Search the Community

I looked up what ACIM says about lies, and found some quotes, but also this passage which is more fundamental: That's an amazing contrast to the common view of life. That ACIM quote might at first seem incomprehensible, yet it's simply nonduality. An all-inclusive perspective includes change, but we cannot isolate the change out of the whole and have it be an independent and separate phenomenon. An analogy is a wave on an ocean. The wave doesn't have an independent existence. And with nonduality the "ocean" is changeless. Nonduality itself is changeless, for if it changes then it goes from one state to another, which is duality, from "what it is" to "what it is not". Change and relativity exist within nonduality, but as a wholeness it cannot change because time is duality.

@JayG84 "If Time vanished how could anything remain?" - This is a very underrated question IMO (and great job for asking it!). Along similar lines of thinking, I've asked myself the following two questions many times before and have compared and contrasted my answers to them to help myself develop a better understanding of what might more fundamental/true (ie consciousness versus time): #1. Can consciousness exist without time? #2. Can time exist without consciousness? #1 seems possible to me, and also more likely than #2 (if I were forced to pick between #1 or #2 as being more true/fundamental), because I can imagine everything (the total collapse of all conceivable dualities into a uniform substrate/essence/being/intelligence - including all possible sensations, frames of time, dimensions, realties, etc) existing in a single moment. However, a counterargument here could be that maybe this ISN'T possible to imagine without any time whatsoever, because there is SOME amount of time required (even if it's an infinitesimally small amount) to imagine such a nondual/infinite substrate/substance/essence/intelligence that IS all of these things. I'm not sure, but it's always good to play devil's advocate. #2 seems mostly implausible to me. I don't know how time could exist without something (consciousness) to experience/witness it. I could see time and consciousness existing simultaneously though (this seems consistent with oneness/nonduality). But again, to get back to your original question and close the loop here (pun intended), what does consciousness with ZERO time look like??? Does consciousness even exist with no time whatsoever? If 'yes, then would god consciousness experience infinite possibilities in a true time-less state? If 'no,' then would something like true 'nonexistence' (not to be confused with formlessness/nothingness) be possible if the converse were true and literally everything disappeared because there was no time for anything to exist or be experienced in the first place? I have a lurking suspicion that there is more to the concept of 'nonexistence' (or something like it, if you want to argue that nonexistence can't exist because it directly contradicts itself). I know most people on this forum disagrees with this possibility, but I think it's worth investigating this further to see if there's yet another veil hiding key info on what something like 'nonexistence' might look like and how that could fit into total nonduality/infinity.

I have found Tony Parsons' nonduality teaching extreme but he said something I can relate to, that the sense of being a contracted individual can melt into the whole of reality. Very interesting! It seems like a practical possibility to me. Tony described it as a huge relief.

When a normie asks you to explain nonduality. - - - - - - When a newbie is raving to you about his first glimpse of awakening. - - - - - - When a newbie starts explaining their self-inquiry process to you. - - - - - - When someone is trying to explain to you that Love is just an emotion. - - - - - - The fist time in your life you hear that you do not exist. - - - - - - When your self-inquiry session ends and no magic happened. - - - - - - When you have perfectly explained the unexplainable.

That's fair, perhaps I rely on guidance a bit too heavily. I'm a big question asker, I should learn more the hard way. Already though I'm settling more into the realization and working with it. Awakening isn't something that happened to me, I don't possess the awakening, and I think one of the harder things to cope with is seeing how everyone is asleep and there is little I can do about it. Without a doubt the hardest mindfuck to handle is the difference between real and unreal. When I had my first real, intense and eye opening DMT trip, I had a hard time believing that any of this was real for a long time, and my awakening reignited that feeling. I'm beginning to understand that it's all real, but I guess at the same time it's not? Seems like that's the nature of the mindfuck that is nonduality, it's all the same and exists within itself. I used to think that spirituality existed on some separate plane. You chase and chase this one thing but once you have that big realization, you realize you were chasing the wrong thing all along. I'm just going to have to push through the ego backlash and learn to align myself once again with my core values. There's a beauty in the purposelessness of it all, because it's just infinite creation. Resistance is suffering, and that's the number one important thing to know in this work.

@Shiva99 have you experienced the breakthrough non-experience? Learning about nonduality may play bad role since by learning something you add some ideas, new beliefs. Spiritual work is about LETTING GO, meditation is about LETTING GO, it's not about adding, it's about losing. To lose everything for nothing. Theoretical pointers are important but they should be directly investigated. What I am saying is: let go that "it doesn't work", even don't put your attention on it, really. It works, use dreamboard, write what you want, anything which comes to your mind, work with it everyday, meditate, continue practices. It is worth it. If you are tired of all of it - 5-MeO may be your answer ALL IS GOOD NOW.

I don't know what i enjoy anymore. I've been trying to find out but it's not working. I had a passion for Psychology, and after doing the LP course i wanted to become a Psychologist, but learning about nonduality ruined it all for me. I had a dreamboard and all, but it doesn't resonate with me anymore. I can't get back the same zest i once had. Yes. Doing all of these except for the breathing. Also running 5k daily.

Nonduality means that reality is a single system. And the belief that the system can attack itself is clearly insanity. Yet that is precisely what the ego believes and through this belief has emerged the world we live in today. The ego has a deliberate purpose of developing individuality, growth, uniqueness and creativity, but that doesn't make it sane. The ego believes viruses can attack it, that other people can attack it and that it can attack itself. It seems so real to the ego for it has made it real through thousands, nay billions of years of evolution.

There are lots of nonduality speakers that present more heart-centered, rather than cognitive-centered.

I think Leo has described his personality as INTP. I get a “T” fill-up with Leo and “F” fill-ups with nonduality speakers like Lisa Cairns and Ananta Kranti.

Psychedelics can be a powerful tool in healing and awakenings. I recommend integrating psychedelics into a holistic spiritual life that also includes things like meditation, yoga, spiritual readings, nonduality, creativity and time in nature. Also give yourself plenty of time to integrate the sights of psychedelics and be mindful about chasing experiences. The same can be said about meditation and yoga. They also alter neurotransmitter levels. Do an fMRI while I’m in a yin yoga zone and it will be waaay ‘out there‘. Substances and spiritual practices aren’t limited to chasing feel good experiences. That is just scratching the surface. As well, there are bigger fish to fry than searching for “permanent everlasting peace and happiness”.

Even nonduality teacher Paul Hedderman quotes from A Course in Miracles in his new video:

@lmfao The idea of there being two paths in a sense comes to mind. That of desire being a nature of fear, and that of desire being a nature of love. I suspect you inherently, profoundly know the latter, and yet are ‘dipping your toes’ in the prior. I wouldn’t do that. You are the light and the joy. The appearance of you & your world are what creativity is. I think you’re pigeonholing the best, most beautiful aspects of your being, as something which ‘needs to die’. That perspective is mundane, and that doesn’t resonate. So “mundane” ‘ain’t it’. You’re it. The best of you is “it”, always has been, and always will be. You’re naturally lighthearted, loving & sincere. It almost feels as if you’re expecting the best of you to die. Perhaps there is a calling for more nuance in life direction, a clearer picture of what you want to commit to and create. Maybe while you could be looking at that in a light & easy going way which is actually natural for you...maybe you’ve picked up some beliefs from other people that this life & nonduality stuff must have a serious stage, a loss stage, a ‘dying of reality’ stage, etc. I’m betting it’s clear to you in your heart and in your bones that is all nonsense.

I’m saying this to try to help, not to be critical...none of the stuff above (I kind of drew out the highlights) is anything more than perspectives which don’t resonate because they aren’t accurate. This is ‘listening’ to thought, rather than ‘listening’ to feeling, and thereby swiftly knowing “that ain’t it”. We ‘wrestle the ox’, yes, that happens apparently, but we don’t give it a place in existence. It is to be seen through, not assumed & believed to be an adversary. Imo, what is accurate, is this is an initial noticing, a consideration & contemplation of actuality, but is a superimposing of fears upon the actuality still yet glimpsed. An initial emptying out of falsities, but they are being focused on, held, believed, over-scrutinized...when they could be known to be false by how the perspectives feel, and as such, simply let go. It is the narrative in spite of feeling, rather than in accord with it. It’s worrying about actuality, it is not inspecting, understanding, nor experiencing the actuality. It could be said there is ‘up side’ and ‘down side’ to this forum and discussing nonduality, but this unfortunately exemplifies the later. It is a joke, in the sense “it” is not serious. The “punchline” is that which you are worried about, and crediting fear, anxiety, uncertainty and potential loss to - is already actually you, and therefore all such perspective is absolute unjustifiable. Working through the concerns, perspectives, and understanding feeling, the experience of it, all completely valid and justifiable. Crediting this to “a separate source”, aka awakening, enlightenment, actuality, etc, is not valid, which is why sincerity feels different than seriousness. There isn’t any ‘thing’ to ‘take serious’. Sorry for The Good News. ?? I hope it’s taken as such. It could only be misconstrued as serious in the believing there is a potential loss, which there is not. A case can not genuinely be made, on a nonduality forum, that nonduality is a bad thing happening to you, with an implication it is happening to you beyond your control or focus, or attentiveness in feeling. Listen to feeling, let it slap you accross the face, that such thought fall out. When the movie of purification plays, should you be so lucky - just relax and breath. Don’t continue believing the movie. Arguably the roughest trap, is feeling the knowing of what you don’t want - and rather than deducing and implementing what you do want - in life - .....projecting the feeling which is the knowing of what is not wanted, onto spirituality, via the narratives.

This one is quite amusing: Imagine you are the women on the phone and you have never heard of enlightenment or nonduality before… what would you think?

You keeping doing salvia and you're gonna get burned. Salvia is not a good tool for this work because it's too twisted. Be careful using psychedelics which can show you nonduality but also twist up your mind.

Last week I had tremendous ego backlash. I decided to go on a date with a western girl, for some reason thought it was a good idea. She was into me, and invited me to her place the next day. I went, thought it would just be a good time and maybe a hook up, but it turns out we had nothing in common and then in got awkward when she wanted me to leave, it was so sudden. She'd been talking about all the things she wanted to do with me ("I'll take you here next week, I'll go with you there", bla bla) and then out of the blue she says "I don't feel a connection". I really don't want to believe these things, but my life experience just shows me over and over again that I can't trust women. What they say means nothing. It's one of those beliefs that can only be dropped once I'm shown evidence to the contrary, and that certainly hasn't happened for me yet. They either lie or they suddenly change their mind without hesitation. But how can you have a relationship with such a creature? I once read on some astrological reading that I will meet a woman in the second half of my life that will teach me how to trust. No bullshit, I read it, and I hope it's true. Another thing I've noticed is that most times when I get intimate with a woman these days I end up talking about nonduality, which is utterly silly. Nobody ever gets what I'm talking about, the conversation always takes a turn for the worse. But it just happens, it's a major part of my life in the last two years, if I'm asked about myself in the last two years and I don't talk about it I'm just denying myself. But I want to stop it, this need to talk about it is just that, a craving as any other. Which needs to be dropped. I realized after this situation that I'm still very much identified with my life story, at least most of the time. I'm identified with being good with women, and when I get rejected, for whatever reason, I feel inadequate. I'm identified with the belief that I can never have an intimate relationship with a woman, because I don't trust them. So the thought comes up often that I'll always be alone, and that thought is also identified with. I'm also identified with not wanting to be seen. It's a major component of the character, and I think part of me has been postponing the conclusion of the EP because there's the fear of being seen. And judged. Which means that I'm identified with the character. I'm not in a place where I can just let anything happen. I'm not free. All of this led to more procrastination, I even binged on porn, which I hadn't watched in months. The good part is that through all of this there wasn't much suffering. There was acceptance of what was happening. And a sense that there was absolutely no control over it. There was no charge to it, it was happening and it was being seen. Even now, as I write these things, there isn't much charge. I know it's all bullshit. All of this is just stories. Right now, in this moment, all is perfectly well. And this moment is all there is.

Yes, or you could say it's the only thing that is in one sense "real". You could say your "real" life is a dream, or you could say Santa Claus and your imaginary childhood friend is real. Yes, I was referring more to throwing away the pointer of nonduality itself, the pointer is the second thorn. You apparently have conditioning, you believe certain things about having been born and having a brain, etc, so by bringing in new beliefs and new conditioning ("you were never born, you don't have a brain", "you are God" etc) you can remove and destroy the old ones. In the end none should remain. There was a point in time over a year ago that I really believed nonduality was this thing separate from duality. I wasn't conscious of it. All my new conditioning I'd spend hours learning from Eckhart Tolle with great progress in my life suddenly stopped working, and the new conditioning got thrown away as new insights flooded in. I'm still working through the same pattern by considering and testing new beliefs against old ones, and throwing them away.

nonduality doesn't exist anymore than a non-apple

The only way you can talk about nonduality is by making distinctions. There's an analogy of using a thorn to remove the thorn that's stuck under the skin, then throwing thorns both away.

You see.. The same mistake you are repeating. "forms exist exactly as they are right now". But then you go on to say "all forms are identical". Again why do you need to say that?. And regardless that's just pure falsehood. You just said " me.. You.. Chair.. Table". You just stated different forms! You just did! How can you say they are identical? They aren't!, that's just plain falsehood. Open your eyes and look how these objects are undeniabley distinct and nonidentical. how can you make sense of the concept of "sameness" without the concept of "differences"? How can you make sense of nonduality without duality? How can anything exist without it's opposite??. All your statements "nothing but aware" "nothing but everything but aware but X but Y but Z" are meaninglessness statements. They don't explain anything because they explain everything!

What Leo mentioned about egos pulling in different directions preventing progress, that I believe also is what causes the ego tensions in body and mind! We literally carry around the ego structure of the whole world within us. And in ego consciousness we believe that we ARE those tensions. My new approach is to combine that idea with the test of the nonduality claim that reality is automatic and predetermined. I think it will work! The ego tensions and the belief in accidents and in being a separate entity are one.

@Trickyp Thanks bro, I'm fine now, quite happy that I'm not in psychiatry and completely sober again Glad I didn't cut off my penis @Lyubov Thank you! It's good to know I may not be a complete idiot I will trip a lot more carefull next time!!! And yeah, I probably should trip with other people rather than alone, though I know no one who is deep into nonduality/mysticism/awakening/enlightenment.. I think it's good to feel some shame for a while but you're right, I should leave the story behind and look into the future with strengthened self-worth I'm glad living in germany, where the cops are quite careful compared to most other countries. I probably would have gone to jail or psychiatry in some other country. But I don't know what comes, here they love to search through your house and impose heavy fines.. But I'm back again, healthy and smarter than before

Reduce the dose, don’t add in alcohol or weed. The wee prior to the trip, get grounded with things like meditation. Contemplate the questions and desires you would like to explore. Create a safe, peaceful setting for the trip. Afterwards, give your mind and body time and space to process, integrate and embody the realizations. This can be done in many ways: spending time in nature, contemplating, journaling, creating. . . It can also be helpful to communicate with experienced people that you resonate with. For example, my early trips revealed aspects of nonduality that I couldn’t make sense of. My mind was making up all sorts of stories to make sense of it. It felt unstable. One thing that helped was to watch nonduality speakers that had a lot of experience. As well, going in nature and just observing without all the figuring it out. Yet that’s just me. Someone else may have revelations about creativity during a trip and resonate with an experienced artist that explains how to unlock inner creativity. To me, it sounds like you have some intuition, feelings and a calling arising. I would get in touch with that and try not to get distracted by the background thinking noise. Thoughts can be insightful, yet they can also be noise of distraction.

Yep, that's nonduality. But I think that nonduality can also be experienced while being aware of everything. That's the eye of God that sees everything with no judgement and explores itself to infinity.