Search the Community

All nonduality teachings are not the same... You can explore everything we have discussed on this post for yourself. For example have you ever experienced anything other than THIS. Have you experienced the "ME" character created since birth is an illusion, and starts dissolving when closely looked at and questioned deeply. ❤

Greetings kamekat and welcome to the forum Sometimes it's hard to know if the struggles we all experience are just part of the process, or a sign that we aren't on the optimal path or technique for ourselves. It takes time to build up that experience, especially if we are following a solo path, rather than belonging to an organisation. But as a rule of thumb, there's no need to be judgemental about your meditation sessions. If it feels like a struggle and you can't keep your attention on your meditation object, that doesn't mean it's a bad or unsuccessful session. Likewise, a focused, relaxed and blissful session isn't necessarily better. You develop and make progress either way. Me too. I have a basic theoretical understanding in my mind, but only enough to get bogged down in paradox. But that's kind of the point, the spiritual side of nonduality (as opposed to the philosophical side) is trying to point us beyond the intellectual understanding to direct awareness. Hence the promotion of practices like meditation and yoga. So the moral is, don't worry if you don't understand nonduality. Feel free to treat all the ideas here as purely provisional until you have built up your own experience to the level when you can find out for yourself.

@IChoseTheRedPill On a personal note, I’m so very sorry to hear of your loss. On the actuality, or existential note, grief - the feeling, not the thought content - can be a bridge into nonduality when we explore into the feeling nuance, as to wether grief is essential to our being. This is revealing of what is essential to our being, which in turn brings tremendous peace, changing the content, and the feeling of, grief. In the sense, pain, suffering, loss... can be the wrapping on unthinkable gifts, insights, and realizations, of Love...Self-Love.

Ah, this is the kind of conversation I've been missing having on the forum lately, thank you. It's not a must or a responsibility, it's more like a desire that cannot be quenched, and that desire is to feel good. All real, honest responsibility and morality comes from love, it comes from feeling or intuiting that hurting others hurts ourselves. It's all essentially about the desire to feel good, or to feel love. It feels a lot better to stand up with courage and say something rather than to watch something that feels awful continue around you. I believe that you are right about insights being distortions, and yet an insight is not an insight because of what is communicated from the insight, it's an insight because of the way it feels. The true "insight" is never what's communicated. However, insights CAN be communicated, because this entire game we are playing of awakening, is just that, a game. Where does the real story of The Lord of the Rings exist? Is it in the letters, or on the paper of the books? It requires your intelligence to decipher the words and give them meaning and your imagination and heart to make it into a story. You say that you love the books, and credit them for how you feel about the story. But you love much, much more than just the book. Nonduality never, excludes, it always includes. We cannot exclude insights as devilry, so they have to be like beautiful easter eggs on the scavenger hunt "story" of awakening. Love is the thing that includes. So love your insights, like you love The Lord of The Rings, knowing that it's much more than you can say. Love can only appear to be directed at something. There only appears to be a source of light and an object reflecting it.

Why learn about deep deep nonduality from teachers that are deeply entrenched in duality? LMAO indeed

Leo's teachings are too advanced for most of you to fathom. How about you guys try and directly experience what he's telling you. If you're not interested in deep deep nonduality then you should probably stop watching his videos and go do something else. But please don't criticise him when you have no direct experience to back you up.

So I said I was going away. I didn't think I could feel any worse, but I do. I've spent a lot of time investigating DMT experiences etc over the last couple of days. It's clear that many thousands of people think that the world isn't what it seems. Does Paul exist? In spirit form? I don't think so. I don't know for sure, but it's unlikely. This whole nonduality thing has totally destroyed my life. I've not had an experience of it, but i don't know if I want it either. The thing is, when I read about DMT trips, people come back and still refer to themselves and others. Doesn't this go against everything said here? Leo is quite clear: you do not exist. So why do anything? Why shouldn't I kill myself? Believe me, I want to end it so bad. I'm not scared of dying anymore, and I'm not scared of hurting others. In truth, they probably don't exist anyway. Each day I wake up it gets harder and harder. I don't see any point in carrying on. I've googled all the possible ways of suicide. I don't want to jump off a bridge. I've set up a makeshift noose hanging from a beam in my loft, but that doesn't feel right. I tried to cut my wrists, then I fell asleep, but I woke up and the bleeding.had stopped. I can't get my hands on pills to take. Truth is, killing yourself ain't easy, even when you've no desire to be here anymore. It's the strangest thing. I tried meditating today using Leo's do nothing method. I just let go and ended up falling to sleep. I had an horrific dream and woke up drenched in sweat. No appetite. No energy. Fuzzy head. Lost all hope. Reality isn't reality. And for whatever people will say here, "get help, see a professional" - it's not going to fix anything. In truth, if you're all adhering to nonduality, it makes no difference if I jack it in or not. So what are we doing here? I just read a post about sympathy on the other section. Why would we give sympathy to others if they don't exist? Everything you say here is probably right. But it makes everything pointless. Utterly pointless. If anyone has any ingenious tips on suicide or anything, please PM me. Anything that can help. Either dying or getting out of this. Shit I'd try dmt or something, but in the UK I've no idea how to source it.

It's a common misconception that we are getting rid of duality and ego. That's not the case. We are removing the shackles, no longer being constricted to duality and ego. Nonduality includes duality. We are transcending not removing.

There are more facets of awakening, or explained alternately, there is a wider variety of life experiences that Source desires to experience as the story of a specific human form, than are appreciated and known about on this forum and within the realm of spiritual "work". So it may appear that some people have a head start but then from another perspective the awakening process and intellectually understanding within duality nonduality is just an experience you chose to have in this life.

I have extreme sensitivity to psychedelics and I noticed after several satori experiences which were all with LSD and ALD-52 that I do not seem to have as much visuals when I take these substances like I did years ago. Like I recall LSD having more of a pronounced visual expression whereas now it is more clarity and more lucid than before. I have also been meditating and delving into the works by Chogyam Trungpa, Dilgo Khyentse, Gurdjieff, Taoist masters, Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj, Ramakrishna, Nityananda, etc. There was one LSD trip in particular from like two years ago where I only took 3/4 of a tab and tab was not crazy in dosage but I had the most pronounced satori experience and I left my body(it was very difficult/impossible to remember this "peak" of the trip more so that anything else I have ever gotten into from psychedelics) and think I glimpsed the clear white light or some astral analogue of it I don't know. It was such a "feelling" of no reference and pure bliss/being at home and like everything existed simultaneously and like the heaven of heavens. Intuitively right when I came out of it I felt that this must be what enlightenment is or is a bit further up the continuum than what I glimpsed. I recall somewhat having spherical vision(It was like I was not seeing with my physical eyes and I remember Yogananda mentioning this feature to cosmic consciousness when Sri Yuktweswar granted him the glimpse in the book about the notion of spherical vision?). I don't have really anyone to speak about this with. Leo, would like to hear from you about this One of the "warnings" the Buddha gave was about not getting caught in the jhana states. The higher jhanas are sort of astral analogues of nonduality/enlightenment/omniscience/etc. I remember Ram Dass going into this on his latest Be Here Now podcast Here and Now episode recently posted called "asral fun" I think. So psychedelics are jhanic experiences in the vast majority of cases it seems

@Bill W I agree with you, and would like to hint at another layer of deception, in accordance to your point: so we have the duality belief vs. direct experience, who determines which is truer? Leo and these guys say that direct experience is true, but on the other hand, Jesus and other figures said that beliefs are true. The conclusion I've come to is that it doesn't really matter. You're never gonna reach the truth without having to make up stories. So, whether it's your direct experience or beliefs, they're all still self-deception according to Leo's paradigm. But then again, is the self-deception concept even true, or just a part Leo's paradigm? But then again, is this skepticism that I'm practising right here true, or just a part of my own paradigm, which I've picked from my environment including Leo and other people? You see where this is going, strange-loops within strange-loops within strange-loops to infinity. And in non-duality, everything is interconnected, so eventually it's not possible to have a direct experience without beliefs, and it's not possible to have beliefs without a direct experience. You can't separate the two. In complete nonduality, the direct experience of Jesus equals the direct experience of no one, and so everyone is Jesus as well. It'd then be the same thing to believe Jesus or to have his direct experience experienced once again from another point of view and then interpret it some other way. I don't know if that makes sense to anyone. But these people here preach non-duality while not actually grasping what it is. I am very careful around them. Be careful. Thanks.

haha nice advice guys. But the blue being wasn't an entity, it was blue 'being', being God. It was a way to describe nonduality.

Blue Beings and whatnot do not contradict Self-Love, and since any kind of being is a form, it is still a subtle form of duality. I didn't say things "stop" at Self-Love. Self-Love is infinite. It's all that is. You can keep exploring the world of form forever. No matter what new forms you discover, it will all just be facets of your Self. So there's no real contradiction here. Just people talking about different facets and forms in different ways. There may be all sorts of beings in the universe. So what? None of it threatens or undermines nonduality.

Welcome to the forum. You got a good look at nonduality and "high conscious" integrative awareness/thinking. . . . Integrate what you can. Be mindful of over-contextualizing and trying to make sense of it all. It is at a "higher" level than intellect. You essentially got direct experience that is worth many years of spiritual work. Yes. Mixing high doses of two intensely neuro-active compounds as a teenager in this setting with little experience is risky and irresponsible. You are fortunate that things worked out ok and "you got away with it". Things aligned for you and you were given a gift. Yet be careful with psychedelics going forward. They are very powerful at high doses.

Yes, this is precisely correct. Although there is an even deeper level where you realize that something and nothing are identical and there is nowhere else to go. You can't choose to experience Nothing because you're already experiencing Nothing all the time regardless of whatever you're experiencing or not-experiencing. That Nothing you encountered was The Void, The Godhead, Mu, or your Original Face as the Zen folks call it. There are of course much deeper levels of nonduality and more facets you can access with practice. Be careful taking such large doses and mixing substances. Lower your dose to 125ug of LSD and learn to contemplate.

I recently had the priviledge to attend a presentation of Deej Savarese. He is a non-speaking autistic. As a child, he was rejected by his biological parents as being damaged. He went to a foster home in which he was abused, ostracized and stigmatized. Later in life, he was adopted by loving parents. He learned how to develop friendships. He became the first non-speaking autistic to graduate from a U.S. University. He is now a poet, philosopher and advocate for neuro-atypical people. At the beginning of the talk, I felt a lot of sympathy and compassion for him. He seemed like an inspiring person that overcame a lot of adversity. . . Yet as the presentation went on, my consciousness shifted. The presentation started off with Deej's poetry. It was amazing. Deej's consciousness is more oriented toward non-duality than duality. His poetry expressed nonduality in a way I've never heard a nonduality speaker explain it. Then they played prepared remarks from Deej in which he spoke of the interface of real, unreal and relative reality. Again, I've never heard it described like this and I realized he had something very special. Not in a "special person with a disability" kind of way. In a genius kind of way. What he was describing was just out of my reach. It was a nonverbal realm that Deej was trying to express verbally to us and I just couldn't quite access it. After the presentation, I went to the stage and stood by Deej. There was a deep connection I wanted to make with him, yet I didn't know how to put it into worlds. I stood there trying to speak a question, yet I couldn't. Now I was non-speaking. I got frustrated and wanted to cry because I couldn't do it. I knew I was close, to meeting him somewhere yet I couldn't do it. Then Deej gazed in my eyes and we went there. His skills where higher than mine and he brought me there. We gazed in each others eyes for a minute and were a somewhere that was beautiful love. Neuro-atypical people have certain skills that are unique. Unfortunately, cultures create a "Myth of Normal" in which those that appear different are labeled as "abnormal" and are ostracized/stigmatized. Yet more and more people are waking up. There are some low conscious people out there, yet there are also some people that are waking up and have a higher capacity to love. https://www.deejmovie.com/

https://www.actualized.org/forum/topic/17747-nonduality-meditations/

Unconditional Love is nonduality. You are already exploring and experiencing it. You can try and dive into the intellectual understanding of unity. That can be fun and beneficial, too. Just know that the mind can never truly and fully understand. It cannot grasp infinity. At the end of the day; what really matters is what you're already experiencing. Sensation. Infinite love for no reason, at all.

You are creating a duality between duality and nonduality. That's still the mind at play. There is absolutely no difference. There are no illusions. No tricks. There never were. If duality is an illusion - so is oneness. So is God. Only when there is no God - God is. Only when there is no notion of any distinction - peace is. Love is. Unity is. You are creating a separation by trying to expose the illusion of separation. I trust you had great insights. But your mind is unable to drop it and surrender to the now.

@VeganAwake If you say nonduality is true and duality is illusion or false, you've just made another duality. I think that's why people like to say that nonduality includes duality, it's a "yes" to everything, so everything is as true as it is false. Inclusion is more true than exclusion because exclusion is duality and inclusion is not. Which is why it's described that way. I just watched The Little Mermaid and in that moment and now recalling I am just as much Ariel, Ursula, and Flounder as I am Mandy. I am nothing but consciousness yet also including everything within consciousness. The illusion is beautiful, it creates a whole new world of possibilities through creating choice and limitation. It cannot be enjoyed properly without the knowledge of oneness and yet, that's what we came here for.

I recently made a video about this...please check it out: https://youtu.be/y8lOCItMQB0 Nonduality does not exclude past lives and reincarnation, but often spiritual seekers build and reinforce the illusion of "me" through past lives. Ultimately, there is no "me"...the Self is all there is.

Every thought is an added layer. Layers implying twoness in a variety of ways. If you’re aim is nonduality, then weed out any and all twoness thought patterns, by scrutinizing them at more intense, and yet more subtle and loving, levels. If one has a soul, there are two. The one, and the would which it has. There was said to be electricity & magnetism, then electromagnetism. There was said to be space & time, then spacetime. Human thought makes twoness. Awareness of thought, scrutiny, and all is reducible. “I realize nonduality means all is one”...write different perspectives of this on your board, work it out, reduce it. What is that if there’s no I...if there’s no meaning...if there’s no nonduality...if there’s no all...if there’s no saying of this...if there’s no recipient...? Direct experience...you have it. Question it. Derive your answers from it. ?? You know thoughts about reincarnation. What else about it is in your direct experience, right now, here and now in this moment, not in a thought?

Hi @Nahm, thanks for your reply, yet I'm not sure what you're trying to say... I do realize nonduality means all is one, but reincarnation is still something we/I/God experience, or not? Could you please elaborate more on this? I'd really like to understand. Thanks!

In the theme of the US' Thanksgiving, has anyone seen the 2013 documentary Humano? It has elements of Shamanism and Nondualism. It was very good. I think it's a good take on Indigenous nonduality. Although a different civilization (the Q'ero), I think its a good compliment to Leo's video on the Toltec's nonduality. I'd be curious what people think.

How come many if not all people it seems interpret that the Law of One talks about free will as something real? I claim that it says that free will is an illusion, just as ACIM. The reason is I believe that it also says that love is a distortion. So if love is real and a distortion so is free will people think. My claim is that the teaching is done to be easy on the ego who can't accept that free will is an illusion. Think about it, how can there be free will without duality? And how can there be oneness if the One changes? There can't! Time isn't something separate from the One. The universe is not something separate from the One. So the One is changeless and hence free will and even choice is an illusion. ACIM says that only God's will is real, but it also says that reality is changeless. So even God's will is changeless according to ACIM and as I see it according to the Bible and probably also according to the other major religious texts. Nonduality teachers say that there is no free will. And the hardcore nonduality teachers even say that reality is changeless. Ramesh Balsekar said that reality is like a movie that already has been made. That's true in my model too BUT it's an evolving movie, like in the Law of One and not just like some ordinary movie. It's NOT like some Blu-ray disc, instead the manifestation of reality is a self-improving and expanding set of information.