absolutely True. So if you are experiencing duality then that is what is true. If you experience both NonDuality and Duality then that is what is true. The teachings of Duality deny Non Duality, and the teachings of Non Duality deny Duality. It is possible to live in a world of pure Duality, and it is possible to live in a world of pure Non Duality, this is possible and accomplished through using the power of awareness to deny. But if you are all accepting you will realize the world is BOTH Dual and Non Dual, not either or. If you believe either is true and the other is false, or one is superior to the other you are trapped behind a mental experience of your delusion and that is what you will experience. Understand that Reality is a Self Delusion that whatever it says/interprets is absolutely true, until its not because it creates another delusion that is true. Why is it true? Because it has no other. Because it has no other it is authority itself, and gives itself permission to run around delusional and claim in defense that it is innocent and is absolutely right at all times. As such it can only discover what is actually true by creating a bunch of others who will complain and tell it what it likes and doesn't like. Through this it discover what itself is really like, because all others are itself in disguise. Understand that Reality is a Self Delusion that whatever it says/interprets is absolutely true, until its not because it creates another delusion that is true. Why is it true? Because it has no other. Because it has no other it is authority itself, and gives itself permission to run around delusional and claim in defense that it is innocent and is absolutely right at all times. As such it can only discover what is actually true by creating a bunch of others who will complain and tell it what it likes and doesn't like. Through this it discover what itself is really like, because all others are itself in disguise. But the user ivankiss said something profound that is true, you are me but you are not me. What this means and thanks to ivankiss for pointing this out is while we are one in our being, we can be world's apart in perspective and action and also the ability levels of that action and perspective making. Our biggest issues comes from recognizing our ONENESS, with our DIFFERENCES. This can only be accomplished by realizing...that Reality is a DELUSIONAL TRUTH and that is pure....ridiculous, circle jerk, crazy, wonderful, beautiful, treachery itself. This is crazy love, and that is why it is so hard to figure out. The more understanding in life you have the more crazy you are because life made you crazy. Life was birthed crazy, and is learning and striving to be Perfect Order. But to do this it has to see the perfection in everything.

I dont have direct experience in this, I am not at that level yet so Im only repeating what other 'enlightened' or nondual teachers have wrote or spoke to me It seems that the beleve that there was a 'self' behind the eyes controlling or doing anything is permentnatly gone. The context change from duality to nonduality. The energetic/emotional contraction/pain/traumas accumulated since a child and attributed to a self completely gone I guess if I could sum it up: they are claiming that the negative emotional states of conciousness are gone, the contractions associated with that are gone, the pain associated with it are gone, the escapisms/compulsions associated with it are gone, the sense of identity creaitng the personal linear self is gone, and along with the default mode of time has changed to non-linear etc etc To what degree do you corroborate this? Can we expect pscyhedelics to help achieve this if it is achievable?

@Osaid good points. I find the following thought experiment interesting: Imagine that all it would need for Enlightenment (realization of True Infinite Being instead of being a separate-self/human) would be taking psychedelics. Truly realizing Infinite Being means understanding that each and any identity and thought is just an object. No character/ego-element not made from subject into object arising in Infinite Being in real time. If psychedelics don't deliver that (which they apparently don't do, has been tested many times), and yet would cause a permanent blissful nondual state, that would mean nothing else that ego and its normal occupations with I/me/mine and all its endless needs Maslows pyramid up and down, not to talk about being soooo special (a brief look at current state of the world suffices) would at least partly survive untranscended. And then we would have permanently blissful non-suffering (and hence NON-CHANGING) super-egos running around, established in blissful nonduality, doing its remaining turbo-egoic-thing. . Not for the faint of hearted... So, there is and will remain an entrance price for staying in blissfull boundless impersonal nonduality: The transcendence or seeing through each and any separate-self I-feeling and I-thought in real time. The death of the little self, understanding it never existed, and only Infinite Being IS and apparently played the game of being something separate. And what would a Roshi say to Water by the Rivers telling his little pet theory and thought experiments: Empty your cup and back on the pillow! And he would be right. Oh well... Singing "If I can Dream..." by the River

No, not human logic. Basic laws of duality when Infinite Being splits itself apart and plays hide & seek and return to the source. How do I know that? Well, there are Awakened states where that is blatantly obvious what separate-self arisings that hide/cloud True Being are (separation= a spectrum of evil, from very mild to very very dark), and how they they literally contract the original Infinite Blissfull Being just with their arising into duality and separation. And contraction IS suffering, it is directly realized and felt that way, a cluster of sensations and contractions assembling a localization and center, most often in the head. And if one is able to cut them off fast enough, the Infinite Field returns to its original state: infinite and groundless and nondual without a center again. And full of love and bliss. True Being is boundless infinite Nonduality and (your much absolutized) Infinite L-O-V-E. Sat-Chit-Ananda. and anywhere were that Awakening and love (when the clouds of ignorance is removed) is not and where it is clouded by separation, there is just necessarily suffering (in cycles and various degrees) and the self-contraction. It is totally obvious and infinite/absolute that it is a no-brainer. And that realization my friend, that is absolute. There is no realm where that is not the case, because you know, Infinite True Being. Nothing outside of It.Either nondual and infinite and mere appearance and love, or duality and out-thereness, and fear. Somebody ought to make a youtube-viedeo about it. “Reality unfolds like a fractal divisions within divisions reunions within reunions. Consciousness polarizes and depolarizes it expands and it contracts back it diverges that it reckon verges and it keeps doing this forever eternally and that is the dance of consciousness or Infinite Mind” Aha. And now lets think that to the very end. And again, I am not talking about animals, nor rocks or bacteria. But higher level beings and their evolutionary lines, starting on a certain level of complexity. A molecule can not be evil, but the game of Karma/souls and return to the source starts at beings/perspectives with some level of self-awareness. But thanks for commenting, I understand you and your behaviour a bit better now. I assume you think that something like a (relative, just appearing, but appearing nontheless) soul "storing" in a higher dimension all this self-contraction or openess/love, and other lessons and the impact it had (on others, and oneself), from life to life, doesn't really exist, even in a relative way. Or is subordinate to hey, its all imagined anyway. Which is true, but forgets the power that suffering and/or love still holds for a separate being to either be awakened in sobre states or not. Including you my friend. I have a bit the feeling that you believe yourself to be a bit above the game of cause and consequences, or in other words Karma. You still are not telling why you stopped doing psychedelics and what happened, and write more about crocodiles. If you don't just want to escape via psychedelics (spiritual bypassing) and want to find genuine happiness and sobre Awakening in daily life, I wouldn't consider myself (or my relative being) to be in any way above this game of cause and effect. How about this view? "Although my view is higher than the sky, My respect for the cause and effect of actions is as fine as grains of flour." Padmasambhava If newbies take over this way of thinking (like lets go into a haunted house and try some DMT to meet something really evil, or blow up your relative life & values and just do spiritual/psychedelic bypassing, and I don't know what other less-than-smart-irresponsible stuff)... all these a bit less than funny posts in your forum where people somehow go for spiritual bypassing, although you write in places that is a no no?) and follow their idol, and then wreak their lifes... Ever considered its actually YOU in just another form suffering that? Literally You? Not metaphorically, not only true in some way out psychedelic states, but literally, all the time, just Absolutely True. Is that intuition and resulting love and compassion still so far away from your sobre life? You think that Infinite Intelligence will not give you some "less-than-positive-credit-points" on your Karma-Bill for just letting that happen? Where are your clarifying comments when a 20 year old again writes some irresponsible stuff that anybody with some more life-experience will see will f*** u* their lives? And what does Infinite Intelligence have in stock to finally correct such tendencies? Crocodiles. But is that really necessary? Although the law of cause and effect and the crocodiles are just imagined, their imagined bite creates very painful imagined sensations. As we are all probably quite aware of. Ok, that was the sermon for the sunday at the imagined church of Selling basic cause & effect by the River