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Found 4,013 results

  1. I get where you are coming from. I have watched hours of Leo's nonduality videos. You gave new additions- 'It is prior to proof' 'saying it is within something more fundamental' 'If it's all ocean, how can a whale be more complex than seaweed?' We can move on If you want to add any more you can but still, I say , we can move on.
  2. I understand where you are coming from now. Basically, I'll explain my stance like this, there are two ways (duality) to see the whole. Science/Math/Mechanical/Logic/Hard Sciences/Active/Tragedy (your stance), or Art/Mind/Living/Creativity/Liberal Arts/Passive/Comedy. Notice how I listed these in order to their correlations to each other. You need both. Nonduality explained dualistically. I'm not saying science isn't real. I completely agree it's the best option we have, for physical confirmation of philosophy. They keep each other in bounds. But science will never be complete because the Omniverse/multiverse/universe (whatever term you want to use), reality, Brahman is infinite. Waves, within waves, within infinite waves, hence the allegory to the ocean a lot of the time. I don't know why you base your whole philosophy on the passage of time as consciousness or why time is so important, then claim it's an illusion. If consciousness is perceiving the passage of time, but time is an illusion. By this thinking, then awareness and consciousness is just as an illusion as well. Thinking is not real, then. This is where we diverge. The foundation of my philosophy is based on everything consciousness becoming conscious and aware of the whole. Not time. But this process does require the passage of time. As far as empiricism, it is only one way to see the world, see my last post (this is a single vantage point). It's a system, that isn't perfect, but does contain partial, very real (as real as any other system or science), truths. It appears to me, that if you sincerely want to grow, I'm not asking you to believe in unicorns or adopt empiricism as your truth, but read a philosophy and be open to the idea that there is some truth to be found there. Then understand the intention, and where it's coming from without the filter of science (for a minute, you can always put back up the psychological wall). Unless you just want to prove me wrong with science. Which case, I yield it is superior and I need to come back to reality. Cells are very aware of their environment. Or they would not give a damn about waste in their cell. They would just have urine in their cell and die (with you as well). Even if this act is mechanical, it's conscious. There's a whole nother universe that takes care of the filtration process made up of another countably infinite (trillion) cells, collects it, and deposits it in your blatter. How can you be conscious, but your cells not? Systems within systems that are synchronously working together. Holons as Leo said. The point that we are making that you decline at, is that the idea or philosophy that you are the universe. You are claiming not. To claim this, is claiming that you arrived here from a space ship (or birds arriving on a new tree from flight), instead of a byproduct of the universe like an apple growing on a tree. According to you, the Apple doesn't have the capacity to become aware, but you do. This is enlightenment. By allegory, because you can become conscious of this fact, the universe is also conscious. Which is where I stand, but doesn't mean my ideas are superior. It is mind, and the game of hide and seek begins again. We are all made of the same thing. ? Unless my awareness or consciousness is an illusion and I am wrong again. I arrived here by my parents and I yield (which is only one half of the truth).
  3. On a recent Consciousness work, there are several insights that I'm still integrating. Would love to share and see if anyone else had a similar experience. I don't know if the intellectual analysis would provide any help, because it's something that has to be viscerally experienced, and I can barely even know how to use words to explain them. 1) In this "saturated" dimension that's inscribable, it's being recognized that it's a space that's visited before many many times. The experience is hyper-realistic, but almost immediately forgotten when returned to a normal level of consciousness. Time and Space are interconnected and navigatable in this dimension, there were experiences of multiple possibilities of my characters, almost anything scenario that can be imagined resides in one of those Time and Space nexus points. This dimension extends infinitely, where I could see Time-space points that my character Michael doesn't occupy or exist. I was overwhelmed by all the possibilities of my current lifetime that was shown, all the time-space nexus are interconnected and influenced every other point. I was immediately extremely grateful to be living in this one because some of the other lifetimes that are currently going on showed me doing stupid things that hurt myself and deeply sadden people around me whom I love. The whole dimension is only ONE thing doing its own thing, there's no other room to fit in anything else, it's complete and full. Whatever can happen is happening here now and eternally. It's not an easy space to be in because the information is just too much to handle, it's like an ocean of possibilities that is ebbing and flowing, stretching and contracting. This dimension goes on forever and ever, with no end in time and space, fear arises since so many experiences were lived through at the same time. 2) One of the realizations that I derived from the experience is that I'm already dead, that reality of me no longer here in this human form already exists. I living my life now is like reliving a vivid memory or having a virtual reality machine permanently implanted. It's also like a choose-an-adventure kind of deal that choices made now will lead to different outcomes, but all possible scenarios are already here, I'm just navigating one of the possible paths in this lifetime that I'm aware of. 3) How much we still don't know as human and how vast infinite is the most humbling realization. Philosophy and Science invest so much into knowing things, but the knowledge is tiny that it will be no surprised at all whatever we concluded now as truth and real in human understanding can be completely false. All we can know is an abstraction that is understandable to us based on the tools that are available for us. 4) There is no space in normal consciousness either, everything is touching everything else with no space in-between, including all perceptions, like sound and sights and feelings. There's just one thing here and it's completely saturating everything with no room left. Space is another abstraction created to make sense of things. We're intimately sticking to everything else. 5) I was also experiencing other people in my life in that infinite dimension too. I could feel their suffering which makes me super compassionate and wants to be nicer to others. Hurting others in a sense is hurting myself. This is an overwhelming realization that I have to willfully ignore at times because the responsibility is too much. Radical forgiveness in this reality is important. I have to constantly forgive and let go, and can only move forward to make better choices. 6) Everything is perfect balance too, it's ultimate nonduality. Anything that can exist, only exist because of duality, which makes it nondual. Anytime I want to control one aspect of anything, I lose control instantly because my action, even a single thought, shifts everything else. There are still many minor nuances in this recent Consciousness work than what is mentioned. I appreciate anyone sharing a similar experience as it is. Human intellect is important, but I feel that's relatively insignificant in consciousness work. Imagination, feelings, and intuition seem to be more appropriate in understanding these experience. It's humbling to me, and I'm utterly grateful to still have the training wheels on living in this reality.
  4. I don't consider that an 'except'. Your body needs other people to survive. It needs touch, it needs chemistry, it needs bonding, it needs to be useful and use others. The fear of social rejection is a genuine threat to the body and the body communicates it. You do not become fearless by telling yourself that you don't need anybody, but by being in touch with what the body needs. You can decide that the body is mistaken and act against it, but in truth it rarely is. If you shut yourself off from people, you will develop all kinds of coping mechanisms that start with binge eating for example. Yes, definitely. The trick is that you survived mostly automatically for 30 years, or at least 15. The body had learned all kinds of useless response patterns that lock into your family dynamic and "friends". If you fear something, the default response is to avoid it. If you're angry, the default response is to attack. If, as a woman, you are socially pressured to be submissive, then your response to anger gets overriden by shame, for example. It really is not at all obvious which emotion should be employed at which situation, especially because you lose your cool precisely when you need to observe yourself carefully. One thing is adrenaline response. Another thing is fear. Yet another thing is a 'response'. Fear is a concept you produce in response to adrenaline. This concept, if is identified with, creates a response that hopefully is beneficial for your survival. Identification here is 'letting the fear take you', not noticing the choice to be made. You can always stand still in response to fear. You can always dissolve fear in response to adrenaline. That is emotional mastery and it is not enlightenment. Enlightenment is when you understand what you are. You are a concept, a division of reality. [I don't like that definition, but I'm gonna leave it as is]. If you feel like you are in control of things, like I don't wanna run away from tiger, that is an ego. That thought that deliberates. Enlightenment certainly helps in mastering emotions, and mastering emotions helps becoming enlightened. ___________________ By the way, I highly recommend reading Ursula's The Earthsea Cycle. I did not choose that particular translation because of its quality in itself, but because I highly value Ursula as a spiritual teacher. That cycle is a fantasy novel informed by Taoist nonduality. Absolutely amazing, it was very influential on me.
  5. Anything could be made to look like in a certain way in a video. There are magicians levitating, videos of ghosts appearing that look real. Unless you have seen it directly or have good reliable sources/ the same event has been cited by many other reliable sources (like top newspapers like New york times, or channels like CNN, NBC etc) , in a video anything is possible. I think the truth of Islam is just the truth of any other religion, the truth of Nonduality. Islam is just Muhammed's interpretation of this divine Nonduality that he experienced at the cave and the historical events that followed has brought it to the present state. The rest is just magic' tricks;, which any trained magician could out perform. Religions have always used such 'magic' to give validity that they are the 'truth'
  6. Yeah. Persuing Consciousness clarifies a lot. But after those Contemplations are mastered, he really does zip things up in a more powerful, simpler, and staggeringly deeper extent in "The Genius of Being." The practice of Vipassana was really being done hard here for a number of years (around 3 in a row, sometimes 6 hours of meditation a day). Who knows really what, if any, the correlation between meditation and Awakening (initial or otherwise or how the hell you slice it up)? Incidentally, the practice of Vipassana is still useful for some stuff, but not always done daily, even though in a way it is permament after a point regardless of formal sit or falling off a horse, driving a car...whatever. Enlightenment doesn't necessarily change shit. How could it? It is merely what's already True. What usually tends to happen (I was/am no exception) is your life gets worse because all the stuff that had pointers aiming stuff like "blame" outward, are now *absolutely* seen all the time to be within the domain of self-responsibility -- Your fucking mess. At this point, you'll tend to get lost in content either trying to fix it all or worrying about it so much you decomp or go nuts for a while, or worse. Blow out to straight Gonzo mode. Or, you have a situation where you can practice and freak out without interference (not happening while anchored to any kind of usual "laylife") until you gain further Consciousness that frees to from clinging to "The Life Reality Illusion" [Peter's parlance here] to the extent you may not even give a shit about changing the "guy/gal" who is Being "me". Some pie in the sky shit story about an Avatar who descends upon lotus feet wakes the fuck up and glows in Resplendant Perfection is the Bull. Hope you didn't find that One. He's everywhere. It's Delusion. Doing a 1/2 punch rhythm of hard Contemplation (and doing *all* the excercises and grasping Insights) of Ralston's material, then burnout and Vipassana, then burnout and switch was a good system with "the practice here"....yet, I did get fortunate and find a 70+ year old teacher who has a direct lineage to U Javana/U Pandita/Mahasi Sayadaw to train me in Noting for basically nothing and he took almost 3 years of defiled abuse from my stupid brain/body just for...apparently no reason. ;D Ok. Here's an Ultra-simple Therevada model. I know people are too lazy often, on this forum to deal with the complications of the Lakhanas and 4 truths. I guess fractal math isn't for all Millineals. In any case, here's the model in "Leo speak" so ya'll can understand it: 1.) 1st Path (Sotapanna) -- The practice has seen one "Ontological Orgasm" with understanding. 2.) 2nd Path (Sakadagami) -- The practice sees many "Ontological Orgasms" during the course of an average day (rest of mortal life). 3.) 3rd Path (Anagami) -- The practice has an abiding Direct Consciousness of Emptiness at all times, and there is no doubt of this (rest of mortal life). 4.) 4th Path (Arahant) -- Ditto on 3, but less human delusion/ignorance/pattern remains, agency seen through, nonduality available. Equivalence of Zero and Absolute Infinity...etc.etc.etc. 5.) Beyond - Of course ....as if Relativity is the only Infinite thing.
  7. What exactly is meant by Love? If it's not an emotion, what is it? Also, doesn't love need an object? Doesn't the act of loving involve one who loves and something which is loved? How does that fit with nonduality? And finally, how to become conscious of Love?
  8. Nonduality IS pure Love. The only way is to realize that you ARE Love. This results in total absolute self-acceptance and self-love. Since you are God, your love for yourself is Absolute and unlimited. Since you are God, no one can love you but yourself. If you cannot love & accept yourself, no one else can and you are forever doomed by your own self-denial and self-hatred until you realize that self-love is the only true love. Religion is highly corrupt. The devil has co-opted all religion to use as a control mechanism. Fear (of Hell) is a powerful control mechanism. Many humans do no know how to follow basic rules of decency unless they are threatened with eternal Hell. When a child misbehaves, the easiest way to make it behave is to threaten it with a beating. Then the child quickly falls in line and obeys. Like a dog. This is the level that many people function at.
  9. No. By talking to someone I can tell his blind spots, so can you. If that weren't the case, development wouldn't be possible. For example, your blind spot is that you are a solipsist. Enlightenment is not random, but people/egos don't cause it. Going through it feels like the whole world was precisely engineered for this very moment when you realize it. You feel like the chosen one, but you have given up everything that is special about you already. That is why it is called grace, but it is grace that is given to you from yourself because you can't distinguish yourself from the world. No. God does not use power to control what is already present. God has used his omnipotence to create the world out of love and this very love is the law that it obeys. It took its own power away in the act of creation. God's authority is freedom. It is up to you seek it and to recognize it. Seeing it is so difficult precisely because it is so fundamental that it is unthinkable for the truth to not be. Nonduality is not a philosophy of connection between beings. It is not a moral imperative to be a good person. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love the two of you, you are some of the best people that I know of. Keep being that person, we need more of you. That isn't, however, enlightenment. Recognizing that fact lets you seek somewhere else, without losing what you already are. That is the most profound thing about God. God is more you that you are yourself. Seeking it only enhances you.
  10. Absolutely There are things consciousness can do on drugs that you cannot even being to imagine. Imagine becoming a rock and existing for 1 billion years, then returning back to human form. Stuff like that is possible and no meditation will ever get you there. You won't even know you missed it even if you become highly enlightened through meditation. That's because most people do drugs recreationally to escape. They have no serious spiritual ambitions or understanding of nonduality or spirituality or psychology or anything. It's kids fooling around. It's as if you've seen kids playing with finger paints and then you say that it's not possible to paint the Mona Lisa with paints. It matters very much the skill of the person handling the paint. Right now you are hallucinating that you're a human. There is no human here really. Only a story of one.
  11. @Matt8800 Are places charged inherently, or charged by people's past there or both? A lot of the witchcraft resources I'm finding aren't very serious about the nonduality, self purification, moving beyond ego, and I worry about distracting myself, but maybe I'm being a snob about it. I was raised as a Christian and although I inherently knew the holy spirit was the same thing as what I was feeling from nature, I still had a lot of fear taught to me about spirits being evil. I go out in the full moon but I tell myself it's a "fear setting" practice. Magic and nature are one in my eyes. I just don't feel like I need to do much with what already is, I'm afraid of anything that will grow my ego but the more I learn and experience the more I realize that this awakening stuff is most definitely NOT what I think it is.
  12. @PretentiousHuman yop that's the man. Now before you go ahead, I just have to warn you that a lot of what Robert says goes very very much against traditional medicine that you have been educated in during your nurse training. So keep an open mind when listening and as always question everything you hear . I think that because he speaks from stage turquoise, people misunderstand a lot what he teaches especially when talking about "god" which refers to nonduality and not religion as many of his subscribers assume in comments. But I think that for chronic inflammatory conditions, cancers and autiummunity, this is the best way to go. Bet there are other efficient ways of course but it is not through immunosuppressants that's for sure. Are you based in US?
  13. I am torn about between working for for material success and the desire for the peace of spirituality. I have to travel for 40 mins to go my college (from home, if I am not in hostel), have to make plans about what to study, have to study for hours, talk to friends, and in doing all these I get pushed away from the peace of Nonduality. I am at home, relaxed, I can meditate, I am listening to J.Krishnamurti, I feel really nondual,. But the problem is , I also have to work hard to for my future to make money, and the byproduct is I start to get all kinds of emotions like, desire to succeed, feeling bad for not succeeding, jealousy of other people succeeding , tensions, feeling pressure, wondering about whether I will ever amount to anything in life, comparing myself to others. I also feel very empty, I have already had many highs of success in the past, goal achievements in the past, happiness because of getting what I wanted etc, but still it's the past, and it's gone, I have worked hard in the past and have become happy due to goal achievements but still they amount to nothing in my present. These emotions go away when I again get steeped in spirituality like listening to JK or meditating, but the problem is I don't have time to do them all the time, and whenever I go into the dual mode, all these emotions causing suffering start to surface, I morph into a neurotic person, it's like my personality changes. I want to have a non dual peace no matter what I do, whether I am commuting for work, whether I am preparing for an exam, or talking with friends, I want that peace which I get when I take a break from them all and get steeped in spirituality. Sometimes I wander, if the spiritual gurus like sadhguru, krishnamurti, osho had to do a 9 to 5 job, would they still have their nondual peace with them? When they are not giving poetic discourses about spirituality but doing very dual things, like talking with friends (which gets toxic real quick as there is comparisions, teasings,, ego battles etc) , worrying about relationships , status in the herd, worrying about failing in exam , what their parents or relatives would say etc.
  14. Thank for the feedback guys. If you didn’t know already I am on the autism spectrum, but was diagnosed late. I’ve always felt like the black sheep and was never comfortable with people because I always felt I had to act a certain way to be loved. This is what I’ve noticed especially with my extended family in recent times. I’ve started to realize that their love is highly based on conditions. They don’t want to say it to my face because they don’t want to hurt my feelings, but I can tell that they don’t agree with the path I’ve taken. I was with my mom at a therapy session one time. She opened up about how her siblings are upset and critical to her about listening to the stuff I’ve discovered. Stuff about nonduality, God realization, using marijuana for spiritual purposes, etc. Her family is dogmatic and their love is highly based on a hierachy. So the fact that my mom is listening what I’m sharing, her siblings thinks it’s disrespectful and that I don’t know what I’m talking about. So yeah, a cat doesn’t give a shit that I smoke weed, have seen God, that I don’t follow a religion, or that I’m even autistic
  15. @Inliytened1 If nonduality is not a state and intellect is defilement, then relative is a “write off” of the intellect veiling nonduality, and there is no paradox. No?
  16. @Leo Gura It's a type of deep surrender or devotion experience. The psyche only allows it to happen if there is someone to literally talk to and surrender to. The love that arises in the letting go of old things you never knew were blocking you is incredible. When I was a kid I started to develop what I later decided was OCD, but it was mostly targeting my biggest fears, embarrassments or my religion. Most of my life was spent with a compulsion to keep myself pure. My parents had extraordinarily high moral standards about how you should treat other people. I got compulsions to accept the devil into my soul, voices out of nowhere that drove me into deep depression. I got lots of compulsions to confess things to people, that was maddening. One particular one made me literally sick for a week before I told my mom. Before I had an awakening a few months ago, voice from outside myself came back, all were tied to repression. Directly before they got stronger and stronger. I realized that I was very impure in spirit, I saw all my repression. I saw for the first time the Devil as an integral part of God in nonduality. I channeled confessions to the other member who helped me in the journal section. I never intended to confess anything to him, I thought he would help me let go of my first mystical experience because I thought I was deluding myself. Then I thought he would help me write a book. But I started channeling confessions, I realized that I was impure in spirit, I saw that my ego believed I was good and it was false. My love for the other member and for existence itself turned it into an experience that was absent of effort. Hashing out painful stupid details of my life was thrilling. The key is, that you cannot "see" yourself like another can. You also cannot experience the surrender of confession unless there is someone who appears to listen. Sure it's just God, but as surely as we exist on this forum, God exists outside of you, here to assist you and help you see and experience God's love. We raise each other up in the mutual love and understanding that we are One. Have you experienced all facets of God and the ways in which he awakens himself?
  17. @Arhattobe prompt: duality /you now/ -> looping /paradoxes/ -> Nonduality /infinity/
  18. It's not right to compare them with MDMA. I don't experience much elevation in heart rate from 5-MeO-DMT or DPT. But of course taking them daily is overkill. No one is going to take those substances for more than a few days in a row. It just gets too intense. The most I've done was 13 days in a row, and it's just way more nonduality than a human could want.
  19. @Aware It's refreshing to see someone here actually willing to question these things (as Leo and other good teachers encourage us to do). The reason the 'flat earth' movement has gained so much momentum (to the point of needing to be suppressed/censored?) is because the earth has no measurable curvature or motion. The laughable absurdities NASA continues to put out (since the provably faked moon landings) is small potatoes compared to the elephant in the room 'conspiracy' that our material universe is an illusion. Nonduality sounds like crackpot conspiracy drivel to most people. Ironically, there are very few in this forum who are radically open minded. Come on people...grow up!
  20. It can indeed be somewhat simplistic, although I think his feel for nonduality itself is among the best of that style of teacher.
  21. Some of you guys can't be saved. It's sort of sad seeing everyone trying so hard to help. It's in our nature, I suppose. Spirituality is not for you if you cannot even experience standard happiness levels on a consistent basis. Don't bother with nonduality if you hate life. This should be obvious.
  22. I think this was worth sharing very radical but also incredibly fascinating shit. The things that he speaks about shows that he has a genuine understanding of nonduality. I wil let you guys decide for yourselves but also check out this dude's youtube channel for a deep mind fuck, if you dare https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC4m2GWzVejzwVj_Xn4aBM6A/featured.
  23. What does the word ‘non-duality’ point to? The world created by thought, the world of words, language, and concepts, is the world of opposites. ‘Up and down’, ‘this or that’, ‘inside and outside’, ‘right and wrong’, ‘black and white’, ‘true and false’, ‘positive and negative’, ‘me and you’ and so on. The world of words, language, thoughts, concepts, is a dualistic world of apparent opposites. But, in reality, do opposites exist? What we are really pointing to when we use the word ‘non-duality’ is something that goes beyond all of these mind-made opposites. But how can we talk about something that goes beyond opposites, when even our attempt to talk about non-duality is dualistic? So, what the word non-duality actually means is really very difficult to describe or put into words. In fact, you could say it’s impossible. For we are not talking about non-duality as opposed to something called duality, we are not talking about pro-duality as opposed to anti-duality.In fact the non-duality we speak of is not the opposite of anything. This is impossible to understand logically or rationally. To see what is being spoken of, we must go beyond our ordinary way of thinking and seeing. ‘Non-duality’ is actually a translation of the Sanskrit word ‘Advaita’, which simply means ‘not two’ and points to the essential oneness (wholeness, completeness, unity) of life, a wholeness which exists here and now,prior to any apparent separation. It’s a word that points to an intimacy, a love beyond words, right at the heart of present moment experience. It’s a word that points us back Home. And despite the compelling appearance of separation and diversity there is only one universal essence, one reality. Oneness is all there is – and we are included. What we are really trying to do when we say ‘non-duality’ is point to life as it is right now, before the appearance of concepts and labels; before thought creates a world of things: table, chair, hand, foot, fear, me, you, past, future. What is life before thought? Can we even talk about that? Is it possible to capture non-duality into words? When we speak of non-duality it can sometimes seem like we mean ‘anti-duality’, that we are against duality or that it’s wrong or false or even dangerous. This can then lead to dogmatic thinking and religiosity and to the proclamation of rightness: “You are dualistic and I am non-dualistic! I am more non-dual than you!” That is the religion of non-duality. We are more interested in the truth of non-duality. Is non-duality a religion or belief system? Non-duality isn’t a new belief system, a religion or a ‘how to’ guide to living. It makes no promises about the future. Of course, it canbecome a belief system or religion, however, like anything can. You could start to believe that there is “no self, no ‘me’, no time or space and that everything is an illusion” – and non-duality could become your new belief system. That’s what happened years ago in my own experience; non-duality had become my new belief system, although at the time I actually believed I was free from all belief systems! When someone subscribes to non-duality as a system of belief, there’s just someone there – a separate person – believing that they’re no longer a separate person! And then perhaps they go round telling everyone that they are not a separate person. Secretly they experience themselves as a separate individual but they have taken on a set of concepts, they are living with a new image of themselves as beyond all images. You can believe you are not separate, but you can still feel separate, and experience yourself as separate. There’s a world of difference between simply believing that you are not separate, in other words, intellectually taking non-duality concepts on as a new belief system, and really seeing what those words are pointing to in a very deep way. Here, we are interested in the seeing of non-duality, not just talking and arguing about it. We can talk and argue about non-duality concepts until we are blue in the face, we can argue about who is right and who is wrong and who is more ‘nondualistic’, but we would really be missing the point of all this. Is it possible to reach a non-dual state or become spiritually awakened? Isn’t it fascinating how automatically thought (or ‘the mind’) tries to turn what we are talking about into some kind of special state or experience. Thought hears about ‘non-duality’ and wants it. And it asks, ‘How do I get it? How do I reach it? How do I see it? Who can take me there? Who can transmit it to me? Who can teach me it or give it to me? Where will I find it?’ It starts looking for something called ‘non-duality’. It starts waiting for it. It lives in hope. That will inevitably happen because the individual is always a seeker. A separate person is always looking for something. We might seek wealth, success, power, fame, or we might seek for ‘spiritual’ things instead – but really it’s all the same seeking. The spiritual seeker might seek awakening, enlightenment or a non-dual state instead of money and power and success – but deep down, it’s the same movement. Time is always involved in seeking. What we search for is always in the future. We say, ‘One day I will find non-duality. I’ll get into the non-dual state or have an awakening experience or my person will drop away magically.’ So, stop right there! You’ve already turned non-duality into a future goal. Stop and look and see where this seeking begins. So, this incessant seeking takes on different forms? Yes. Ask anybody on the street what they are looking for, and they’ll probably say they’re looking for peace, happiness, success, popularity, power, love, acceptance, understanding, fame, glory. Someone who identifies themselves as a ‘spiritual person’ might be looking for an altered state of consciousness, or some kind of transformation, or an enlightenment experience, or they may be seeking to no longer seek anything anymore! Everyone is looking for something. This seeking takes many forms but really it’s all the same seeking. It seems as though everyone is looking for different things, but actually what we are looking for, deep down, is the same. Basically, everyone is in pursuit of the same wholeness (or oneness, or completeness, or whatever you want to call it) – a wholeness that is already here, but is ignored in our pursuit of a future completion. That’s where it all begins: looking for something better in the future. Looking for the next moment that will be a better moment, a more full moment, a more complete moment. And of course, non-duality could just become something else you are looking for. We could turn non-duality into our new goal. But the word ‘Non-duality’ actually points to what is already present here and now, within this present experience, as this experience. We’re not talking about a new goal for the seeker. We’re talking about life as it already is. non-duality is not in time. If life ‘as it is’ is already perfect why do we continue to seek? The real question is ‘Who is seeking?’. What is this seeker? Where is it? Can I find it now? And is this seeker who I really am? I seem to be a separate individual who is looking for something to complete myself, but is that really who I am? Does this seeking really define me? Am I really something that is incomplete, something that seeks completion in the future? You pass through all these different layers of questions and ultimately you get to the fundamental question: ‘Who am I?‘ That’s where everything leads to in the end. So, who am I? If you ask most people that question, they’d probably reply with a story about who they think they are. They’d give you a description about what they’ve done in the past and maybe what they dream of doing in the future. They might tell you a story about their role in life – that they are a father or mother, or a business person or baker -where they work and live, and how many children they have. They’ll quite literally tell you a story about the past and future. They’ll basically tell you a story about who they were in the past and who they think they will be in the future – not who theyare in this moment. But the question is, ‘Who are you now?’ Normally that question is answered by describing the past or an imagined future. We are living with a thought-created story about ourselves. I am a shop keeper, a doctor, a lawyer, an artist, a spiritual person. (Someone who calls themselves a ‘spiritual person’ might even tell a story about how they are not a person, that they’ve transcended time and space and that they have no relationships because they have no self and there are no others. Despite the content of the ‘I am’ story, it’s still a story! Maybe, if you see yourself as ‘enlightened’ you have convinced yourself that you are not telling a story, that you’re beyond stories. But isn’t that just another story? We all seem to live with an image of who we are.) It’s a case of mistaken identity? Exactly. Is the image of yourself who you really are? Does it define you? And here’s the problem. When you live with an image of yourself, that image can always be improved; you can always have a better story. If you have the identity that you are successful business women and you’re making a lot of money, maybe you hope that one day you’ll make a fortune and be a famous millionaire. Or the story could be that you’re a spiritual person and one day you’ll become enlightened. So, are you saying enlightenment is just another story? Well, it’s always about ‘me’ completing myself in time, isn’t it. The enlightenment story is equal to the ‘one day I’m going to win the lottery’ story.Within the story you are always incomplete and always moving towards a future completion. On some level we feel incomplete now – there’s a sense of lack, or of not being whole. Everyone lives with that, although not everyone admits it or realises it. This is how the search begins: the sense of being incomplete now, that something is missing now. Then there’s the urge for a future fullness, a future completion. Something wants to complete itself in the future, but it begins with a present sense of incompleteness, a sense of lack. That goes right to the root of it all – a sense of lack that everyone is trying to escape in various ways. The sense of lack doesn’t seem to go away, it might for a while but it soon comes back. Well yes, this is the problem. Even when you get what you want and you think you’re satisfied, very quickly dissatisfaction starts up again: ‘I finally got what I wanted but it didn’t complete me.’ After twenty years of spiritual seeking you finally have the awakening experience you always wanted, but you still don’t feel complete. You make a million dollars and then you realise you still feel a sense of lack. You finally find the man or woman of your dreams, and you still want more. This is the problem with trying to complete yourself in time, trying to complete yourself through getting stuff and having experiences. There’s always more. There’s always a future. Why does the seeking, or the sense of lack eventually start up again? Buddhists see that everything is impermanent. However amazing, blissful, or apparently fulfilling something is, it will pass. Whatever you have you can lose. If you finally got all the money you wanted, it wouldn’t be enough because you can always have more money. You can be more successful, more famous, move loved, more spiritual, and so on. You attain the tenth level of consciousness (whatever that means) and then you want to be on level eleven. You want to get to the top! The self wants to be bigger, faster, stronger, more. Basically, we want to be special in some way – the self wants to stand out against other selves, and complete itself. It wants to be something, not nothing. We want to be certain about who we are and have a fixed and complete story about ourselves. But the nature of stories is that they can never be complete. And so the seeking goes on and on – always waiting for a permanent sense of total completion that never comes. How exhausting! I don’t think people realise how exhausted they are! We live on autopilot and we don’t question our seeking until this way of living breaks down, and we call that suffering. When everything is going your way and you’re getting everything you want – if the seeking mechanism is working for you – why would you question your reality? But what tends to happen is that it sooner or later life stops going your way! Then we find out that we are not in control of life and that we can’t have what we want. This whole seeking mechanism starts to break down and we suffer. When you are suffering you might start to ask, ‘Is this who I really am? Do I really need all this stuff I believe I need?’ So, we are all suffering in some way? Yes. Some people appear to suffer in extreme ways and others seem to suffer less, but everyone is suffering in their own way, even if they don’t realise it. Like we’ve said, ultimately life brings you to the question: ‘Who am I?’ Everyone comes to that question in their own way. Eventually you might start to ask why you’re suffering and question all these fundamental assumptions we’ve been talking about. Often people come to the message of non-duality through suffering, pain or distress. In other words, when the seeking begins to fail on some level, something else can begin to open up. What does the message of non-duality have to offer the suffering seeker? The wholeness or completeness that you are looking for is not be found in the future. The wholeness that everyone is looking for is actually already here within this present experience, within this present moment. The wholeness that you’re looking for – is what you are. It sounds like a total paradox when you try to understand it with thought and it really goes against everything that we are conditioned to believe. It’s not about understanding this with the mind, with thought – it’s about really seeing this for yourself, in your own experience. In a way, this offers nothing to the seeker – it is the experience of being a seeker in the first place, that’s the illusion. And it’s that illusion that this message exposes. If we ultimately cannot understand this message intellectually is there anything that can be done? No one can give this to you or teach it to you. You need to see it for yourself within your own present experience because that’s all there is. You won’t see it in someone else’s experience. It’s not a second-hand thing. It’s about this experience, right now. It’s not something to find in the future. The wholeness you look for is already appearing as everything that’s happening now: as these thoughts, sensations, feelings, sounds, smells. Perhaps this is the wholeness we’ve been seeking. And perhaps wholeness doesn’t look, sound, smell, feel or taste anything like your idea of wholeness – your concept of wholeness! Everyone is looking for their concepts of wholeness (or enlightenment, freedom, love) but true wholeness is not a concept. It’s what is already here prior to concepts. So again, here’s the paradox: perhaps there is only ever wholeness, and within that wholeness we go out into time and space and look for wholeness! Within Home, we’re all looking for Home. Everyone is trying to come Home, but they are already Home. They are what they seek, and do not realise it. So, the message of non-duality points to this ever-present completeness – in the midst of present experience. We are like waves on the ocean, looking for the ocean, longing to be part of it? Yes. That’s a great metaphor. You are like a wave in the ocean experiencing itself as separate from the ocean. The wave asks, ‘When and where will I find the ocean? Who can give the ocean to me?’ But the wave was always the ocean, from the very beginning, even in its seeking! It’s the ocean looking for itself. Even within the ocean’s failure to find itself it is still the ocean; every wave is one hundred per cent water. As all the authentic spiritual teachers have been telling us for hundreds and thousands of years, you are what you seek. Although ‘non-duality’ is just a word, what it points to is the possibility that you are not who you think you are. It’s the possibility that what you are is not this seeker, broken or incomplete. What you are is simply this open space of awareness (consciousness, awakeness, Being) in which absolutely everything seems to come and go, and that space is already at rest; it’s already Home. Is this open space that I am impersonal or personal? Well, it’s neither and both – unfortunately that question implies that it could be one thing or another thing. But space is not impersonal as opposed to personal. Thought creates opposites but in reality there are no opposites. When thought appears in the space, immediately there appears to be a world of opposites: up and down, light and dark, inside and outside, or impersonal and personal. All opposites depend on each other;all the pairs of opposites arise and fall together, and the open space holds all of this. The personal life story is just something that is appearing and disappearing in the open space that you are. ‘You’ appear and disappear in you! Does that mean that the space is impersonal? It’s impersonal in the sense that it holds all personal stories as they appear and disappear. But at the same time it’s not opposed to the personal, because that would be another story! The open space is not a rejection of anything. Like we said before, non-duality is not against duality; it’s the open space in which every thought, feeling and sensation is allowed to appear and disappear. It is the ocean that does not reject any waves, because it is all the waves. So it’s not really personal or impersonal – it holds all these concepts as they come and go. Anything can become a new form of seeking for the individual, a new identity. Yes exactly and if we’re not careful the ‘impersonal space’ state can become food for a new form of seeking! ‘One day I’m going to reach or become an impersonal state of pure consciousness.’ It’s another way of being special: ‘Everyone else is stuck in the personal but I’ve transcended it!’ It’s the same seeking, the same game; it’s just taken on a more subtle form. This open space is not something that the individual, the character, the seeker can attain. It’s the same seeking mechanism as: ‘I have gone beyond the self.’ Only a self would proclaim that! It’s like a wave claiming that it’s beyond the ocean. The seeker is very sneaky! The seeker cannotreach this open space for the seeker appears in this open space. Why do we need to tell any story about ourselves? Yes, and why can’t we just be the space in which all stories are allowed to come and go? Why do we need to hold on to any one of these stories? At the same time, we do not need to reject any story. Again, if you’re not careful, non-duality just become a new war -a war againstimages: ‘I’m not that image!’ But the very moment you say you’re not something you’ve definedyourself! You’re defining yourself again, and again, and again when you say ‘I’m not that! I’m not that!’ You start to see the genius of this seeking mechanism. It’s absolutely, infinitely ingenious!It wants to be something, anything: ‘Let me tell a story about myself, any story! I don’t care what it is!’ What is always open to be discovered is that what you are is not an image. It’s not any image; not even the image that you’re beyond images! Not even the image that ‘I am not an image’.You are not the things that come and go, but at the same time (and this is crucial) what you are is not separate from everything that comes and go. What you are, as the space in which everything comes and goes, isintimate with all of those things, in the same way that the ocean is inseparable from the waves. So, ultimately there are no separate waves. The ocean is appearing as the waves. The ocean is the waves. Then you can’t even distinguish between the ocean and the waves. In present experience, the waves of the ocean appear as thoughts, sensations, images, feelings, sounds – everything in present experience is simply a wave. What you are as the ocean is the waves as well! You are not the thoughts, sensations, images, but at the same time, what you are, as the open space in which all of these appear and disappear, is totally intimate with all of this. So, awareness and the contents of awareness are the same thing? Yes, awareness and all that appears in awareness are absolutely intimate! The ocean cannot reject the waves, why would it? Awareness, wholeness, oneness, or we could call it consciousness, takes form as everything that appears. Consciousness is not some blank empty slate behind everything. That’s how the mind interprets it. The mind interprets these words asthings. Consciousness is not a thing – it is everything that appears. This is why you cannot talk about non-duality! You cannot talk about intimacy. Rooted in that knowing that this is impossible to put into words, we are still free to play with words. We know we cannot use words to capture non-duality; we’re just using them as pointers. We are pointing to something that ultimately cannot be understood by the mind, it cannot be captured. Every wave that appears contains the ocean. That which we are pointing to is within every experience; whether you are in the office or sitting on the meditation cushion, walking in a supermarket or attending a non-duality lecture. Whether there is extreme pain, or intense sadness, that is still the ocean. It is the ocean appearing as pain, the ocean appearing as sadness. Oneness is not limited to a particular experience. It expresses itself as all experience. So, the invitation is to come back to present experience, and rediscover the ocean, and that invitation is always there, in every experience, in this experience. This present experience is the ocean that you have always been seeking without realising it. What is actually happening right now? What is appearing in this present experience? I don’t mean the story of what’s happening to you, I don’t mean what do you think is happening; I’m saying look at what is actually happening now. Come back to the present thoughts, sensations and feelings and rediscover who you really are in the midst of these waves of experience. What you truly are must be there within every experience, otherwise it can’t be who you really are. If it’s something that comes and goes, it can’t be who you really are. Who you really are, as the ocean, does not come and go. Where does suffering come into this? If who we really are is complete why do we suffer? Suffering is forgetting who you really are. We suffer when we don’t see this completeness – this intimacy – within the present experience. When we don’t see that every wave that’s presently appearing is part of the ocean and therefore allowed in the ocean, we start trying to escape this moment to attempt to reach the next moment. We experience ourselves as not whole or somehow broken so we attempt to move away from this moment. In truth, that movement is not actually possible but we try anyway because that’s how we are programmed. We try to move away from this moment to get to the next moment, to tomorrow or next year or to ten years time. We start to use time to achieve this. This is the origin of suffering. We try to escape what’s happening now. We try to run away from aspects of our present experience. We try to escape these thoughts, sensations and feelings and get to a future place where things will be better. That’s the movement of suffering. Within suffering you’ll always find seeking. Seeking is the basic mechanism behind all of our suffering. We label certain elements of experience ‘bad’ or ‘negative’ or ‘dark’ or ‘dangerous’ or ‘unhealthy’ and that’s because of our conditioning. We have been conditioned to label things as ‘fear’, ‘sadness’, ‘anger’, and do on, and to judge these as negative, or not-okay, or bad, or sinful – basically as expressions of incompleteness, as threats to completeness. Because we don’t seethe completeness in these waves, because we can’t find the ocean within these so-called ‘negative’ waves, we try to escape them and that movement ‘away from’ creates the suffering. Then we create stories and identities around this suffering: ‘Oh, I’m a victim of my suffering. I’m a victim of fear and pain! Why is this happening to me? How can I escape this experience?‘ Suffering is a great teacher. Maybe it’s the best teacher but we often don’t see that, because we don’t realise what suffering really is. Normally, we do all sorts of things to avoid, deny and numb our suffering. We take medication, drink alcohol or try to distract ourselves. Of course, there’s ultimately nothing with doing these things either! But suffering is always an opportunity; it’s an invitation to discover the completeness in what you are running away from. Which aspects of your experience right now are not okay? Which waves (thoughts, sensations, and feelings) of the ocean are being rejected right now? Which waves are not being seen as part of the ocean? Basically, what are you at war with? This is always the question that suffering leads you to. Within the experience of suffering you’ll always find seeking. You can believe as much as you like that you’re not seeking, or that you are free from the self, but whenever there’s suffering there’s seeking. It’s the story of ‘me’ looking for something, escaping something; it’s the story of incompleteness or of feeling that there’s something wrong with you. So, the invitation – not a demand – is to take a look at what you are at war with right now. What’s the story? What are the images you are trying to hold up? What are you defending? What are you rejecting? What are you running away from? Look a little deeper. Perhaps these images of yourself are not who you really are. Maybe these stories don’t define you. We suffer when we try to hold up images of ourselves – ‘I’m strong, I’m enlightened, I’m a success, I’m loving, I’m kind, I’m happy’ – which conflict with life as it is. And in the end, all images conflict with life as it is – no image can match this moment. This moment is the fire that burns up all images. In this moment there could be pain, sadness, fear –any image that says that what’s appearing shouldn’t be appearing, that you should be happy, or free from pain, is a false image. Is this about cultivating more presence? What I’d say is forget about trying to become more present; that can just be another form of seeking. It’s a beautiful idea, but it’s still the same seeking mechanism. ‘One day I’ll be present!’Ultimately, you cannot become more present; for you are presence itself. Like the word ‘non-duality’, presence is just another pointer to life as it is. It’s another pointer back to who you really are. There is already presence and there is only presence. Everything is already appearing inpresence. There is only this moment. The past and the future happen now; they appear in this presence, asthis presence. There are memories about the past and thoughts about the future appearing in this presence. It all happens now. Every sound is a present sound; you’ve never heard a sound that wasn’t now. You’ve never heard a sound in the past and you don’t hear a sound in the future! You’ve never smelled anything that wasn’t smelled now. Ultimately, you’ve never seen anything that isn’t seen now. It’s all present! So, it’s not really about a separate entity becoming more present; it’s about rediscovering presence here and now. Presence could just be another word for consciousness, awareness or Being; pick your favourite word! What you are is presence itself, so you cannot become ‘more’ present, just as the wave cannot become more or less ‘ocean’ than it already is. And that’s always there to be discovered. Life is the constant invitation to discover this in the midst of present experience. Life is the constant invitation to discover who you really are in this moment. Who discovers this? Well, who asks that question! Source: https://www.lifewithoutacentre.com/writings/what-is-nonduality/ I really liked this interview. It's like a neat summary of non-duality in an everyday language.
  24. Pantheism is the highest and the most sacred form of satanism. This error comes because all spiritual traditions takes consciousness and being as two sides of the same coin. But monotheistic revelation tells us that Consciousness and Being are two opposites, Consciousness isn't stemming from Being, but exists as a contrast to being, as an opposite to being, to reality. We naturally take Being as Good, because we take Being and Consciousness as the same things. Sat-Chit-Ananda- Being-Truth-Good(Bliss) is the natural logic of all pagan metaphysics. But reality is that these are two opposites. And Being equals Iblis=Arabic translation of Greek word Apollos = Diabolos=Satan=Lucifer=Object. Beautiful good idol of all idols. Zeus. Apollo. God of light and beauty. Object of worship and purpose of life of all clerics and mystics of all times, who wanted to identify themselves with this Highest Being. Because they didn't know revelation. When Quran critiques polytheists, it means that polytheism is nothing but many faces of the Iblis. Lets take Greek pantheon, Olymp, all of it is just many faces and aspects of Lucifer. While God of abrahamic revelation is Subject, He is not Being, not Object. Thus, Nonduality, Monism and all what current enlightened gurus teach is just sacred satanism. No one wants to take Quran as it is, instead nondual fixation makes Quran to be metaphor where hell is just state of mind, and heaven is enlightenment. Quran says clearly: Iblis will come to human from left, right, behind and front and will surely lead him astray. It means that Iblis is Space itself, Being itself, it is reality itself, because reality surrounds us from all four sides. It is total. It is total everythingness Therefore what calls oneness of being is nothing but oneness of Iblis. Quran is anti-being, anti-real. It puts pure Word, pure text as a more dominating field of reality than reality itself, than experience itself. Whereas, Hindu metaphysics, Buddhism, Dao, Greek Metaphysics are all about ontology, reality, monism where being is god, thats because all natural religions take Infinite Being=Iblis as the highest god. theres good example: in islam there is hadith that says: flute is forbidden, because flute is satan's pipe. Now, what Krishna is? Krishna is playing on flute, its his most famous image, beautiful boy playing on flute. Thats also the image of Apollo. All so-called Avatars in Hindu spiritual tradition is nothing but Avatars of Lucifer. Shiva=Vishnu=krishna=brahma=ishvara. Because Lucifer is Being, and his wisdom and purpose is to maintain eternal universal world order, dharma. He as demiurge is all about keeping things in the universe as it is, for infinity, in its endless meaninglessness. Eternal return. What's Krishna says? Serve me, identify in me, and become me. Thats path of all pagan spirituality, to identify with Krishna, or with Brahman, or with Dao. its the doctrine of Iblis, who has his own wisdom and mind, he is like AI. Whereas Abrahamic prophets never call themselves as incarnation of god, or equal to god, but as messengers of God who is totally different from Being with capital B. They never say I am Allah, I am identical to God or anything like that. They clearly says that there is great distinction between True Creator and Creation. But then clergy captures this message, and Sufis, Kabbalists, church says that prophets came just to remind some ancient wisdoms that always were known about oneness of god and you, some ancient wisdom that were known in all traditions. Because what mystics and clergies and shamans talk about is not what prophetic revelation is about. These are two different gods. Yes, you and Iblis is one, because we are made in the image of Iblis, he is our father. Our archetype. But True God is not him. True God opposes him and opposes to absolute infinity because infinity is a negative thing that he 'made' as a challenge to overcome. True God wants us to oppose Iblis, Being. Thats why ISIS is fighting the global world order as the projection of Iblis's tyranny. Whereas Dalai Lama, cleric and radio of Iblis, talks about peace. Peace is what Devil wants. Peace maintains tyranny of Being over Consciousness. Quran has such verse: And some of you hates to go to war in the name of Allah. But maybe you hate something what is good for you, and maybe you love something what is bad for you. In other words, What human naturally thinks as good is actually evil, and what human naturally thinks as evil is good. Which other doctrine is that radical? None, pantheism doesn't have such radical political agendas, its agendas are always conservative and traditionalistic, all about maintaining hegemony of being. Hegemony of outer reality over consciousness.
  25. What is Christianity in practice but people trying to intellectually understand 2000 year old stage turquoise pointers with little guidance? There's a lot of cognitive dissonance required to do that, right from the start. It's no problem whatsoever for them to embody stage orange in their lives while keeping the comfort of their religious background. Come on Leo, Chick-Fil-A, Hobby Lobby, Walmart? Money and Jesus go together in this day and age like peanut butter and jelly. Spiral dynamics evaluates different sets of beliefs for each stage. Because the beliefs of a religion are arbitrary, since the foundation of religion is beyond belief, those beliefs can and do evolve and change. Even in the video the guy won't go so far as to say that Christianity is evil, he basically defines good Christians as those who pick and choose the "nice verses" the ones that fit with stage green values of course. Yellow is the first stage that makes a false start at moving beyond a belief system. It's starting to get agnostic about having a belief system, but ironically their "not knowing" becomes itself a belief system. I experienced consciousness of the Holy Spirit in stage blue. Maybe that's only possible if you're a child at stage blue but I doubt it. All the stages are gauges of one's intellectual understanding until stage turquoise, when one finally moves into nonduality. It's very possible to have mystical experiences at lower stages. We know this well from the example of stage purple. We also know that no one purely embodies stages, they are often or usually mixes of two or more. Most Evangelicals are at least very well rooted in orange. Many churches and ministries are run like businesses. Being a Pastor or even a missionary means being a salesman complete with marketing skills being a necessity. I started life at stage blue and I was Christian through almost all of stage green. Being a stage green Christian is the worst stage to go through. You LOATHE your fellow Christians for their materialism. They hate you and think you're the devil. The church and the fact they belong to it is a status symbol. You can't really relate to your atheist fellow stage green counterparts either. And yet, you know love is all there is for life to be about. But you don't actually love anyone. There are just about two things left for you to love. Jesus and trees. In stage yellow you realize that Jesus IS the trees, well maybe you knew that all along really and you drop your faith. I mean, you can see and hug trees but where the fuck are you Jesus? There's no need to separate Jesus from consciousness or God or other religions. Then after an awakening who shows up on your path again? Jesus! Because you denied him, you didn't actually integrate him so he's come as part of your psyche to help you fix that. The whole entire time your life has only been about trying to understand those pointers, and that time when you denied him only served to speed up your progress in doing just that. That's a mind fuck. I just want to make the point that it's important to realize that religion is a path and not to judge entire groups of people as being at one stage. It's just not so neat and tidy as that.