Ralston clarifies his deepening of consciousness

[Bufo Alvarius]

@Water by the River @Leo Gura

In his latest newsletter, Ralston gives a few key insights into how his consciousness has deepened. He is also writing a new book with the titel "Whereof One Cannot Speak" that is supposed to be the deepest and most advanced book he has written, in his own words "perhaps the deepest and most advanced conscious book ever written", where he will go into depth about his deepest awakenings and insights into absolute consciousness. 

The following is an excerpt from his newsletter:

"Dear Cheng Hsin Community, 

Increasing consciousness just doesn't stop! I am so grateful for what I have become conscious of, not just over the many decades but even just last year! At this point, I'd like to just sit with people and share this consciousness as best I can —a consciousness that is everything, beyond self and not-self, including and squaring the absolute and the relative. It is unbelievable. But that would be for the me-that-really-doesn't-exist, and so selfish. What is best for people, however, is for you to do the work, step by step, and grasp all of the assertions made in the workshops. I might want to just jump to the end, but I realize that's not going to work for you, so I have to support you even if I'd love for you to just be free of it all already! (I have always tended to be impatient. :)) Although, I'd love to be able to simply share the humor and joy I feel, and have you get the consciousness from which it comes, it doesn't work that way. Tough noogies for me, eh? But I do want what's best for you.

A New Depth of Consciousness

Perhaps I should share a bit about this consciousness. I can see that one might ask: if I got What I am and What Another is, etc. so long ago, what was missing or not conscious for me that is now? Good question. As is often the case in consciousness work, some ignorance remains, or the dots don’t connect. So, although I was completely conscious of what I am, it was still what “I” am! There was no doubt that this is infinite and absolute, but the mind still held it as related to “I.” In this new consciousness, finally even my mind got on board and the "I" went. I know this is hard to understand. 

It’s not an either/or.

In such consciousness “I” is seen for what it is, just as are mind, objects, and everything else. It’s like falling into the absolute consciousness that manifests as relative things—nothing is excluded. A final link was made. I had grasped my nature and even the nature of existence, and although I understood the absolute and relative can't be different, my mind still made a distinction between the relative and the absolute. Now I actually see the relative is the absolute, or to say it another way, I see the absolute in the relative—a very impossible thing for a mind to do. It has become obvious, and I smack my forehead that I didn't see it before. The real nature of existence both absolute and relative—is absolute consciousness. 

Me, and everyone else I know or have heard of, still had our enlightenments stuck in the distinction of me and not-me, even grasping that another is the same as me didn’t break the spell, it was understood that they had to be the same, but in reality, no one can square the absolute with the relative. But in this case, consciousness has now done just that. Anyway, once me and not-me disappeared, everything just fell into place—in a much more “inclusive” way than I could have imagined. It humbled me, at least in my heart—but as person (a limited form of consciousness) I’m still that presumptuous and insolent guy, I just laugh a lot more.

Love and Sadness

Once I was dining out and as I looked around at the various fellow diners, I did my best to experience the world they experienced. I supplemented this effort with my own memory of a world I experienced in which I lived many, many decades ago. My reaction to what I saw was a combination of love and heartbreak. Why those reactions?

I recognize others as myself, and seem to have some kind of compassion or love for us all, and yet there was also a sadness. This sadness was based on seeing the unnecessary but incredibly solidly stuck limitations within which their whole world existed. This is hard to convey, it is certainly unusual, but you might be able to relate to something in this area given you've gleaned some of your own limitations and perhaps had breakthroughs allowing you to glimpse past them. 

One example that might shed a little light on this experience was a hit I had with one of my old t'ai chi teachers. He has accomplished his life goals, is at the top of his field and very successful, and yet as I brought him to mind I was suddenly sad because he is completely limited to that world and knows nothing else, having no access to any reality outside of this limited world. Whereas I had so much more. The good news, I suppose, is that he doesn't know he is limited, he only sees he is king of his world and thinks this world is important. Yet, to me this is sad because it is so ignorant about its limitations and myopic nature. This is the same for the vast majority of humans. That is why I had the heartbreak watching the people around me at dinner."

Winter_CHNL2025.pdf

Edited Thursday at 09:20 AM by Bufo Alvarius

[Davino]

33 minutes ago, Bufo Alvarius said:

The real nature of existence both absolute and relative—is absolute consciousness. 

Poetry!

33 minutes ago, Bufo Alvarius said:

One example that might shed a little light on this experience was a hit I had with one of my old t'ai chi teachers. He has accomplished his life goals, is at the top of his field and very successful, and yet as I brought him to mind I was suddenly sad because he is completely limited to that world and knows nothing else, having no access to any reality outside of this limited world. Whereas I had so much more. The good news, I suppose, is that he doesn't know he is limited, he only sees he is king of his world and thinks this world is important. Yet, to me this is sad because it is so ignorant about its limitations and myopic nature.

Funny Ralston was in that exact same situation a year ago, King of his own world of what thought possible.

Bottomline, Consciousness can always be more Awake and Infinite as well as more limited and deluded, such is the nature of Reality and the Omnipotent Mind of God.

Quote

Ralston Satsang Podcast

Starting next year sometime, we plan on creating a audio podcast of me speaking about maers of concern for people and answering their questions. These should be longer than our Youtube videos. If you have some subjects or questions you'd like addressed verbally, write them to: Brendan, Brendan@ChengHsin.com, and tell him you'd like a response in the podcast if possible.

Interested to check that out

 

Edited Thursday at 09:52 AM by Davino

[Breakingthewall]

1 hour ago, Bufo Alvarius said:

The real nature of existence both absolute and relative—is absolute consciousness.

Maybe Ralston is a beginner in understanding, who knows. Conciousness is a relative concept, means the reality that is manifested. The absolute is beyond the conciousness. Conciousness is the temporary manifestation of a facet of the absolute, the absolute is absolute even it's unconscious of itself, conciousness is the light that shows a part.  any part is the absolute, but infinitely out of the conciousness, only a limited part is conciouss of itself, the point of the iceberg, the other infinite iceberg is in darkness. It doesn't need to be inligthened, because it's absolute in the dark and in the light. Awake and anesthesia with propofol are equally absolute. The thing is that unconscious reality is outside of time , it's not "happening", but the point is that "happening" is a relative appearance. Conciousness is a relative appearance. 

Edited Thursday at 10:39 AM by Breakingthewall

[OBEler]

Interesting, thanks for sharing. I wait for Leo's book, which he announced would be the deepest book ever written. I hope this project is not cancelled. Leo writes blog posts which is great but an overall book is something else. That can go deeper. And I am pretty sure it will be way more deeper than Peter Ralston although Peter Ralston has incredible skills to write but so has Leo in his own style.

Peter Ralston will finish his book before Leo. I hope Leo doesn't read petad Ralstons book before his book comes out so there is no influence.

Edited Thursday at 10:33 AM by OBEler

[Davino]

@Breakingthewall

You must distinguish between Consciousness and autoconsciousness. You are confusing autoconsciousness with Consciousness. Everything is Consciousness but not all of it is autoconscious or consciousness shining in consciousness, so to speak. It's multilevel consciousness.

Otherwise, please tell me what is beyond Consciousness/Existence? 

18 minutes ago, Breakingthewall said:

any part is the absolute, but infinitely out of the conciousness, only a limited part is conciouss of itself

Exactly what I'm trying to say. 

 

So in this sense we can say autoconsciousness or itself consciousness is a most perfect state but Consciousness itself is indeed Infinite and all encompasing beyond awareness.

Edited Thursday at 10:48 AM by Davino

[Breakingthewall]

1 minute ago, Davino said:

@Breakingthewall

You must distinguish between Consciousness and autoconsciousness. You are confusing autoconsciousness with Consciousness. Everything is Consciousness but not all of it is autoconscious or consciousness shining in consciousness, so to speak. It's multilevel consciousness.

Otherwise, please tell me what is beyond Consciousness/Existence? 

 

 

If you focus your awareness in inside, and are able to get free of the chains of your circumstance, you will realize the unlimited, then you would be conscious of the unlimited, but if you don't do that and you are only aware of your pipe of crack, the unlimited alive still exist, because it's absolute, but it's out of the conciousness, the conciousness is nothing, just appearance. The absolute is out of the time, out of the time is out of the conciousness, because conciousness always, absolutely always, implies time. If you are conscious only of the immutability, you are unconscious. Be conscious needs change to be conscious of itself 

[Davino]

@Breakingthewall I agree with all that you say but your understanding of Consciousness. In my Awakenings it has been revealed beyond doubt that Consciouness is the One Infinite Reality which is God, sentient, perfect: a Field with no boundaries that contains all possible limitations and permutations.

I agree with your stated mechanics but I cannot betray the Divine Infinite Field of Consciousness that IS all this modes and possible experiences. From which I try to attain the most autoconscious ones, the best possible configurations so to speak, that maximize what I consider to be the calling of existence itself.

Edited Thursday at 10:58 AM by Davino

[Breakingthewall]

29 minutes ago, Davino said:

@Breakingthewall I agree with all that you say but your understanding of Consciousness. In my Awakenings it has been revealed beyond doubt that Consciouness is the One Infinite Reality which is God, sentient, perfect: a Field with no boundaries that contains all possible limitations and permutations.

I agree with your stated mechanics but I cannot betray the Divine Infinite Field of Consciousness that IS all this modes and possible experiences. From which I try to attain the most autoconscious ones, the best possible configurations so to speak, that maximize what I considere to be the calling of existence itself.

Do this mental exercise: imagine that you would be yourself without sensory perception. Then imagine yourself without memory, then without mental movement. What would you be aware of? Absolutely nothing. Your field of perception would be nothing, so there would be no time, but this would be the absolute, the total potential from which infinite manifestations can emerge. This is the absolute, the nothingness that is everything, something outside the possibilities of thought or imagination, you could be open to it but not perceive it because perception, or conciousness, are happenings that happens in that potential 

Of course conciousness "always" happens, because no conciousness is out of time, then without conciousness it's not happening, but it doesn't mean than conciousness is absolute, it's just an arising, but this arising always happens because when it's not happening is not "when", it's never, but this never is the absolute. Some meditation is needed  

The human mind needs a concious cause for the cosmos, because an unconscious cause can't be imagined, but this concious cause would be relative. Absolute means total, don't need intention, be aware of itself, just because it's absolute. It is without will or awareness, it's because can't not be, then don't need any conciousness, conciousness just arises, as anything else 

Real awakening means be open to the absolute in yourself. You are that absolute that can't be thought or imagined, and for "you" is the same be conscious or unconscious. It's just difference of state.

Edited Thursday at 11:24 AM by Breakingthewall

[emil1234]

26 minutes ago, Breakingthewall said:

Do this mental exercise: imagine that you would be yourself without sensory perception. Then imagine yourself without memory, then without mental movement. What would you be aware of? Absolutely nothing. Your field of perception would be nothing, so there would be no time, but this would be the absolute, the total potential from which infinite manifestations can emerge. This is the absolute, the nothingness that is everything, something outside the possibilities of thought or imagination, you could be open to it but not perceive it because perception, or conciousness, are happenings that happens in that potential 

 

ive been contemplating this consciousness duality. the fact that without an object of consciousness, consciousness ceases. im not sure i think thats true.

i think it can be argued that consciousness actually IS the absolute, unchanging true Nothingness/deep sleep, from which all things, including experience emerge. the nature of consciousness is simply such that if it has nothing to know itself in relation to (duality), it cannot know that it itself actually exists. so the vast Nothingness without apperances (absolute) is actually pure consciousness. but its consciousness which is not aware of itself, since consciousness only can know that it exists through duality.

Nothingness still has to be Something, since it is something that can actually be experienced, through cessation or deep sleep, meaning there is still a degree of sentience present.

 

Edited Thursday at 11:40 AM by emil1234

[Breakingthewall]

4 minutes ago, emil1234 said:

ive been contemplating this consciousness duality. the fact that without an object of consciousness, consciousness ceases. im not sure i think thats true.

i think it can be argued that consciousness actually IS the absolute, unchanging true Nothingness/deep sleep, from which all things, including experience emerge. the nature of consciousness is simply such that if it has nothing to know itself in relation to (duality), it cannot know that it itself actually exists. so the vast Nothingness without apperances (absolute) is actually pure consciousness. but its consciousness which is not aware of itself, since consciousness only can know that it exists through duality.

Nothingness still has to be Something, since it is something that can actually be experienced, through cessation or deep sleep, meaning there is still a degree of sentience present.

 

Exactly, without duality conciousness ceases. You could say: really there is not duality because everything is the same, etc, but anyway the appearance of two is needed. Without consciousness there is cessation, but cessation simply means absence of consciousness, not absence of absolute reality. Awakening, or enlightenment on whatever you want to call knowing your true nature means realizing that the reality beyond perception, nothingness, not the void in which you are aware of the void, but nothingness, meaning nothingness as the absence of any perception, is the living totality, the absolute potential. It is not a logical mental understanding, it is an opening that occurs in you when you transcend precisely the consciousness 

[emil1234]

19 minutes ago, Breakingthewall said:

Exactly, without duality conciousness ceases. You could say: really there is not duality because everything is the same, etc, but anyway the appearance of two is needed. Without consciousness there is cessation, but cessation simply means absence of consciousness, not absence of absolute reality. Awakening, or enlightenment on whatever you want to call knowing your true nature means realizing that the reality beyond perception, nothingness, not the void in which you are aware of the void, but nothingness, meaning nothingness as the absence of any perception, is the living totality, the absolute potential. It is not a logical mental understanding, it is an opening that occurs in you when you transcend precisely the consciousness 

yes agree, but my point is that the claim can be made that consciousness is still there even when experience / all objects of consciousness ceases. consciousness is just not aware of itself, since it can only know that it exists through duality. but yes again, semantics.

Edited Thursday at 12:09 PM by emil1234

[Breakingthewall]

29 minutes ago, emil1234 said:

yes agree, but my point is that the claim can be made that consciousness is still there even when experience / all objects of consciousness ceases. consciousness is just not aware of itself, since it can only know that it exists through duality. but yes again, semantics.

The question is, what conciousness is? Really conciousness is just perception, perception means the fact of perceiving something. You can't imagine anything without perception because "you", the self that arises being an human is made of perception.

We are like a software that develops itself integrating the sensorial perception which is given meaning from a structure created by evolution. All this about spirituality is penetrating this whole structure and dismantling it until reaching the final essence.

A being made of perception cannot imagine anything that is not perception, because "imagining" is perception. Imagining is a structure of thought created by synaptic connections that integrate the received sensorial perception with the base structure prepared to give it meaning. Getting out of there is not easy, it is impossible to imagine a non-conscious creative force because non-conscious is equated with non-existent by the perceiver, and the perceiver is a creation of the perception.

They say: enlightenment is collapsing the duality between perceptor and perception, then only the reality manifested remains. But sometimes lacks here: what is the reality manifested? They will say: pure conciousness. Ah ok, then why it arises? Why it's in the way that it is? Why it's alive, perfectly synchronized? 

They will say: because conciousness does it. Ah, then conciousness is something that does things....well, seems that conciousness is amplifying it's meaning. Then the final answer: because conciousness is God? What? How? Awake! Idiot! Let me alone 😭

Conciousness is just an arising, just perception, you are without perception. How? Impossible to imagine or perceive, because who imagine or perceive is just the perceptor, the point of a iceberg that is projecting a thin hologram that's a mental construction. That mental construction of course is real, because it's substance is the substance of reality, but means nothing, it's just a relative appearance. The real thing, the absolute, is beyond any conciousness 

[Davino]

2 hours ago, Breakingthewall said:

Do this mental exercise: imagine that you would be yourself without sensory perception. Then imagine yourself without memory, then without mental movement. What would you be aware of? Absolutely nothing. Your field of perception would be nothing, so there would be no time, but this would be the absolute, the total potential from which infinite manifestations can emerge. This is the absolute, the nothingness that is everything

Yes, I've been there

Consciousness is literally nothing

That's what it is

Only nothing can be everything

We're on the same page in that

2 hours ago, Breakingthewall said:

you could be open to it but not perceive it because perception, or conciousness, are happenings that happens in that potential 

It is no ordinary perception or consciousness indeed

2 hours ago, Breakingthewall said:

Of course conciousness "always" happens, because no conciousness is out of time, then without conciousness it's not happening, but it doesn't mean than conciousness is absolute, it's just an arising, but this arising always happens because when it's not happening is not "when", it's never, but this never is the absolute.

Consciousness is what you're pointing but you haven't recognised it as such

Nothing is still alive, it exists as nothing

Existence is Consciousness

The Absolute is Consciousness even if you're "unaware of it"

That doesn't make it less or more Consciousness, it makes it unconscious, or in other words, it exists as unconsciousness

Different gradiations of consciousness, expressions of it

2 hours ago, Breakingthewall said:

Absolute means total, don't need intention, be aware of itself, just because it's absolute. It is without will or awareness, it's because can't not be, then don't need any conciousness, conciousness just arises, as anything else

Whatever you're calling Absolute I call it Consciousness

What you are calling consciousness I would rather call it awareness

There's just One Substances in the Cosmos

It's Conciousness

This experience that is happening is Pure Consciousness like everything that could ever be

I'm floating in a chair of Consciousness

I'm writing in consciousness about Consciousness

I'm consciously communicating with consciousness

Consciousness is the Absolute, is Infinity, is Love, is Truth, is God, is Perfection, is Nothing, is Everything, is Alive, is ShapeShifting, is Omnipresent, is Omniscient, is Omnipotent, is limited, is bounded, is a Field, is beingness, is Awake, is deluded, is first person, second person, third person, is REALITY, is now, is total; it's always already the case

 

[gettoefl]

8 minutes ago, Davino said:

Yes, I've been there

Consciousness is literally nothing

That's what it is

Only nothing can be everything

We're on the same page in that

It is no ordinary perception or consciousness indeed

Consciousness is what you're pointing but you haven't recognised it as such

Nothing is still alive, it exists as nothing

Existence is Consciousness

The Absolute is Consciousness even if you're "unaware of it"

That doesn't make it less or more Consciousness, it makes it unconscious, or in other words, it exists as unconsciousness

Different gradiations of consciousness, expressions of it

Whatever you're calling Absolute I call it Consciousness

What you are calling consciousness I would rather call it awareness

There's just One Substances in the Cosmos

It's Conciousness

This experience that is happening is Pure Consciousness like everything that could ever be

I'm floating in a chair of Consciousness

I'm writing in consciousness about Consciousness

I'm consciously communicating with consciousness

Consciousness is the Absolute, is Infinity, is Love, is Truth, is God, is Perfection, is Nothing, is Everything, is Alive, is ShapeShifting, is Omnipresent, is Omniscient, is Omnipotent, is limited, is bounded, is a Field, is beingness, is Awake, is deluded, is first person, second person, third person, is REALITY, is now, is total; it's always already the case

 

He is going over your head. His pointers are spot on and as good as you will find. You and Peter need to go deeper in my humble opinion.

[WelcometoReality]

@Bufo Alvarius Beautiful, thx for sharing!

[Leo Gura]

6 hours ago, Bufo Alvarius said:

I had grasped my nature and even the nature of existence, and although I understood the absolute and relative can't be different, my mind still made a distinction between the relative and the absolute. Now I actually see the relative is the absolute, or to say it another way, I see the absolute in the relative—a very impossible thing for a mind to do. It has become obvious, and I smack my forehead that I didn't see it before.

It's is kinda shocking that he didn't understand this sooner.

If he listened to me and took some "frog juice" he would have realized it, and stuff even beyond that which is still missing from his teachings.

As I said, self-inquiry and contemplation will not be enough to fully awaken. That's the real lesson here.

I have underscored this trap that nonduality people commonly make, where they identify Truth/Absolute as formlessness while marginalizing form.

And Ralston is still missing that Truth = Love.

Edited Thursday at 03:34 PM by Leo Gura

[gengar]

3 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

It's is kinda shocking that he didn't understand this sooner.

If he listened to me and took some "frog juice" he would have realized it, and stuff even beyond that which is still missing from his teachings.

As I said, self-inquiry and contemplation will not be enough to fully awaken. That's the real lesson here.

Why did you still give him a privileged position of being "awake" compared to other teachers then, if he didn't even realize this relatively basic insight?

[Leo Gura]

17 minutes ago, gengar said:

Why did you still give him a privileged position of being "awake" compared to other teachers then, if he didn't even realize this relatively basic insight?

Because he obviously has a very deep and exceptional level of consciousness. But as I have said, there are many degrees and even different kinds of awakening.

I gave him a privileged position back before I had my own intense awakenings in which I realized the limitations in his teachings. It took me 200+ awakenings to deconstruct all the elaborate illusions of nonduality, Buddhism, and self-inquiry. That was when I was saying crazy sounding-shit and people were calling me out as arrogant and delusional. After which point I stopped pushing my views on matters since it becomes counter-productive.

Well, I am still saying that there is even deeper consciousness than that.

It took me something like 200+ awakenings to break free of all human spirituality and gain total soverienty over my own mind. Until that is achieved the mind will be bogged down by very sneaky human spiritual constructs.

Edited Thursday at 03:51 PM by Leo Gura

[emil1234]

@Leo Gura whats ur take on the Absolute being Nothingness, beyond consciousness? several spiritual traditions seem to point to this

Edited Thursday at 03:46 PM by emil1234

[gettoefl]

14 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

It's is kinda shocking that he didn't understand this sooner.

If he listened to me and took some "frog juice" he would have realized it, and stuff even beyond that which is still missing from his teachings.

As I said, self-inquiry and contemplation will not be enough to fully awaken. That's the real lesson here.

I have underscored this trap that nonduality people commonly make, where they identify Truth/Absolute as formlessness while marginalizing form.

And Ralston is still missing that Truth = Love.

There is duality where most live then there is non-duality where a few arrive.

Non-duality is "better" in the same way that if everything becomes seen as love that's better than coursing to and fro between love and hate.

But non-duality is still a duality and not it.

Non-duality is better also because sitting as love you have the chance for the all to scoop you up.