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No, I am absolutely not kidding about this. This past week has been the strangest and spiritually most transformative of my life. I've had a rendezvous with the eternal timelessness of the present moment; it will be interesting to see how things unfold from here, but I feel like the gods have generously handed me a big, fat, very unexpected recompensation check that has more than rewarded me for all those (imagined) long years of self doubt, self hate, disorientation and depression which had made up such a big part of my adult life. As some of you might have noticed, I have not been active at all on this forum during the past four months; the reason being that, following a particularly profound LSD experience in early October of last year, I subsequently fell into a black hole of existential weariness that didn't quite feel like a run-of-the-mill depression but had many of the same characteristics. In retrospect I now realise that this was a sort of preparation phase for what was about to come, a time of emotional purging which paved the way for the strange rite of passage which I had no idea was awaiting me. During this time, I sometimes sat around on the beach all by myself holding my head between my hands, feeling sad and helpless like a little boy that has been deserted by all of his friends, quietly whimpering words like „Please, I don't know what to do anymore, please, I cannot go on anymore, please, I have no strenght left anymore, please, I just don't have the power to sustain myself anymore, please please please please...“ - Some time in late January, I had started to read Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, and the creature's description of itself as a poor and miserable wretch that knew nothing, had no skills and no friends, had no idea where it came from and never been taught how to look after itself made a big impression upon my mind; its words echoed my own woeful inner state, and I could deeply identify and empathize with this godforsaken creature. It is also worth mentioning that I kept up my meditation pratice during these months of silent desperation, but at this point much more out of habit than real conviction; calling my entire being into question, I had also begun to wonder if all this meditating that I had been doing continuously for four years now had any effect whatsoever -- after all, here I was, feeling more clueless and miserable than ever before. Wasn't I just completely wasting my time with all this sitting around on my bed and semi-successfully (at best!) trying to become present? Cut to last Saturday, one week ago from the time I am writing down these words. I had already felt a little dizzy for two days and kind of suspected that I might be getting sick; and when I went to bed in the evening, I had the feeling that I probably would be getting very little in the way of sleep... and sure enough, I didn't sleep a single second that night (I think I slept perhaps eight to ten hours during this entire week). The first 48-72 hours of my strange Covid trip have by now already blurred into a uniform cloud of cronologically unlocatable memory fragments, so I'll just describe them here in the form of a single stream of consciousness: I am lying in bed, tossing and turning. I lie on my left side, I lie on my back, I lie on my right side, fetal position, streched out, right arm tucked under my head, no posture seems to be tolerable for more than two minutes. I start to sense a pulsating pain in my neck that nearly kills me and makes my head spin everytime I lift my head from the pillow. A feverish surge begins to wash over me that somehow at the same time clouds and hightens my senses. --- Okay, try to go into meditation mode, maybe it will help you to calm down a bit and eventually fall asleep. Relax, breathe, become present, become aware of the sounds around you, feel your body. Am I ever going to become better at meditation? You're trying too hard, that's the problem. Meditation is not about trying, it's about letting go. But how? How do you let go? How how how how how? For god's sake, four years of regular meditation, and you still suck absolute balls at this! In fact, you don't know how to do anything, and you also don't know how to NOT do anything. It is truly sad. You are completely, totally, utterly worthless. A sheer waste of space. Come on, focus again, observe the breath. It is impossible, my thoughts are too loud. They're SO goddamn loud, they drown out everything else. It seems that instead of becoming quieter, my mind is on the contrary becoming louder and louder and louder with every passing week. Is this the way it's supposed to work? Oh my god, it's just always the same thought loops over and over and over again, welcome to hell. I think I will just quit meditation and spirituality altogether, just absolutely forget that I ever heard about this fucking nonsense. I'm no good at this shit. And even if I succeed, what then? Getting rid of your ego, is this really what you want? Are you crazy? Oh yeah, it sounds so goddamn nice on paper, but really think this through now. What else do you have besides your ego? Face it, it's the only thing you got in this lonely life, there's nothing else. It is literally my only friend. - Dude, are you going to meditate now or not?! The problem is that I don't know what I want. I don't know anything, I am good for nothing, I am totally useless. I am a little stupid child that is completely lost in the dark. I have no friends, I have no skills, I don't have anything at all. I have literally NOTHING to give to others! All I have is my wretched, whiny, miserable ego. It is my only friend, my only friend, my only friend! If I get rid of my ego, then I will be left with literally nothing, zero, zip. Please, don't leave me. Don't leave me. Don't leave me. Don't leave me. I don't want to be alone, no no no no, I DON'T WANT to be alone, the very thought of god's eternal loneliness horrifies the shit out of me! Oh god, this is all so terrible!! --- But wait. Wait. Wait a second. Am I not already all alone? Of course I am. I already am alone. Here I am, existing all by myself. All alone. All alone. I am the ego, and I am all alone. So the ego and God are one. Of course... God's aloneness is my aloneness . God's aloneness is my aloneness. God's aloneness is my aloneness. GOD'S ALONENESS IS MY ALONENESS! Oh Christ, why could I not see this before? That's it! I AM GOD! Of course, of course, of course, of course! I am alone because I am already God! Haaaaaahahahahaha, that's it! You hit the jackpot! You just recognized yourself as God! This is it! This is it! THIS IS IT!! THIS IS ENLIGHTENMENT!! ------- What you just read is a grossly simplified and condensed version of a very long and meandering psychological process that unfolded gradually over the course of several days; it involved me coming directly face to face with my wounded and scared inner child, and then healing that child by reuniting it with God. It also involved two glimpses into Nonduality that occurred during two different nights; both of these are imprinted in my memory as amorphous islands of timelessness somehow interrupting the linear stream of chronological time (which itself is of course nothing but a mental construction born out of the timeless here and now). I have absolutely no way of telling how long I was gone during these glimpses – maybe five seconds, maybe five hours (again, time isn't real anyhow and the past aka memory is nothing but what you make of it, so who the eff cares, right?). I also could not say if I was awake of asleep while they happened - of course, I was neither since „I“ was not there anymore -; I only remember lying awake in bed before and after in the same position. The first of those glimpses was not very unlike what I had previously experienced during N'N DMT trips, the characteristic feature being a sensation of existential dread in the face of God's absolute & eternal aloneness. The second glimpse came very close to pure Nirvana aka. the No-State of No-Self (I have yet to try 5-Meo Dmt, so I do not have any kind of reference for this); much has been written about this state, and all descriptions are true and yet utterly miss the mark, so I won't bore you with yet another futile attempt of describing the indescribable. Suffice to say that it was nothing like I had imagined it, that it is both profoundly ordinary and profoundly shocking, that it made me realise that „enlightenment“ as something to be somehow attained through effort is a total hoax and that the story of birth and death which we tell ourselves is nothing but a fiction. The day after I had this second non-dual glimpse, I could sense myself very gradually „coming back to Earth“ even though it still all felt slightly feverish and trippy. The mental chatter that was continuing just like it always had was now happening very prominently on the surface of consciousness, so to speak, and I perceived it like one would hear the obtrusive roar of a creaking 1920's jukebox that is standing somewhere in a corner, stubbornly refusing to shut up even after the guests of the dance party have long left. The next day however, things were quietening down; I had undeniably re-entered the stratosphere and was more or less my old self again when all of a sudden, in a moment of completely sober and „non-trippy“ clarity, I realised the very simple and utterly obvious fact that there exists nothing outside of the here and now, that past and future are nothing but mental constructs and that this very moment is in fact eternal. It was incredibly strange. Nothing at all had changed; I saw reality in just the same old way that I had seen it for all my life, except that I now saw that it is (and always "had been") eternal. That's all. The obvious finally becoming obvious. As I am writing this, I feel that there is still a strong remnant of egoic energy present; I can physically feel it in my throat. But I feel very calm, very light, very grounded and very present. My body energy, which seems to be slightly increased, is floating through my limbs in soft and warm waves. It is a nice sensation. My mental chatterbox is still continuing its same old monologue, its though patterns are still revolving around the same old "I" thought. But I let it ramble on; just get it off your chest, old friend, just let it all out until there is nothing left to say. - Will it stay this way? I have absolutely no idea. In fact, I feel like I don't know anything anymore, and I also really don't care. The one thing I do know is that existence is strange and wonderful, and that God truly works in mysterious ways. I guess you could say that I have died from Covid and found out that there is no death. Thank you so much for reading this. I love you. Peace.

This discussion is just stupid. ?‍♂️ When convincing someone, if you are arguing, then you are losing. If you are trying to convince someone of nonduality, then you are not getting it.

A whole lot of misunderstandings. Harris sees no difference between awareness and consciousness. He says "my consciousness" and Rupert does not address this. Sam is not conscious. Consciousness is Sammy. The fact that Rupert's lights went out during surgery and that the world continued does not disprove Rupert's claims. Ruper seemed to have been bamboozled by this rhetoric. Also, nonduality does not exclude science, which was the main point over which Sam got so defensive about!

Are you defining enlightenment as the the absence of certain emotions in a mind-body? And if nonduality is “not two”, how can there be a difference between anger (1) and peaceful (2’)? That would be two separate things.

To create a false equivalency between Harris and Spira. They live in two different ballparks. Spira understands Harris' position. Harris does not understand Spira's. The key is to be in a position that understands all positions. Of course debating nonduality is pointless. But an unawakened person can't help debate this stuff endlessly. Spira isn't there to debate Harris. Spira is just using Harris' audience to spread nonduality. Meanwhile Harris thinks he is out-logicking Spira. Lord of Logick

When you directly realize your Self, not at the conceptual, but at the spiritual level, solipsism shows its empty hand. When your eyes open, you see the sameness, and the seamless contiguity, between all beings. That seeing dispels the lie of solipsism. Nonduality finally makes sense, not to the mind, but to the God that You are. I am only localized Consciousness, a transient wave with a beginning and an ending, but ultimately I am God, and so are you.

If it’s bringing thoughtless meditation, then it’s probably going to help you realize nonduality.

Anything becomes a dogma if you are dogmatic about it. The problem is not the thing itself but how your mind holds it. And a dogmatic mind will hold all things dogmatically, be it science or religion or spirituality or even nonduality or love. And even -- drum roll.... -- being nondogmatic. In a delicious irony, the dogmatic mind will turn being nondogmatic into a dogma! Dogma gonna dog

Epistemology + metaphysics = nonduality Nothing wrong with that. I wanted to get that clear. A lot of people don't understand nonduality and just parrot other people. Nothing wrong with asking that question.

@Someone here I watched the episode and to answer my own question. One gets nonduality (the absolute truth) when epistemology and metaphysics are merged together. That was the answer I was looking for. What I'm wondering right now is this: Leo talked about the "practical implementations of truth", is there a sequel where he talks about this? I couldn't find it through the search.

I've read books/watched videos about "ego death" and "consciousness" and "awareness" and "enlightenment" and "liberation" and "nonduality" and started to have ideas what it could be what it was i was looking for. I tried meditation and self inquiry and pointing at my face with my finger and trying to see who was looking at it and now it seems like i was just making muscles tense and making up a story about it called "finding nonduality" or "if i do this maybe i'll awaken" or whatever. I also did mushrooms and lots of weed and looking back at it now, i believed that being high = awakening. hahahahahaha Before this obsession started, those words would sound to me like some angel healing crystal nonsense. Now they are back to sounding like nonsense. Good luck with your endevours!

@Moksha Yep, those are all a series of awakenings inside awakening itself. What I mean by awakening is the permanent realization (no falling back) of source. To be established in the supreme self, distinguishing between false and real but seen it all as one. Anyways, not to go that far, I just want initiation. To be established somewhat in nonduality and then reach source permanently. After that I will do all the resting juggle leo loves speaking about.

I want to share with You what I've recently discovered. Many times, during meditation I have far glimpses that I cannot comprehend now. Not at this point, it simply won't work. And forcing myself to incorporate these glimpses, result in very strong ego backlashes. Many of Your topics are about the same issue. Nonduality is something so out of this world, that I'm simply not able to apply straight forward. Try to force Yourself now to fully accept that Your closest relatives as Your parents are not real. It's insane! This process of assimilation nonduality is very slow. It must be. It must take years or lives, I would say. I discovered that at this very early stage duality is good. It helps. When You start recognizing Your existence in every living being, first in Your relatives but afterward in everything that lives, You start providing good effortlessly because the good You deliver to others is the same good You give to Yourself immediately. The power that comes within is something very true and REAL. And this power You need to progress. Just keep on being good to the world, to Yourself. Practice good. You won't notice how powerful You become every single day. How You feel good:) How less distracted You are, more solid. That's the beginning of how You become Everybody. That's the beginning of assimilating nonduality. All rise, Her Majesty Reality is coming:) Surrender to all, don't give up:)

Enlightenment is not a thing, and is only veiled by the thoughts which support, that you are a thing. Enlightenment can never happen to you. Enlightenment is such that no one gets “enlightened”. There is only enlightenment. There are no “enlightened people”. No one’s understanding of the universe (duality) is as direct as your direct experience right now, as the universe (nonduality). Awakening happens every single day. You’re wakefulness right now.

The relief is in the truth, and in truth you chose a belief rather than truth. Not a problem at all, but it’s why you’re still believing in death, fear & sleep. I feel you are talking to me not at my current level, but thank you for the insight. I really wanted practical advice for my level. Like talking to a therapist, doing some kind of yoga, breathing, healing etc. Blame is a natural though false deflection I'm not blaming the drug, I'm just saying the effects it had on myself. Not blaming the drug, I meant the ‘lowered my consciousness’ part. Consciousness is not some thing people have nor do. Attributing what you’re actually experiencing in feeling, to the ‘lowering of your consciousness’, acts inadvertently as a smokescreen. Without the smokescreen, it’d be practical... “I don’t like how I feel, and I want to feel better, asap”. The orientation here is directly toward feeling, not ‘raising your consciousness’. In this trajectory, you’d naturally look to understand & lift the very emotions you’re experiencing, finding that some perspectives feel good to you, and some don’t. Since you’re oriented toward feeling better, you’d be inclined to choose the better feeling perspectives. This ‘path of feeling better’ leads directly to truth, which is the greatest possible feeling. It is the very ‘better feeling’. Feeling ‘itself’ is guiding you. But (purely-innocently) rather than listening to ‘it’, you are inadvertently hijacking your own guidance out from under yourself, by claiming it as some thing you have or do. This is ‘conditioning’. You learned this perhaps, from the muggles & sleepers. Sorry you had to go through that. Excited you can choose otherwise, and will be feeling better in the guidance of your true nature. Imagine you’re in college and what you want more than anything is to pass the class you’re in, which happens to have the greatest, wisest, most loving teacher in the history of the universe. But you’re hardcore believing it’s your teaching...even though something about this feels very ‘off’. Imagine that teacher happens to be mute... and so you listen, via feeling. The more you listen, the more you understand & recognize the feeling language. Just like sign language. All happens in silence. Then imagine that teacher turns out to be the truth you were seeking in the first place, and that teacher was within you all along...super practical, perfectly reliable, literally always there for ya, always loving ya...just... you were focused on nonexistent “stuff” that doesn’t feel good to you. You’d been looking the ‘other way’ for a while. Abiding by feeling, is what ‘letting go’ is all about. Letting go of thoughts, perspectives, interpretations, misunderstandings, misidentifications...as they arise...that feel ‘off’. Every time you let a not-good-feeling thought go...more good feeling is uncovered. That’s the same better feeling you’d actually wanted in the first place. Perspectives wise, “if feeling says no, it gots ta go”. Imagine brushing some lilies away, and seeing yourself more clearly in the water as you do, and feeling refreshing, clearer, looser, not so ‘practical’, more wavelike, flow, naturally concentrated & energetic, a mellow yet strong vitality of life. If it don’t resonate with the creator - wise creator stops creating “it”. By creator you mean what? What’s practical is what’s actual. You’re present, and experiencing the momentum, the unfolding, of your choices & what you give attention to. You’re creating what’s experienced next, now. Presently the focus is on fear, death and the unknown, and you don’t like how you feel. Your focus is on three things that don’t exist. That would feel ‘off’ to any one. The “unknown”, is literally feeling! Listen to feeling. Let it be known! Let it guide & lead you, joyfully. “Fear” is a label, being put upon that feeling-guidance, which doesn’t fit. Utilize the emotional scale instead. “Death” is some “thing” no one has ever seen, heard, or directly experienced. It’s a collective belief, rooted in misunderstanding and identification. As you use the emotional scale, you realize this via directly feeling this more & more. Take the wheel of focus, relish in the guidance of feeling, and make a dreamboard to co-create the life in your heart, of your dreams, with your source. Thought coagulates. You pick a good feeling thought, and more good feeling thoughts are already being pulled to it. Notice there is no actual effort, in picking a better feeling thought. It actually just feels, better. And better. And better. And better. And better. You’ll be feeling so good you’ll have to sit down and catch your breath. Between the dreamboard, daily morning meditation, a clean diet, using the emotional scale, and letting go of anything that does not align with feeling & what is on that board...you’ll have no use for the Nahm’s of this place. You will recognize this place, as your place. Your creation. A prescription has yet to be written to God - only to I’s. Big Pharma is a false icon. The tragic is that I went not too long ago to a psychiatrist that also has interest in spirituality and he told me that the drugs given to me were like the opposite of psychedelics, meaning they make your ego stronger and smaller. I can't agree with that more, The amount of suffering I experienced was insane. Imagine that not only you erase your meditation progress, but you actually make it worse than before you even started to meditate, your ignorance and attachment to ego, thoughts, self-image, selfishness increases. Because I experienced some ups and downs in life, I now do really appreciate the suffering of some people, life is tough until you get to the 'very top'. I feel for ya man I really do, I’ve been there, pills, therapy, emotional roller coasters, etc, my story was also terrible. From using that emotional scale, changing perspectives, letting go, there wasn’t any more suffering. A mystically delightful day came, and it was realized no one else experiences ‘my suffering’, nor I ‘theirs’. It blew ‘my mind’ in a more literal than figurative manor, like oodles of goodness filling up the noggin day after day, again & again. Even, and especially right now as I type this to you. Maybe talk to someone whom profit of fear & scripts isn’t feeding their family What do you mean by profit of fear & 'scripts' , what people are you referring to, is it modern clinical psychologists?. Also ,then who should I talk to instead? People who choose to sell you a solution, a product, a substance, rather than people who help you to align with our source. People who innocently just do not know, because they have not ‘done the work’ themselves. “I” can not be inside of self. Of course that’ll feel meta off. The definition of "i" is self/ ego, and it's natural to be attached to your self, and what happened to me is that I was not feeling safe because my whole reality was vibrating and I lost touch with my 'original regular self'. From there I reacted impulsively, avoiding it and trying to feel my body by touching it and 'remembering' my old connection to my body and reality as this finite self- body- identity. All definitions are actually fluid connotations. By no longer pretending something is wrong with you. Let go of thoughts which don’t feel good, and you’re on the path, awakening, already. Don’t fear the release of the belief in fear. Thank you! what do you mean by the fear as belief? Fear is a real feeling like joy, isn't it? so are you saying that joy is also a belief? or are you saying that the content of the thought associated with the fear is not true? and do you mean that I should let go of the fear, and let it disappear on it's own, or to detatch from the fear and observe it ? Fear is a word, a label, and is not an emotion one consciously creates, nor is it indicative of who you are, which is precisely why joy feels, like, joy. Joy is much more than even your true nature. Joy is the best of ‘both worlds’, joy is consciously co-creating this life with our source. There’s really nothing you need to do, not work for you to do, on fear, because it’s a belief you can let go of. This will happen quite naturally as you utilize the dreamboard & emotional scale. There are no levels in nonduality my friend, just this love. Rather than claim it or attribute it to me, know it for and as yourself.

Was a director of a company that employed people with disabilities. Left that and started a leather fashion company. Left that and become a professional touring circus performer. Left that and became a writer, specializing in nonduality fiction stories. I like to mix things up and try new life purposes.

Your instinct is guiding you well here. I share your cynicism of solipsism. It is duality parading as nonduality. If You are the Source of the cosmos, and everything out there is just an illusion, then You have created a duality between You and the illusions that you create. Nonduality goes beyond solipsism. It it the realization that everything, including the infinite variety of forms that You create, is mysteriously part of the same One. The waves of the ocean are still part of the ocean, however transient they may be. Don't dismiss life as meaningless, as so many solipsists do. God is all, including the journey of each soul back to its Source.

Nonduality Wars Episode 4 A New Hope It is a period of civil war....

@diamondpenguin Enlightenment literally, literally, literally cannot be put into words. But we do it anyways because as humans, we cannot help ourselves. The way I like to put it is that it's a non-experience. You realize yourself as the entire universe. And since you are ALL of it, there is nothing. Why? Because all bases are covered. You can't perceive or sense any of it because YOU ARE IT. Total mind-blow! A kind of creepy part about it is that you realize that there is no "self" to enlighten because all of it is already you. Following enlightenment, feelings and perceptions (how you relate to the world) change for the better. I don't yet know much else than that; I still have a lot to learn myself. My advice is to take it slow; don't try to awaken as fast as possible, because there's tons of emotional labor involved and you'll wanna spread that out over time. (It already sounds like you're in no hurry, so that's good! Life purpose is just as important as awakening in my opinion. In fact, awakening can be a part of your life purpose! ) Ken Wilber on nonduality: It is too complex to be known,; too simple to believe; too present to be grasped; too here to be felt. Best of luck.

You are consciousness, yet you are attributing yourself to your friend being “very you” (still better than “not very you” imo). He’s absolutely you, not “very you”. That arrives at “one thing”, which stands to pierce the very heart of nonduality, or ‘not two’. “One thing” is not, “not two”. For an actuality of your friend as very (or not very) conscious, you must forget you are the consciousness you’re talking about. And the miracle is, you can! How awesome are you?! Pretty awesome “in my opinion”. Your typo is actually spot on! @Mannyb Nahm is day my good sir.

This is a really spot on, precise and non-bullshit viewpoint on nonduality and mindfulness. Bottom line: people either tend to get stuck in neo-advaita, which results in endless mental masturbation and self-delusion or they get stuck in meditation/mindfulness practises and get nowhere for years or even decades. Here's the article: In the context of American spiritual practice nondual traditions and mindfulness traditions appear to be in sharp contrast. Nonduality is often associated with the “doing nothing” schools of meditation, and mindfulness meditation is often very effortful. Mindfulness meditation masters in the States commonly refuse to even discuss enlightenment, whereas nondual teachers never stop talking about how we’re already enlightened. At the extremes, these two traditions can become very critical of each other. Some nondualists think that mindfulness meditators are caught in the trap of working hard to get somewhere, and end up just building a meditator ego to replace their everyday ego. Some mindfulness practitioners think that nondualists are just playing a recursive word game (“Who is playing a word game?”) and narcissistically kidding themselves about how enlightened they are, while complacently denying their own foibles. It’s a shame that these two wisdom traditions—especially in their American expressions—are antagonistic to each other. Really they just represent the two ends of a spectrum of theories about the same idea—the idea of how to awaken to real freedom. It’s a shame, because in my opinion most nondualists (especially neo-advaitins) could use a little more of the mindfulness attitude, and most mindfulness practitioners could use a little more of nondual outlook. Working together they could, like peanut butter and chocolate, form something much more excellent than either on their own. Something we might call Nondual Mindfulness, or Practical Advaita. Does Advaita Preclude Practices? Nonduality or advaita (which includes most of Madhyamika Buddhist and Hindu Tantra philosophy, too) holds that we are already completely, perfectly enlightened. Many traditional schools of nondualism stress, however, that we need to do some practice to reveal this true nature to ourselves. We have blinders on, and cannot see our own enlightenment, and a practice (which there are many types of) will remove the blinders and allow our inherent liberation to naturally shine forth. It’s like the practice blows the clouds away and suddenly we can see the sun and sky, which were already and always there. But, due to accidents of history, American nonduality, or what is called “neo-advaita,” took the more radical viewpoint that no practices are necessary to uncover our deepest wisdom. In this viewpoint, practices are actually counter-productive because they are emphasizing the untrue concept that the ego needs to do something to get enlightened. That practice is needed to find awakening. In the neo-advaita view, the more you struggle to be free, the more you ignore your own complete freedom that is already there. The more you fight, the more you emphasize the (unreal) existence of the fighter, thus causing you to become more lost. And that’s why neo-advaita is so inimical to any meditation technique at all, including mindfulness. Mindfulness practice, to a neo-advaitin, is just a lot of effort to convince yourself that you’re not already free. A big waste of time that leaves you worse off—even more mired in delusion—than you were before. The trouble with this viewpoint is that it’s more of a philosophy than a practical application. You can think you’re free and let go of all ideas of non-freedom all you want, but at the end of the day, you may still not feel very free. For people suffering from real world problems like stress, anxiety, depression, drug addiction, relationship breakup, and a thousand other human catastrophes, being told “not to hold on to those stories and just feel your inherent freedom” can feel like an impossibly cynical mindfuck. It can make you feel inadequate or stupid, and doesn’t really help. Just like the New Age catch-22 of telling cancer victims that it’s their own fault, and that they just need to believe they are healed in order to effect a real cure (thanks a lot!), neo-advaitin sometimes people in situations of extreme suffering that it’s all their own fault — and not infrequently this oh-so-helpful message is imparted with an air of superiority and smugness. On a deeper note, if you do begin to do the (non-practice) that neo-advaita prescribes, namely to realize that your thoughts and feelings are not your thoughts and feelings, it can lead to dissociation. Constantly denying your own body and mind has a cost, and some on the nondual path find themselves stuck in the trap of meaninglessness for many years, not realizing that they have been mired in identification with this self who “doesn’t care.” The advaita view, while philosophically powerful, was not traditionally taught with no practices to go with it. For example in Soto Zen—which like most Buddhism philosophically agrees about the inherent awakening in each person, called the Buddha Nature—people are encouraged to do a practice called “just sitting” (shikantaza). Just sitting is just sitting, a practice that is not a practice. Traditionally a monk or nun would do such a non-practice, however, for tens of thousands of hours in their lifetime. For a non-practice, that is an awful lot of practice, and it has a predictably powerful awakening effect. Even the grand master of advaita, Ramana Maharshi, gave his students practices. While talking about how we are already enlightened, he taught people to meditate, chant mantras, do breathwork, and other effortful practices. If you read the detailed histories of his top students (you can do so in the books by David Godman, a series called The Power of the Presence) who were very highly respected, realized persons, he gave all but one of them such practices to do. And they practiced them with all their hearts, sometimes for decades. Ramana, in other words, understood the difference between the philosophy of advaita and its practice. (Ironically, it was someone who met Ramana only once, named H. W. L. Poonja, who gave rise to the American school of radical non-practicing advaita. This was the one student he didn’t give any practices to.) Except in rare cases, it is necessary for a person to do meditation practices to remove their ignorance of their own awakening. Afterwards, from their enlightened perspective, they may see how ridiculous it all was, but they never would have seen that without having done these “ridiculous” practices. Mindfulness has a lot to offer a nondual practitioner. For one thing, the practice of self-inquiry is a kind of mindfulness practice. Investigating the nature of the Self, asking yourself, “Who am I” and looking for the answer to that question can all be considered a kind of “mindfulness of the Self.” Most mindfulness practice as it is taught in America focuses on body sensations, but there is no reason that a practitioner cannot use the same kind of focus on the sense of self and deconstructing that sense of self into its components. In more advanced mindfulness practice, this is exactly the point. Does Mindfulness Practice Actually BLOCK Awakening? But advaita also has something very useful to contribute to mindfulness, because the advaita critique of mindfulness is legitimate and important. Again, it’s the idea that mindfulness strengthens the sense of being somebody (you, the meditator) doing something (practicing meditation) – a sense which, in the long run, is still an ego. Because mindfulness teachers very often talk about the practice as “becoming a witness of experience,” they are actually creating a safe haven for the ego, which can keep the person from realizing their fundamental awakening. You only have to spend time around some of the more long-term mindfulness communities to see the result of this misstep in action. There are a large number of practitioners who have been diligently doing their mindfulness meditation for decades, and who seem to be stuck in a particular place. They have gotten an edge or a handle on life. They’re pretty good at coping with difficulties, and they are much less caught up in the madness of their egos than the average person on the street. All of which is excellent. But beyond this, they are in a cul-de-sac. Nothing has changed in their practice for years or even decades. They seem somewhat flat or depressed. They may even refuse to acknowledge that real awakening exists, and consider enlightenment to be a dirty word. (Talk about missing the point.) The diagnosis is clear: they have fallen into the “Observer Trap.” The prognosis is good, if they can learn how to meditate on the sense of self involved in doing the meditation itself and then deconstruct that. By turning the meditator itself into the object of meditation, they can experience the dissolution of the meditator ego, and touch real awakening. It’s really that simple, but you will find few mindfulness teachers who are aware of this solution, or even of the problem itself. Although I don’t like to promote steps-and-stages models of awakening (they’re always too reductive), I believe that mindfulness could be described as a two-step process. First, you become the witness of experience. Second, you realize that you are not that witness. Virtually all of mindfulness in America only teaches you step one. Again, even step one is a big improvement over having no steps at all. However, if you are stuck in your practice, and you want to experience some of the deeper levels of awakening, then taking the second step is crucial. There are several ways to take this step. The standard nondual method is to simply sit with no agenda. Notice that this is not “not meditating,” it’s meditating with no technique. (The difference is crucial.) Another advaita technique that is applicable is self-inquiry practice, in which you look for the person who is meditating. The method that fits best with mindfulness practice is slightly more effortful, however. It involves patiently deconstructing the sense of the meditating self. Noticing the thoughts of the meditator (“This is going well today.” “Am I doing this right?” etc.) and the feelings of the meditator (happy that it’s going well, frustrated that it’s not, etc.). You can read a more in-depth description of the practice here. Get Clear: Nonduality and Mindfulness Thus the outlook of mindfulness can contribute something useful to advaita, and the outlook of advaita can contribute something useful to mindfulness. In the end, all of these distinctions only matter if they help you to make progress in your practice to reveal your true awakening. Nondualist—ask yourself if you’re just kidding yourself about how much freedom you actually feel each day. There are ways to go deeper without getting trapped in grasping, striving, and comparison, and those ways involve dedicated practice. Mindfulness-folks—ask yourself whether you’ve been stuck in basically the same place in your practice for a long time. There are ways to go deeper which involve deconstructing your practice itself. In both cases it will probably include a lot of discomfort at pushing yourself out of a comfortable resting place you’ve found to camp out in. The peace, joy, and freedom you will find will be worth all the effort. Source: https://deconstructingyourself.com/nonduality-and-mindfulness.html

Hey Leo, Hey fellas I havent found this emptiness, nothingness, void everyone is talking about and neither did it just occur. Anyhow, my question is regarding a statement of Leo's in his Quantum Mechanic video. There he states, that Physicality takes place within consciousness and not that the brain produces consciousness. OK, I got that, but that then still means, that within this timeless UNIVERSAL field of consciousness, there is a person or animal tapping into it with their perspective and that makes up every perspective(worm, bacteria, human, dog....) possible. So for example, i took an MRI-Scan which is an appearence, but it is not an appeareance within consciousness that is priviledged to me but the staff and my doctor and everyone who can interpret the taken image. But now I'm confused about the notion of nonduality where all dualities collapse and therefore there should only be one observer and not so many right? Like I believe right now that my friends and family have just as a rich experience of the world in the year 2021 like me and my dog have but this notion of other identities (perspectives) in nonduality seems paradoxical. Can someone explain this to me?

It’d be most helpful imo to be aware of thought’s about a you going into nondual awareness.... ...the off shoot is believing thoughts about there being a “duality”, and a you identified with it. Paying attention, inspecting these thoughts, unravels the pattern, and uncovers “the now”, or presence, being. That veiling narrative happens literally one single thought at a time, always in the exact same now. Noticing it is effortless. “Body” is only the thought “body”. There’s no “ghost” in “a body” attached somehow. It’s thought attachment. Meditate daily, first thing in the morning. Again in the afternoon. Try telling the story of when “you first attached to the body”. Have a laugh. ? It’s a funny story when inspected, and having a laugh when spotted, it breaks the chain. Who’s that all about there? In a literal sense, who are you even thinking about? There’s no chest moving in & out of stuff. Nonduality isn’t some kind of haunting. Right now, awareness is aware. Inspect thoughts about yourself, about time, about nonduality & duality ?.

Two. Twoness is not actual reality, but is the experience of thought, of believing thought, and thus believing in meaning. Up means not down, down means not up. Without down, up is meaningless, just air smacking lips. Without up, down is meaningless, just a sound. What happens when this illusion of twoness, of thought, of meaning, is recognized? This is the “fear” of the finite mind, which doesn’t know ‘who’ or ‘what’ it really is, because ‘who’ it really is forgets it’s own infinitude by appearing as, the finite mind. “Finite”, as in, not-infinite, not-me, other-than-me. Like a magnifying lens magnifies, a finite lens finites: twoness, thoughts, meaning, separation, this and that, up and down, me and world, me and other, life & death, love & hate, and so on. Differences in the twoness activity of the finite mind. Differences are established via meaning. Without difference, sameness is meaningless. Without sameness, difference is meaningless. Difference & sameness are the illusion of the finite mind, via believing thoughts, believing meaning, mistaking its actual reality, for any ‘other thing’, other than itself, infinity. Without fail & without exception this experience feels off, because the finite mind can believe but can not change or escape the truth of “it’s own” nature, yet there is the apparent experience of freedom (more meaning), and the finite mind is completely free to suffer and hold itself in the bondage of “it’s own” thoughts, beliefs, concepts, and meaning. It can get quite mean in deed. Thought & meaning are creator-creation-communication, of creator-creating-creation. There are not two communicating, there is the experience of communication. Expressing & exercising preferences, the appearance that is the finite mind creates appearance, with appearance, as appearance. Preferences are an appearance and are of a source, desire. Desire is love, expressing itself, via appearing to itself, as itself. Human desire is the ‘echo’ of the veiled unconditional love (nonduality) into the apparent world, via the apparent finite mind. Communicating & sharing preferences, what is not-two experiences twoness, and co-creates. In this sense, meaning (thought, twoness) is of this world. Humans (thought, twoness) are / is of this world. Experience (appearance) is of this world. You are not of this world, though by all logic it appears as if you are. (Logic, based on meaning, based on thoughts, which are an appearance). How readily available direct experience is, as thoughts are ‘magically’ appearing & disappearing now as you continue reading and projecting meaning onto a secondary source. “This world” does not have an “other world” to compare it to, because this world in actuality is an appearance. To compare a mirage to a thought of a mirage is to miss the true nature of a mirage. Thought is a mirage. Awareness is the desert of the real. The finite mind, attached already to “it’s” “differences”, refutes the truth that it is only an illusion of the desert. The finite mind can never realize, accept, or comprehend this, because realization, acceptance, and comprehension are illusion within illusion, thoughts within an illusionary “my” “finite mind”. You may not notice, but you create meaning. You are the Creator, and as such you are so good at creating, that even as you read these very words you project that the meaning is ‘coming to you’ from “this other thing”, a screen, a person, a internet. The fundamental belief is that meaning, or anything, is coming from a secondary source, a belief which perpetuates the illusion only in the finite mind not turning within upon itself and discovering it’s actual reality is The One Source That Is. The illusory finite mind believes “it’s” own illusory beliefs, and thus erroneously believes, there really are two. Always is & will always be up to you. The finite mind quite literally makes up fear, uncertainty, self doubt, frustration, blame, anger, hatred, envy, jealousy, insecurity, despair, loneliness, shame, guilt, grief, etc...and experiences the result of it’s own ignorance as stress, tension, worry, contraction, depression, dis-ease, and an overall apparent lack of well being. Well Being is indicative of, is, without condition or exception, the source and only reality of the “finite mind”, which in “it’s” own illusions of it’s own (no one else’s) justifications, rationalizations, and conceptualizations of these experiences of feeling, does not know it is already “it’s own” source. There truly is no “you” which “something other than” “you” could rightfully be said to matter, to. That is only the experience, of “thoughts”. This “mattering” is also referred to as “your” “conditions”. Whatever “you” say matters to “you”, appears to actually matter, to “you”...because “you” are the One, saying it matters, to “you”, and believing whatever that is, that it is, other than you. This is thought attachment, and why meditation is so often recommended. Whenever thought activity settles, the true nature, the already actual source & reality of the finite mind, ‘arises’, and fills the ‘finite mind’ with insight - with “it’s” own true nature. Beliefs are no more than thoughts repeated, which settle in meditation. Identity is no more than beliefs, which settle in meditation. Equally, in exact measure, when the activity of thought, belief, and identity settle, that which they truly are, which is now unfettered by the activity of nonsense, illuminates the finite mind and body and fills ‘it’ with Reality, which is pointed to with the words love, peace, passion, creativity, joy, and happiness. Psychedelics strip away thought activity, beliefs, and identity, revealing the true nature, “the truth”, “reality as it is”, or, nonduality. Beliefs and identity which have not been inspected, are still active (yet properly settled), and believed. Thus the illusion of identity ‘returns’ as the effect of the psychedelic weens. As the beliefs and thus identity ‘returns’, the finite mind claims the experience absorbing it into it’s own illusory identity, by believing the thoughts (appearing now - “memories”) in a hindsight manor, strengthening the illusion of separation, or the idea of not-source, two. More psychedelics, beliefs & identity still unchecked, un-inspected, unresolved, results in more strengthening of the illusion of the reality of the finite mind, increasing the illusory interpretations of experience & separation from the source. Meditation does not involve the experience of a secondary substance ‘ripping away’ belief & identity. Thus in meditation beliefs and identity is surrendered, and along with it, all suffering. This is witness, experienced, with sober clarity as it occurs. Thus, misunderstanding, misinterpretation, and ultimately misidentification are seen, be Clarity, or, the emptiness-fullness, or, the very source of the illusion, and the finite mind is transcended, though upon this transcendence, ‘right view’ and ‘right mind’ have come to stay, in the realization no illusion, and therefore no universe, self, world, nor transcendence actually occurred. Like all things, all substances, all thoughts, non-excluding opinions about meditation & psychedelics, and all else (experience) are clearly not-two, and this “transcendence” never actually occurred, as there is nothing to transcend, sans the appearance of ignorance, of, forgetting your infinitude. This is, you might say, to ‘God’... a Day. That is, “you” “woke up this morning”, is meaning which is dualistic, being believed. It is based on the belief you slept last night. Proper inspection, such as the scrutiny of direct experience vs thought & belief, reveals no direct experience of sleep whatsoever, and “death” is no different. “I woke up this morning” is a meaning contingency upon “I slept”, which is a belief and not a direct experience. Likewise, “dreams” of the finite mind in kind are never directly experienced, but are known in the exact same manor, as a “memory”, a thought appearing now (“when you wake up in the morning”) which is believed to be indicative of “a past”, in this case, “while I slept” - in “hindsight”, of a past, which is only a belief, an actually-now-thought. There is never the remnant of a dream in which you were certain of a “you” in a bed, sleeping & dreaming. To dream, “you” “go to sleep” & thus become the dream. Infinite Being (you) appearing now as Infinite Mind (still you) is exactly the same. But “you” believe it’s a “physical reality”, for lack of properly inspecting a dream, and thus experiencing the greatest of all experiences, the absolute best of “both worlds”, the undeniable fact that you are lucid dreaming, right now. Yet as always, the lucidity is up to you, because this is in fact, your dream. Within, rather than without, is the way. In-ception, rather than con-ception, is the way to lucidity. @ZubPrem This is not a “right” answer, this is a dream. Psychedelics, are dream. Meditation, is dream. But that was a really great question. Thanks!

Maybe not nonduality , but some thing in that direction. Alexander Bard Björn"Natthiko" Lindeblad