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Now I have another proposal for modifying the hardcore nonduality teachings who say that things are only apparently happening. The true perspective in my opinion is to say that things have apparently happened in the past. But what is happening now IS happening, not apparently happening. How do I know that I'm not deluding myself? What if there is an actual past separate from the now? My answer to that is that my model is consistent with my actual direct experience. The mainstream view of a past separate from the now is not.

Another simple spiritual teaching is the extreme form of nonduality that people like Tony Parsons and Jim Newman talk about. They even say that nothing is happening. Maybe they mean that no-thing is happening which I would agree with, but it's unclear what they mean. And instead of saying that something is happening they say that something apparently is happening. In my opinion that ironically makes their teaching more complicated than it needs to be. It's more direct to say that no-thing is happening. So there is something happening! It's just that this something is not a thing like some material stuff. The word 'apparently' then becomes redundant.

“Bud” ? There really are no individuals my man. It’s actual. There is no ‘he’ which has a clearer understanding than ‘you’, and ‘you’ are not the individual ‘knower’ of who among ‘other individuals’ has a clearer understanding. There is likewise, not actually an individual, which believes itself to be a reliable source. You - are saying that, and that you are, and that there isn’t that ‘you’, is totally between you and your source, so to speak. Nor is there anyone else’s beliefs at play here - literally just your own. That is textbook projection - telling someone else what they believe. lol. Come on man. This is fundamental deconstruction. The agreeing & being a moderator verbiage only reveals your own perspectives about that subject - you are saying that. There is no & no one understanding nonduality my man, it means not-two (as you know, just a point of relevance to what you said - about ‘me’). “You are not a reliable course in these areas whether you believe you are or not” - again, come on dude. You can’t see that’s all what you are saying? All projection? There isn’t actually an individual ‘here’ ‘stuck in a belief system’, that is the whole ‘thing’ you’re missing! Nonduality! ? ”It takes someone to be completely selfless...” that there is not a ‘separate self’ ‘in the body’ is actual. This nonduality ‘stuff’ is actual! “Someone that is not awake should not be attempting to guide individuals on this section of the forum period” I mean, really?! You might be having an ‘off day’ or something, but come on. Are you even reading what you’re writing? I wish you only the best. If we were sitting together, I’d be the first to open a beer for ya and tell you I love ya, and appreciate all you do. You also can feel free to make whatever accusations about me you desire to, and I hope it is some form of relief.

Every finite symbolic dualistic system will necessarily have self-reference problems that cause contradiction. Because reality is infinite and one, not two. Nonduality forces every dualistic system into contradiction because twoness cannot grasp oneness. See my video about The Metaphysical Implications of Godel's Incompleteness Thereom. All logic and science will forever be incomplete. This has been formally proven by Godel and Tarski.

My life has no known meaning and I am passionless. I have spent the last year or so of my life doing the best I can do to transform myself for the best. Specifically I have worked more on "practical aspects"(emotional intelligence, meditating and being more proactive) of self improvement than "existential aspects"(like understanding nonduality or metaphysics) and i have reaped enormous benefits. My life has had huge changes obvious to myself and others. I was lazy and eating disgusting unhealthy food all day and acting out angrily to my children, wife, coworkers etc. I now eat healthier than anyone I personally know, workout at least 4 times a week and have better control over my emotions than MOST people I know. But when it comes time to get out of bed it has to be FORCED and not because im tired but because i cant think of a reason to get up. Chasing physical health is becoming my crutch to feel like i have a purpose or goal but I don't. Not even a little bit. At this point of my life, even after all of this improvement, I am just living to die. I just dont know what i want to do. I cant think of a life purpose that would excite me. I have no passion. Seriously ive put considerable thought into this and I'm lost. At this point i wonder if everyone will have a personal purpose. This IS discouraging as much as I wish it wasnt. What now? Just keep swimming?

btw I am in no way claiming that there is nothing to discover or to drop this, I am all for it and I am on this journey. I am playing angel's advocate here and saying something extreme. That The IS US, the GOD you've known as allness, allthatisness, beingness, Everythingness is still not Absolute. Absolute is BEYOND That. The GOD beyond the God. The GOD which can never be KNOWN, even by the God of Awareness. By all means this journey is absolutely fantastic. But lets remove the arrogance from this. The God of unknowing will always remain hidden, even to itself. Absolute is more absolute than the absolute. I cannot know this, but I somehow know this. Might sound jibberish and coming from ignorance, but I have touched something, I have touched the Heart and it says : HUMBLE BOYYY HUMBLE! DONT SAY YOU KNOW. That's a great attitude to have. What if the GOD experienced is just as ignorant as the ignorant person, just on a whole nother level. We are talking locationless and timeless here. There is enough space in the Absolute for a deluded Everything, deluded GOD. No one knows what is meant when we point to this word. lets enjoy this, in both knowing and not knowing. Both duality and nonduality.

Sounds like you may be having similar hookups to Someonehere, so I thought I'd share with you what I shared with him. "Ok to clarify again what I'm saying since you seem to boil down what I'm saying to the field of thought/perception/human consciousness, and as such those capacities are an inherently limiting and couldn't possibly see beyond into what possibly may be? Is this kinda your contention? Because ya, its sometimes good to have healthy skepticism and know your limitations and place so to say. However, in relation to that train of thought, what I'm saying is the fact that thought/perception/human consciousness or just the acknowledgement that comprehension is going on this moment "exist or is taking place" is proof in of itself that "something" is going on no matter what its cosmology or ontology, what ever this mystery is, IS or IS taking place, and its taking place before you even write it down or put it into words, and its obvious because this interaction is going on now (although I am now since we are talking). Its so simple its almost stupid, forget what nonduality, god, consciousness means, thats not what I'm talking about. Im basically saying, I don't know what anything is, but "something" is going on and what ever it is, is going on, like duh. Then if you get the stupid simplicity of that, and are not longer trying to figure out what exactly that may be, simply ask and maybe recognize, could what ever the mystery of whats going on, not be going during the inquiry of doing so, and if no, then whats going on now..... the mystery of what is? Pretty stupidly simple and may seem unimportant, almost like saying salty tastes salty right,...... right.....AMAZING.

Ok to clarify again what I'm saying since you seem to boil down what I'm saying to the field of thought/perception/human consciousness, and as such those capacities are an inherently limiting and couldn't possibly see beyond into what possibly may be? Is this kinda your contention? Because ya, its sometimes good to have healthy skepticism and know your limitations and place so to say. However, in relation to that train of thought, what I'm saying is the fact that thought/perception/human consciousness "exist or are taking place" is proof in of itself that "something" is going on no matter what its cosmology or ontology, what ever this mystery is, IS or IS taking place, and its taking place before you even write it down or put it into words, and its obvious because this interaction is going on now (although I am now since we are talking). Its so simple its almost stupid, forget what nonduality, god, consciousness means, thats not what I'm talking about. Im basically saying, I don't know what anything is, but "something" is going on and what ever it is, is going on, like duh. Then if you get the stupid simplicity of that, and are not longer trying to figure out what exactly that may be, simply ask and maybe recognize, could what ever the mystery of whats going on, not be going during the inquiry of doing so.....?

Sharing my nondual understanding.. This understanding is in my eyes the pinnacle... You can't get past it..this right here is the end of all questions... So listen up and please try to understand what I'm sharing before just going "neo-advaita trap" on me. Really let this shit in First.. and then go ahead and disagree lol. Nonduality means not two. Reality is not two. This is the only basic fact that I'm gonna use. It's not gonna become not two in the future. It is not two right now. Now you have a trillion and one questions about reality.. Notice that all your questions are nothing but duality. That's what a question is. Asking a question =creating a duality. If you are conscious that reality is one thing.. What the fuck do you ask about? Why do you create imaginary Dualities? . Let's take an example and then apply it to whatever questions you have. Do I exist? There is no answer to this question. Why? Because the question is just duality. And reality is nonduality. I= a duality or a distinction. There is I.. And there is other stuff out there that are not I.. But see there is no such things.. No self and no other.. Just ONE being . Exist= a duality or a distinction. Existence and non-existence. Now you will say there is no such thing as non existence. It's only existence. But see existence is a distinction.. If you make sense of it.. It becomes a distinction. If you mean THIS.. THIS is not existence or non-existence or anything you think it is. This is just fucking this. And you don't know what this is because there is no one separate from this to know this. You get this ? Now apply that to all Dualities.. All questions.. All distinctions. What do you get? You get nothing. You get the present moment. You get just fucking this. You get reality =reality. You get silent. You get I am that I am. Every question is false.. And That's why there are no answers.. Because there is no question. Every item on every question is an illusion. A distinction that isn't real. You can grasp this now.. or you can keep spinning the wheels of the mind until your mind collapses and then you will just grasp this. So why not take the easy route and just grasp it right now? That's it if you fully grasp this you are enlightened. You will understand all of reality in one shot. Not the details ofcourse .... But the details and the you and the understanding will be all happening within this lense.

After reading AH Almaas description that duality couldn't exist without nonduality and that anything nondual exists within nonduality, I had a peak experience. This was in 2015. Being that my capacity as an artist is arrested at the level of a second grader, I chose crayola to create my artistic expression of this. That is ultimately there is only nonduality but within are pockets of dualism. That's Nisargadatta's statement after his enlightenment in the upper right. "Nothing is wrong anymore". Not even my bad art.

@Mikael89 can you say anything or ask any questions without creating a distinction? See now you are creating a duality between duality and nonduality. See you are just spinning the fucking wheels again . You don't get it yet.

Lets take a step back and make things simple. I see more mindfuck than necessary. Je suis I am The quality of I am is common in all experiences and all people. The masterful Jesus had a message of staying present to the Iam being now. Not that I can be sure, but that's what I gather from my limited understanding of his teachings. When we put i in Jesus we get Jesuis, which translates to I am in french. It appears french has a pretty good pointer. Let the I ( Jesuis) get more known to the I am, by means of directing awareness on the locationless I am, rather than immediately associating the I am with a form that is localized in space and time. Notice how you always associate the I am with a form, even if you've been in nonduality for a long time... Its sometimes a very subtle form of identification with form, but its there. Now Bring some more light ? to the locationless I by staying present to the Je suis in which all forms arise and letting That know itself. I am trying to be most precise and helpful in this, i don't want to confuse anyone. Tell me if you need clarification on this "exercise". Love

Ok, interesting, please elaborate on my framing, beliefs creating the situation. It seems that something like mowing the lawn, doing homework (and other forms of effort) is akin to actual (rather than thought/imagination) sensations like migraines and physical pain. It feels as if actual effort is being taken place, that there is some form of doing Ok How To Stop Being A Victim - The #1 Reason You Are Stuck In Life Take responsibility not necessarily blame for everything in your life Who is responsible for your quality of life? Take responsibility for all stuff, even stuff you think is out of your control - Success Easy to take responsbility for Failure Emotions Accidents Circumstances Relationships All Other - How you respond to situations is in your control? - Growth, don't plateau or decay Aim for exponential growth - Victim I'm a little bitch who can't do anything Fighter Reality is harsh, dog eat dog, constant conflict Creator Everything can be accepted or improved upon At Peace Simply existing, everything is just happening with no control Creative energy is flowing through you Responsibility vs. Blaming Responsbility is not blaming/control You have control on Your thinking Your interpretation Your reaction Your actions Your feelings Responsbility is about response Either I will create the circumstances in life I want OR I will fail at creating the circumstances in life I want But I will create the happiness I want ---> Paradigm shift Brain is good at stories, excuses, complaining, whining and blaming To keep you from going out of comfort zone to pursue greater Self-deception, self-sabotage, manipulation You have to trust yourself a lot but also have to not trust yourself at all Excuses always seem to be real, real life Epiphany, realization that you don't have to be a victim No more victim thinking Take control of every area of life Academics Health Career/Finances Romance/Sex Any problem you can decide to take it on as a challenge You control everything Realize and take responsbility "I can take on the challenge" Its fearful because you realize you have to put in work, put in a lot of work, to start thinking radically different Your level of personal development has to be able to overcome certain level problems It takes a large amount of emotional labor and challenge Hard massive action, you have to take massive action It doesn't work for you because your not taking massive action Have role models so you can realize how much of a pussy you are "I only got one life and I have to make it work"?~ Say you know what, fuck the ego "I want results in my life, I want happiness" Take massive action Every angle, direction to find an solution Find some way for it to happen, some way to cope at i Identify this negative self-talk, victim self-talk (and that’s where you need to take massive action in) Not only about working hard but also about working smart (find new techniques or new strategy) Victim phrases "I cant" "Its impossible" "its to hard" "Life is unfair" "I must" "I need to" "I have to" "I should" "I've never done that" Time to learn, that’s why you have a brain "What if I fail" Try again, massive action is required because there will be massive failure "Its (____)'s fault" "I've already tried that" Take massive fucking action and it will be work for you, you need to have persistence, sometimes you need to try 100 times, 1000 times before it works "You massively overestimate how long you have tried stuff" "Never" "Always" "I'll try" "Maybe, I think" "I'm not good enough" "I'm not capable" "Its to much effort" "It just won't work in this situation" "There's not enough time" "I don't have enough money" "______ is holding me back" "That’s all great for young people, but its to late for me" "Its too late" Its never to late "My life situation is such that I can't do it" "Its easy for you" "But how" Do research, role models, books, study, videos, process of trial and error, massive fucking action Until then you have to trust yourself - Full creative authority The quality of your life is only determined by you, your thoughts and your actions - Even if you are a victim, act like a victim, its still your responsbility Its just whether you realize and take control that its your responsbility or try to ignore it How To Stop Being A Victim - Part 2 - What All Victims Fail To Understand - Health Fitness Diet Money Situation Relationships Marriage Children Career Business - A victim thinks the external world is a greater obstacle to him then he is to himself You are the only obstacle Its your mind that is the obstacle If you are lacking any results that could be reasonably attained within reality, your mind is the obstacle, you are the problem If you are a victim, you don't believe me - Levels of understanding Surface Intermediate, Secondary Really Deep Level, Recognize as principle - They don't see all the ramifications, see the possible of self-deception, bullshit and self-sabotage Your own mind is deceiving you - Don't worry about the "external world" Boss holding you back Enemies Business competitors Economy Wife Genetics Not beautiful Upbringing Not confident, etc. Worry about the following Mental filters Attitude Limiting beliefs Judgements Unquestioned assumptions about reality Lack of introspection Visualization Images you run through mind Monkey mind, how it chatters on and on without stop or control Model of reality Emotions and reactions Your thoughts and beliefs about reality Your morality, good and evil Habits that you cultivate or lack their of Self talk, how its out of Consciousness, awareness, how little mindfulness you have Ego, affects of ego to people, "outer world" and to yourself Don't spend to much time worrying about physics rather than psychology - Reality is a projection of your internal world Reality is imagination/thought If you are a victim, part of your internal world or Pyschology You think how you think about the world isn't that insignificant "I have real problems to deal with" - True vs. False Beliefs This is beautifully deceptive, your not going to take time to look at thoughts, beliefs, not going to do introspection Your problems are created by the mind, problems are not things that exist in the external world Problems are features of the mind Its you who attributes meanings to situations in the external world All these things are parameters of your mind, how you hold yourself relative to reality There is no problem without the mind The problem is actively created, sustained and created, mind burns calories Problem is like a creature living in your head It seems like your problems are "outside" but they are all imagination/thought, the mind You have to see ramifications, grasp what is being said Until you recognize you are creating these problems, then you won't be able to let it go These is foundation, preliminary to self-actualization Life will see hostile, unfair, depressing and cruel either in all of life or this specific area Your unconscious, and resisting becoming conscious This is beginning, preliminary, foundational work It becomes impossible, almost impossible for anyone to help you Every avenue of a solution that comes forth will be denied by your mind Your mind is searching for solutions in the wrong place Imagine for a minute that the inner world is all that matters in this life Working on the external world would be useless Stop gullibly believing your mind Your mind is not your friend The self is a tricky bastard Your mind will frame control you Your mind frames everything in life, every situation in life Sets the foundation, parameters, reference point People frame control you Marketings use it to associate things, frame control you They want to make the $100 seem like it isn't really a lot Sleazy marketing technique Look into belief creation, look into belief creation that you go through Humble yourself As soon as you grasp, you will take all this seriously Pyschology, philosophy, contemplation ,meditation ,mindfulness, nonduality, intuition, wisdom and truth The most burning issues, you will become a student to these things Only then can you get the value from the videos You will lose all the value, meat of the video Exercise Select one area in life where you are victim Write all justifications for why you can't change in this area, why its impossible, why its not your fault Identify how the problem identifies seems like an external problem Identify how the problem is actually an internal problem Watch out for justifying the external problem How am I creating the obstacle What am I avoiding by creating this obstacle? What must I believe to be a victim? - Maybe you agree everything in theory is but in practice, when applying to your life you think it is something different, something special - All those problems are victim mentality, all these problems are internal and solvable, they have solutions Stop being arrogant - All problems are interconnected All problems are internal, mind, Pyschology I do see how a lot of the negative experience, suffering was created through thought stories, amplified thought stories. Help me understand how my current framing has created the problem. How do I eliminate this? Is there any way for me to reframe and make everything effortless? (Make homework effortless and pleasant. Make chores effortless and pleasant, etc.) Also, it seems like there is something else than simple thoughts, imagination and beliefs on the situation. Let me know if I am deluded but when mowing the lawn or doing homework it seems there is an actual physical or mental sensation, that is in actuality rather than thought/imagination). Like the straining of doing the tasks is an actual sensation that is unpleasant. This seems even more clear with physical tasks like running, etc. Is the issue of suffering from emotional/mental labor and "sufferable" effort something that can be solved? Can you make everything effortless? Can you make the sensation and experience of effort disappear? How do you not suffer when doing work, labor (uninteresting, dull, boring, "pointless", non-enjoyable, menial sorts of "sufferable" effort)? Or further, how do you not suffer when feeling bored or having actual physical pain or migraines?

I'll give you some, they are in my wish list, I haven't bought them yet. "Interior Castle" by St. Teresa of Avila "Experiencing God Directly: The Way of Christian Nonduality" "The Spiritual Guide" By Michael Molinos

Yeah I would recommend some christian mysticism. Contains some deep level metaphysical stuff. Nonduality definitely not excluded.

The more mainstream nonduality teachers probably have the same message as Tony Parsons but delivered in ways more suitable for larger audiences. I found this new video with Mooji talking about how it takes a lot of energy to be a person and it takes no energy to be oneself, he said. My take on it is that the transpersonal stage removes the friction caused by the personal stage. And that removes the personal effort.

From a relative perspective there are things like acceptance and nonacceptance. But notice that from a nondual perspective even acceptance is impossible. The same with surrender. And of course the same with nonsurrender. At the personal stage this is horrible! The whole point of existence at the personal stage is to be able to do things. And the personal stage is a very high level of development compared to animals and plants on the evolutionary scale. The transpersonal stage as I see it must be some form of realization of the impossibility of doing anything. And at the same time the transpersonal stage is a higher level of development so there is more power, more harmony and more capacity for doing things. So the tricky shift necessary then is the realization of non-doership without becoming a victim or a helpless robot (depersonalization disorder). Nonduality teachers, especially the hardcore ones, talk about nobody doing anything. I will take a look at Tony Parsons' latest video to get a sense of what it means to be nothing, which usually sounds nihilistic to us at the personal stage of development.

So, I actually contemplated these too in a super nonduality rampage. Here are my replies 1) Where do thoughts happen? Why are you feeling them inside your head as sounds? Does it mean they are located in your head? If no, why am I hearing them inside my skull? Are thoughts created from within your identity, so after the perceiver percieve the avatar or are they coming directly from you (the perceiver)? First of all you have to define what a thought is (in a human comprensible way). A thought is a "container" that includes an energetic charge and a content. The content of the thought is added as soon as the energy is perceived and then processed in the form of perception inside of the ego. Each thought therefore contains not only a verbal content, but also a specific energy charge. The energy is exactly the energy coming from consciousness. That is why there are "positive" and "negative" thoughts. By positive and negative we mean the energy charge coming directly from the substrate under the forms (the consciousness). Memories and thoughts SEEM to be separated from the external word. It seems to you they are part of a container called identity (together with the image of your body and many other things). There is an identification with your identity, which has a specific form and specific boundaries. That's why you perceive yourself as separated from the rest of reality. Thoughts are connected to your identity, because for a specific thought to happen, there must be some kind of perceiver who percieves and then transforms the energy as a thought. Because you identify yourself to your identity, thentime you feel that they are "your" thoughts, but they are in reality are just thoughts floating in the void. Therefore, you perceive that sounds are generated by forms, in which you DO NOT identify yourself, because you identify yourself with your "human" ego. If you focus on perceiving from where sounds are coming from (just tip your finger on something), you will notice that those sounds are not really coming from the contact between forms. It SEEMS to you that touching a form with another form causes the sound to happen and that you perceive it, but if you are aware enough, you'll see that what it really happens is that a form is touching another form and then you hear a sound. You as ego add the meaning that touching a form with another form causes the sound to happen. In reality, you'll see that those sounds are perceived out of nothing. They are found in some underground texture layer which lies behind the reality of the forms: the nothingness/consciousness. This means that nothingness is practically creating energy within nothingness which in turn is perceived by identity and channeled under the form of a specific perception inside your ego and perceived in different ways (in the form of sound, smell, thoughts etc.). The thoughts come therefore in the same nothingness where the energy that is perceived as sound, movement, shape etc. is located. They are all generated in real time (in the present moment) and are just floating in the void. This means that there is no difference and separation between your thoughts and external sounds but they are only perceived different due to the degree of separation caused by identifiying yourself in a human ego. 2) Who is then really thinking? The perceiver or the avatar? Thoughts are then NOT created from within your identity, but rather channeled from consciousness INSIDE the ego. The ego interpretes then the energy and percieve it as a thought. So, who is really thinking is the perceiver and NOT the ego. This means you basically have no free will, because the one who is thinking it's not what you believe you are, but rather the perceiver (consciousness). 3) What is the difference between perceiver, perception (awareness) and perceptions (sounds, smells etc.)? Perceiver: the "true" self, the "true" I, the quantum field, consciousness, infinity. It is infinitely full of energy and empty at the same time Perception: Perceiving=being aware. Perception is infinite being. Being = Being aware of itself as a being without forms. Perception can be at the same time finite too, if there is a finite perspective from which is possible to perceive a reality Perceptions (sounds and smells etc): Perceptions are interpretations that take place under finite form (inside the ego) of consciousness energy. They all have precise channels (tactile, visual, auditory, etc.) Perception is something that happens not only in a infinite way, but in a finite form too. If there were no perspective (a form), there could be no perception of reality, because there would be nothing finite through which the infinite can perceive itself in another finite form. So perception is connected to a perspective. You are "the eye" behind your identity (your perspective) and see reality through the lens of your identity (a perspective). There must therefore exist a perspective for perceptions to occur inside a finite reality. Perception itself exist outside the ego and not inside, because it can perceive itself infinitely without limiting itself in a form. This means that perception is an infinite mechanism, but also finite at the same time, because as soon as it percieves reality through an identity, it becomes finite and cannot experience ALL reality, because it's constraining itself under a specific ego and finite form. That's why to experience ALL reality you must die. Because you don't have any finite form anymore. In fact you as a human being, being finite, cannot perceive ALL the infinite but only the finite in an infinite way (plus nondual insights, that are parts of infinity). This means that finite and infinite exist only conceptually and not really. Another thing I discovered is that infinite is infinite not only outside of finite, but inside of finite too. That's why reality is a fractal. A fractal is a finite picture with specific forms where you can zoom in infinitely and obtain the exact same forms from where you started zooming in. 4) Do perceptions (sounds, smells etc.) exist? If yes, where? Yes, they exist in a specific form as soon as they are channeled from Consciousness inside a ego and interpreted (see question 2). 5) Do thoughts exist? If not, why? Same as question 4. 6) Is there a conceptual difference between a thought and the content of a thought? If yes, which one(s)? Nope. The division is only done by you. Another important thing I discovered is that there is a misconception about what forms are. Forms are NOT ONLY things you can see. A form is something finite that's material or not material that can be percieved in ANY way. This means that a sound is a form, a thought is a form, a book is a form, a smell is a form, a picture is a form. They are all forms, because they are finite. Mind is then both the container of finite forms and the mechanism used by consciousness to create a finite reality. So all what's happening is happening within the realms of the mind. On a personale note: I feel I am reaching a breakthrough. Either I am suggesting myself and I made out all these insights or something is happening.

LOL you have to do it this way right? ? I guess you are wrong then (you didn't explain your position anyways you just said go contemplate it) . You tell me who is it that knows and where is the boundaries between the knower and the known? What I'm saying is there is only absolute knowledge which is direct being itself. There is no knowing via duality or a medium of separation. That's what nonduality entails. That's absolute knowledge that cannot be false because it's direct. If we assume separation then all sorts of "how do you REALLY know" nonsense questions start arising which are just based on false assumptions. Aye

All other minds that you think exist are imaginary. Homeless guy is imagination that exists within Direct Experience (DE). There is no different point in eternity. Again. The sandwich, the homeless guy, and everyone who judges are imaginations within Consciousness. Choice is also imaginary because it implies someone who is choosing, which is also duality. When you have non-dual awareness, there are no distinctions between anything. You won’t even have an idea of an earth or your own name because all of that is duality within nonduality. No such thing as objective anything. All you have are first-person appearances in Subjectivity. Who is it that decides whether you are selfish. How do we know that they are right? Another thing to consider is that selfish cannot exist without selfless. If somehow selfishness is able to be found on a tree, it is the selflessness of the tree the allows it to exist. They both define each other. Without selflessness, selfishness loses all of its meaning. But then again, there is no meaning. It doesn’t matter if you are selfish or selfless from Absolute perspective.

@Intraplanetary sit and truly inquire "why there's form rather than formlessness?". Why does consciousness goes out of its way to imagine all these experiences in the first place? Let go of everything you know and hold to be true and sacred. Even all the knowledge and experience you have from non duality. The ultimate answer is TO BE. To understand that deeply you need to inquire this seriously. Then you'll understand why to live and why to play the game at all. Basically, nihilism flowers into existential-nihilism which is really open-ended. Nonduality is beyond that.

I decided to open this topic to share some important insights I got after my last psychedelic trip with you. In this trip I reached for the first time a state of enlightenment. Indeed it was partial and it lasted only few hours (so it was only an experience of enlightenment), but this helped me to get a better understanding about enlightenment, common misconception around it and start pondering Love and other deep metaphyisical concepts. I know I am still at the beginning with my understanding (e.g. in comparison with Leo's teachings) and I still have to chop much wood, but I figured it may help many of you and maybe spark interessant discussions Please share with me your thoughts/correction and your own insights. I hope you enjoy it! 4.1 - Self-Love and Love 4.1.1 - What is love? (baby don’t hertz me, no morse) Everything is Love. We created universes with Love. We created different life forms, planets, stars, physical laws, identities and much. This extreme commitment and care invested in creating something unique and wonderful as the Creation is the most elevate form of Love. True Love knows no moralism or judgment: there is no distinction between good and bad. Think about when you do something spontaneous to help someone in difficulty. You do that as an act of love, without judgment or moralism. The same is valid for the Creation. From a higher perspective even wars, rape, violence, mutilation are forms of Love. In our form, we cannot see them as Love, because we have a moral compass and we judge things with good or bad. This does not mean we have to accept violence, rape and murder. This only means we have to accept these things too and find a way to live better with them. E. g. think about pedophilia. Having desire to have sex with a child is as natural as having sex with a woman with big breasts or with a man with sculpted abs. There will always be pedophiles. On their perspectives they have this desire of having sex with children. It’s not good that children are raped, but we cannot ignore the fact that there are pedophiles. If we shift our perspective to one of love, we can find solution to recognize them and prevent them from committing crimes. E. g. trough virtual reality porn with children, which are actually not armed, because they are fake. 4.1.2 - What is self-love? There are two kinds of Self-Love: 1) Identity-related: You love yourself for the one you are with all the bad things you committed (e. g. cheating, killing, raping, lying etc.). 2) Universe-related: Your sense of self expands to encompass others (even bad things as wars, rape, murder etc.) and the entire universe. This is the biggest and purest form of self-love, because you love everyone and everything unconditionally 4.1.3 - Love is acceptance and surrender Love means accepting reality and renouncing to your personal egoic needs to discover more about Love and to love more. To deepen your self-love, you have to let all go, accept yourself and all the bad things you did (most difficult thing to do) and all the bad things in the world. Are you ready to love that guy who stole your bike, the bullies who bullied you and your abusive mother? 4.1.4 - Love has different degrees There are different degrees of Love: 1) Love for someone: This is usually the one with a high degree of attachment and self-deception 2) Love for something: If you love a thing which isn’t even alive, it’s probable that you’ll develop some kind of attachment to it 3) Passions: Passions are among the purest forms of love. Having passion in what you do is really important in life 4) Universal love: This is the highest and purest form of love. This is bondless, formless, infinite and unconditioned 4.1.5 - Love is limited by your form Your identity (and so your body) are limits to reach universal Love. You have to die to return to Source and thus to the universal Love. You can still reach a high degree of Love when alive by spiritual developing yourself (especially with enlightenment). 4.2 - Religion, authority and direct experience 4.2.1 - Religions are based on authority and not on direct experience Religions are based on a sense of authority paired with dogmatism and not on direct experience. Let’s take Christianity. If you ask a random person, if he had even seen God or had some kind of experience to prove his existence, he will most likely say no. So, he is practically believing in the word of the Pope and in what it’s written in the Bible without having experienced God. If you ask him to prove you the existence of God, he will mostly say, that he exists because it’s written in the Bible and the Bible is word of God. If you ask him, how he can be sure that it was the word of God and if he can prove it to you, he’ll say to look in the bible, thus evading the reply. Many other will resort citing miracles, particular experiences happened to someone or maybe even experiences he had themselves, but no one can actually prove that God exists through his direct experience. Many people have even the false belief, that’s impossible to prove God existence. You can indeed prove that God exist and you can prove what/who is God. God is you and thus everything. It’s not a separate entity who is sitting somewhere in the sky (where exactly? Can you point it to me?). Method of discovering it are through psychedelics, deep meditative states and through self-inquiry. 4.2.2 - God will manifest himself in a way that’s understandable to you There are Christians who had experiences of God, like saints and such. These experiences don’t prove that the biblical God exists. There are other examples of people who experienced Allah or other Deities. The thing is that the Creator (You) manifests itself in a form that’s understandable to you, so if you speak Italian and are catholic, he may talk with you in Italian and will have a big beard and a white tunic. 4.2.3 - The importance of the direct experience Direct experience is king. This means that until you didn’t try something in your direct experience, you cannot express yourself fully on that matter. E.g. if you believe that the world is round only by having read that in scientific books/articles or by reading scientist without actually proving it yourself by observation and such, then you cannot say that the earth is round. This means to rely less on authority (other people, books, articles, videos etc.) and to discover, prove and disprove things by yourself. Remember that even if you take for granted what someone who is an authority to you tells, he will tell you those things due to his perspective and agenda. Don’t be lazy and look out the things for yourself and see if they are true in your experience too. Cultivate some healthy skepticism and don’t take everything for true, but strike a good balance between consolidating wisdom and being open to test it out. 4.2.3 - The paradox of the indian culture Indian culture has a richness of enlightened people and a religion which has many elements of nonduality and advanced spiritual depth. The problem is that the Indian culture is built toward the adoration of deities/gurus and spiritual masters. This means that if a new guru on the mountains pops up, people will swarm to him to learn more about him. If a new master comes up, here are the people who will storm him too. Those people don’t usually want to do the “real” spiritual work needed to reach the depth of these masters and decide to rely on them by seeking comfort, security and a sense of direction in these figures. 4.3 - Enlightenment 4.3.1 - Enlightened people have a high degree of acceptance of the present moment and of the reality Being enlightened means that you realized the true nature of yourself. You are God and not a random person with a name and an identity. We can say that enlightenment happens, because at the end there is no one to enlighten and no one is enlightened. Enlightened “people” have a high degree of acceptance of the present moment and of the reality. They accepted reality for what it is: a dream/an hallucination. For you there is no other reality except the one you see in your direct experience. Do you see another one right now? I don’t. Where is it? There is only one reality. People who are highly enlightened are emotionally detached from their identity and thus from their emotions. There are cases of Zen masters who reached a high degree of enlightenment that didn’t feel any pain even if they were physically mutilated. This happens because they have reached a high degree of detachment. At the end it’s only an arm that is being cut. Nothing to worry about, even because it isn’t real and he himself doesn’t exist. 4.3.2 - Common misconceptions about enlightenment Being enlightened doesn’t mean you are not human anymore and you don’t have to do the laundry. What changes is that you reach the realization of your true Self and become much more detached from your identity. Before and after enlightenment the life goes on and you’ll still have a certain degree of attachment to your identity (there are different degrees of enlightenment). So, it’s possible for an enlightened person to scream, being mad at someone and such, even if it’s less likely to happen. You become much more self-reliant and imperturbable. This means you’ll be a lot less reactive and you’ll notice triggers and monkey chatter as some kind of distant voices. You’ll become much wiser, calm, silent and authentic. One problem of the enlightenment is that people see it as a label and have certain believes about it. This can cause enlightenment wars through masters and gurus: who is enlightened and who is enlightened most? You tend to think you’ll have to do a checklist of things to reach enlightenment. There is a high degree of idealization behind enlightenment. The shift that must occur is seen as gigantic from a not enlightened person and as tiny for an enlightened person. It’s true that an enlightened person is superior to a not enlightened person. This is because he “hacked the game” and has a degree of emotional mastery, wisdom and knowledge that a not enlightened person doesn’t have. This doesn’t mean that an enlightened person is “better” than a not enlightened one. Knowledge is useful a lot, but you don’t need deep metaphysical understanding to be enlightened, but you can navigate better trough the insights with metaphysical and spiritual understanding and reach deeper levels of knowledge. Becoming enlightened is connected to mind your own life more, because you recognize how important and precious your existence is and you don’t want to waste it doing mindless stuff or with wrong people. Some enlightened masters are seen therefore as assholes. You have to keep in mind that enlightened people are still humans AND that their “assholesness” is just a behavior that they had due to having really high standards in their lives and have nothing to do with you. 4.3.3 - Some practical tips to reach enlightenment Detach yourself from your identity and thus abstain from moralism, judgments, speculations, interpretations, emotional triggers, mental chatter (monkey mind) and memories. You must live in the present moment. This is the only thing there is. The sense of time is just an appearance, a mind distortion to create coherence in reality and give you a sense of progression. Avoid massive multitasking and focus on one thing at the time. Practice both active meditation in blocks of time every day (e. g. 30 minutes a day) and mindfulness in your everyday life. Be as much present as possible, trying to avoid distraction, future projections, daydreaming and monkey mind. Focus yourself on experiencing life through direct experience rather than relying on third hand information. Accept reality for what it is and not for what it could be/could have been if. This means practically that you have to accept responsibility for your actions and your word and don’t waste any time saying: “I should have done this or this”. Once it’s done, it’s done. You can only control the present moment. Live in the present. At the end nothing matters. It’s all a game, a simulation, a dream. Don’t take life too seriously. 4.3.4 - The focus-on-the-touch technique to relieve stress and quickly improve presence in the present moment If you feel yourself stressful, you can use the focus-on-the-touch technique to relieve stress and quickly improve presence in the present moment. This technique is really simple: 1) Touch something (e. g. a table surface) 2) Shift your focus to your hands and particularly to the sensation of the surface on your fingertips and on your palm 3) Focus solely on the touch feeling and keep your mind clear You can expand this exercise by using other senses, e.g. hearing or seeing. You can then focus on particular sounds (e. g. you can tap with the pen on your desk) or on watching a light or simply watching your hand. 4.4 - Perspectives and reality (one vs infinite perspectives) 4.4.1 - The mind is NOT in the brain The mind is not in the brain. This is a common materialist misconception that’s derived from the assumption that consciousness = brain cognition ability = can be measured through IQ. In reality mind is a tool that’s used by infinite consciousness to divide itself in finite forms and is not in the brain. The brain IS part of entire consciousness and a subproduct of the mind. Consciousness is infinite and it’s all there is. 4.4.2 - Reality is fluid, there is no one single reality Reality is not a giant immutable block, but a fluid energy field in which forms appear and disappear. It cannot be a single block because of the existence of perspectives. What I mean is that 1 perspective = 1 reality and that each one’s reality is different from the others. To prove this fact let’s take two people: one who is colorblind and one who is not. Let’s bring both people in front of a green pine and ask both which color the pine’s leaves are. The colorblind person will say the color is red and the other one will say it’s green. Who is right? Which perspective/reality is the right one? They are both right! Reality mutate under observation through the colorblind person to perceive the same shared reality in another way. This means that reality is fluid. We can shift this example to other people with different believes. They all perceive their reality in their own unique ways. 4.4.3 - One perspective vs multiple perspective There is an existential dilemma whether there is one single perspective and all other perspectives are imaginary and therefore don’t exist or if they are infinite perspectives. In the first case it means that you are the only living being who is existing and that others are just fruit of imagination. After you died, life will not go on, because you’re the only thing that exist (you = your perspective) and there is no shared reality. In the second case it means that each human/living/not living being has its own perspective and that there is a shared reality. This means there are infinite parallel reality which are deeply interconnected one with each other. After you die, life in the shared reality will go on. You will eventually reincarnate in another thing (reincarnations are a belief, but I feel it’s highly probable that they occur). 4.4.4 - Breathing is not necessary to live During the trip I had much less need to breath. My lunges were full of air, even if I breathed very few for a long time. The idea you have to breath to live is just a belief. The most ethereal and light your ego become, the less attachment to your identity and to your survival needs there is. This has a profound meaning, because many believes we held about our survival are just not true.

@Gesundheit I see this as indicative of the topic. There is arguably no more of a “triggering” topic than understanding nonduality and mental illness. It intrinsically includes the transversing of all that can be said to be disturbing. I see that you see this as about “me” rather than the topic at hand, and I apologize without exemption for anything I said personally offensive to you. That was not at all the intention. There is no experience ‘at my end’ of you being on a ‘lower level’, nor of a me being on a ‘high horse’.

That what you said was criticism had not occurred to me until you mentioned it. Nonduality is not two. How can nonduality be shifted into? This is ‘it’, there is no ‘out of’ not two. This might bring to light a holding of nonduality as apart from something (idk what) else. ‘Ordinary talking’ is nonduality, and is not the ‘other thing’. God is common sense, unless thought makes it otherwise.

That's where nondual awareness comes in. This would be a problem for me if my identity is tied up with this vessel or some entity within this vessel or controlling this vessel. Lol! There is this nonduality trick where your entire experience is happening to nothingness itself. Meaning that you can offer your entire experience to g0d, it's God/Nothingness (beyond the labels) doing everything from this nondual state. Shine light, without fearing, because you are not what it appears. If you were something, then I get why you wouldn't want to get all this negative energy... But negative energy cannot stick to emptiness just like water cannot stick to a lotus. It's all about whether your identity is within the experience, or the empty field surrounding and knowing deeply every experience.