Is it impossible to prove the existence of other realities?

[EternalForest]

I'm open to the possibility that there may be other realities, but until we can prove one of these other realities using phenomena in our own reality, we have no reason to believe they exist. Even if they do exist, how are we able to demonstrate it objectively? To be clear, it's not that I don't believe they could ever exist. I simply don't believe there is positive evidence to believe they do exist, and until positive evidence comes to the forefront the idea is nothing more than speculation or a thought experiment/hypothesis. Subjective experience is not worthless, but just isn't sufficient to prove multiple realities exist. Unfortunately, even if everyone on Earth claimed to have subjectively experienced another reality, if no one could show each other proof of what they experienced,  we still couldn't say for sure if we were all under mass hallucination.

Spiritual beliefs tend to also fill in the blanks of our scientific knowledge (consciousness, death, etc.), while conveniently not giving their take on what science broadly covers. There's also a sort of communication barrier between the scientists and the spiritual. The scientists can't seem to "wake up" and the spiritual can't seem to understand the value of logic. The scientist asks "Prove God exists", while the spiritual responds with "Prove you exist!". It's a debate that goes nowhere.

One point in the recent What Is God? video I took issue with was the claim that skepticism is more lazy than using your subjective experiences to craft reality, and I just wholly disagree. Studying to find the most rational and accurate answer is indeed work,  tons of work, and worthwhile work at that. Although I'm certain that spiritual practices lead to a certain level of fulfillment and insight, to say that the great achievements of science, logic and rationality have been given to us on a silver platter is honestly a little preposterous.

[Aakash]

13 minutes ago, EternalForest said:

the great achievements of science, logic and rationality have been given to us on a silver platter is honestly a little preposterous.

when was this said? 

13 minutes ago, EternalForest said:

spiritual can't seem to understand the value of logic

i think there are many people out there who see the value of logic and rationality, its just they are probably trans-rationale only for a slight proportion of their lives now and just don't give as much weight to it as other people do it terms of importance. 

remember you can't even enter the spritual path without logic and ration at the beggining, so i think once people get more clear at higher stages, they'll reunderstand the importance of logic in their journey.

 

also yes its possible logically to prove the theory of other realities, but in the end ultimately it collapses to realise there is only the truth of reality at different degrees, and even that is slightly false from my perspective because its one unified movement. 

Edited February 4, 2019 by Aakash

[Leo Gura]

@EternalForest You don't understand what you are talking about when you say the word "reality" or "other".

There cannot be multiple realities. There must be only ONE reality. And within this one reality are contained infinite forms, bubbles, rulesets, etc.

Any "other" reality which you might imagine is automatically part of the the one total reality. Reality is TOTAL.

This misunderstanding stems from your lack of awareness that the distinction between self/other is purely conceptual. "Other" is impossible because there is only 1 thing subdivided into infinite parts.

There is only one thing in existence: you. There are no others.

Turn your skepticism on the notion of "other". I dare you to prove that other exists.

Just like in a dream, all the characters are actually you.

Just like in a video game, all the objects of the simulation are ONE simulation. Objects have no independent existence.

[Emerald]

4 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

@EternalForest You don't understand what you are talking about when you say the word "reality".

There cannot be multiple realities. There must be only ONE reality. And within this one reality are contained infinite forms, bubbles, rulesets, etc.

Any "other" reality which you might imagine is automatically part of the the one total reality. Reality is TOTAL.

This misunderstanding stems from your lack of awareness that the distinction between self/other is purely conceptual. "Other" is impossible because there is only 1 thing subdivided into infinite parts.

There is only one thing in existence: you. There are no others.

Turn your skepticism on the notion of "other".

Is it possible to actually know that there are no other realities for sure? It sounds like a big assumption that I don't think anyone could reliably know with the mind. Correct me here if I am wrong.

As it seems, we are forever in a huge blindspot in terms of knowing and understanding. So, we can not know if there is one, zero, many, or infinite realities. Even in the experience of oneness, there is still no certainty that the mind can grasp.

So, it's wisest to embrace your inherent innocence to the workings of reality, and not fall on either side of the horse. The mind must surrender all illusions of knowing and simply embrace being to let go of the delusions of the mind.

In my view, your certainty in knowing that there is no "other" and that there's only one reality, feels like the mind feels certain in a way that it never can be. 

Now, I have experienced oneness myself. But I'm still only limited to this one experience. So, it doesn't necessarily mean that there is only one experience. Now, I generally believe in oneness and that within the oneness is a many-ness, as this is what it seemed like. But to claim a knowing or understanding feels like a truth crystalized into a delusion.

[EternalForest]

@Leo Gura Okay, I'll take you up on that, all realities are equal.

Let's say I have a village in my mind that requires watering the plants, working the power plants, and regulating the weather and sunlight, among other things. I am basically the God of this village. Now let's say I die. What happens to that village? Does the village in my mind suddenly go into chaos? Who would know but me? Where is that "occuring"?

[Shadowraix]

@Emerald There is a word game going on here.

He's playing on the nonduality of oneness. That reality is an all encompassing term for everything. There can only be 'multiple realities' if you create illusory distinction. So therefore it is actually all one singular reality.

But of course when you say multiple realities people are more referring to a section of the singular reality where its rulesets behave differently. 

 

[now is forever]

5 minutes ago, rounder said:

my thing is, that can;'t be what she means cause its obvious theres an infinite number of realities

that is if reality changes location/attention

[now is forever]

@rounder yes, but if you know the same hand is connected in the head area you can even visualize/imagine feel that field. it is lokal and not - i must imagine the ears, fingers and eyes in that situation.

what do you think happens when you touch skin? 

i mean there is skin conductivity so something happens if we touch other reality - doesn’t it - but it’s not that there is the same information exchange like when we build a shortcircuit.

but still we share a field. and ‚this is local and not. so the field reaches as far as our perception reaches. in oneness our perception reaches out from emotion to emotion - that’s my experience, as every sign of emotion of other is exactly your own - like a mirror. (well there are different onenesses)

so it‘s still a change of location attention - and attention not centered but expanded.

Edited February 5, 2019 by now is forever

[lmfao]

@EternalForest

Quote

Is it impossible to prove the existence of other realities?

Non-duality can be framed logically. We could define reality to just be everything that is present and happening right now. Everything right now that is occurring is occurring in one consciousness. For "you" right now, everything is happening in one consciousness. Other people are simply forms within your consciousness. It should be an obvious fact that everything is occurring in one consciousness, but alas here we are suffering and etc. 

I don't see the point in statements like "there are an infinite number of realities". That sort of take on things doesn't interest me in terms of consciousness work, because for the sake of consciousness work I see this as a concept. It's the sort of thing I would be interested in at a philosophical/scientific level. 

I've seen Leo for example to state that he "knows" (I'm straw manning Leo here but I can't think of a better word) that his true self will live forever, and that he knows the he's experienced reality as a dinosaur and that he has and will experience reality in an infinite number of forms. To clarify how Leo phrases it, it isn't the egoic self that lives forever and takes on infinite forms. It's God that lives "forever"(Mu, the void, brahman, Allah, Godhead, whatever name you use). But to be honest, I'm very averse to thinking of things that way. One thought which crosses my mind is that the assertion that you have and will experience all uncountable forms induces the notion of time. But what if time and at an even deeper level the existence of flux, perception, events itself is an "illusion". What does it mean to say "I will experience reality as a Spiderman". Where is this idea coming from? 

 

Reality is just:

Shouldn't that be enough?

 

 

Edited February 5, 2019 by lmfao

[Forestluv]

25 minutes ago, rounder said:

You can still use concepts for consciousness work, but you must drop them for higher levels of consciousness states

?? 

The same concept that was the key to a door to a deeper level can then become a lock, trapping us.

 

[Emerald]

1 hour ago, rounder said:

@Shadowraix shes saying "i believe" in non-duality, like someone believing in atheism. 

I don't think she gets full blown oneness based on the whole post. You can see duality of a lot of things but get confused where it all comes from, which breaks the whole thing 

Cause she is talking about realities from an ego's point of view, how do we know for sure? Yeah there is other realities you haven't experienced you can't be in them all. But they are all from the same singular reality. Like my dream is diff from real life, your POV is different from mine, those are 2 diff realities. 

formlessness really explains this I forget which video it is from but there is a good gif of it, if you don't understand then you aren't getting the formless thing cause its a mind fuck

I am talking from the perspective of someone who has had two experiences of ego transcendence, where I experienced oneness and recognized God was the nature of everything.

But I also currently am ego identified. So, recognize that my belief in the ultimate truth of that experience is still just a belief based in a memory which is also a thought. So, I don't know for sure. So, I am aware that I'm believing in non-duality like a person believes in atheism because it is not my present moment experience and I recognize that I cannot truly know anything for sure.

So, this is why I pressed Leo on the matter. How could he possibly know if there are multiple realities or just one reality if it's a belief of his based in memory? How could he possibly know that there are no other experiences when nothing can be seen beyond his immediate experience? How could he possibly be sure that his mind's interpretation of his experiences which are then crystalized into beliefs are correct?

An insight that I had gotten was that to truly be open to Truth, a person falls into a trap to take any belief for granted. And since innocence was one of the core aspects of experiencing oneness for me, my intuition is that all belief in the absolute nature of reality should be set aside and not taken for granted. And this is true with anything that the mind interprets and crystalizes into an idea or belief, even relative to experiences of oneness.

It seems wisest, that the mystery should be embraced that we may not be able to know even if it seems that we do. So, any absolute interpretation of reality I eye suspiciously (including my own)... especially if it's comprehensible to the human mind.

 

[Leo Gura]

2 hours ago, Emerald said:

Is it possible to actually know that there are no other realities for sure? It sounds like a big assumption that I don't think anyone could reliably know with the mind. Correct me here if I am wrong.

As it seems, we are forever in a huge blindspot in terms of knowing and understanding. So, we can not know if there is one, zero, many, or infinite realities. Even in the experience of oneness, there is still no certainty that the mind can grasp.

So, it's wisest to embrace your inherent innocence to the workings of reality, and not fall on either side of the horse. The mind must surrender all illusions of knowing and simply embrace being to let go of the delusions of the mind.

In my view, your certainty in knowing that there is no "other" and that there's only one reality, feels like the mind feels certain in a way that it never can be.

Your doubts are understandable, but actually the one who's lost in the delusions of mind is you!

Doubt is an activity of the mind. Both-sides-ism is an activity of the mind. Other is an activity of the mind. And counting is an activity of the mind.

Yes, it is absolutely possible to become conscious that reality is total, one, and infinite. It is also possible to become conscious that "other" is an illusion of the mind.

It is possible to become conscious that there is no difference between zero, one, many, and infinity. Reality contains within it an infinite number of sub-realities -- which is what infinity means. All of it is ONE.

One vs many is a duality.

My certainty in knowing there is no other is simply my consciousness that I am God, and I am all alone. There can only be one Absolute Infinity. I created all of you and I created myself.

The realization that "other" is an illusion is central to enlightenment. You are not really enlightened unless you are conscious that all "others" are literally yourself.

You are the only thing in existence. I am just a figment of your imagination. You created me. And I created you. Ta-da!

This requires a deep enlightenment. A radical state of nonduality.

There is no blindspot in understanding. Enlightenment is Absolute understanding of everything that exists. It is omniscience. You have 100% unmediated access to the entire universe. Nothing is hidden.

What I am saying is way beyond the mind.

If you tried some 5-MeO-DMT, you might understand.

You guys are still underestimating just how radical total enlightenment is. A glimpse is nowhere near the rock bottom. Lots of people have minor glimpses. Very few people have gone all the way.

[Mulky]

If order for you to experience another reality, it wouldn't really be another reality because by you experiencing it, it would be part of this reality.

[TheAvatarState]

2 hours ago, EternalForest said:

I'm open to the possibility that there may be other realities, but until we can prove one of these other realities using phenomena in our own reality, we have no reason to believe they exist. Even if they do exist, how are we able to demonstrate it objectively? To be clear, it's not that I don't believe they could ever exist. I simply don't believe there is positive evidence to believe they do exist, and until positive evidence comes to the forefront the idea is nothing more than speculation or a thought experiment/hypothesis. Subjective experience is not worthless, but just isn't sufficient to prove multiple realities exist. Unfortunately, even if everyone on Earth claimed to have subjectively experienced another reality, if no one could show each other proof of what they experienced,  we still couldn't say for sure if we were all under mass hallucination.

There's a lot of juicy stuff in this thread, so I hope you go back and read through with this knowledge.

All we have is 1st person experience, which is characterized as being conscious and aware. "Objective" reality is something that is couched within and completely dependent on 1st person experience. "Objective" is something we coined to refer to consensus reality based on our 1st person experience. If you're having trouble seeing this, researching QM and the double slit experiment would be illuminating. Our 1st person experience/consciousness changes and creates the 3rd person objective, precisely because the 1st person is what comes first, and the objective is couched within (second-order phenomena). Of course that's not saying a sense of "objective" can't be a very important distinction for science and just navigating the world, it is nonetheless illusory. Also notice that just the fact we experience consciousness brings in a delicious strange loop to the equation. A self-referential problem. The mind-body problem is not possible to resolve from the materialist paradigm, that's why we've been philosophizing about it for millennia. 

In your question, you ask for proof of other realities. "Proof" is a second order phenomena based on the "data" of this local world! Let's say there was another reality that was equal to this, how could "proof" possibly prove it? What you'll find is that proof itself is an untenable notion. There is a lot of evidence in your direct experience that reality is a simulation, but it can't be proven. Maybe in the future scientists will be able to "prove" that, but at that point they'll have to drop the word "prove" and take it as common knowledge. Because there's nothing to point to call "proof"! Reality stays the same, they've just assumed from the start it was "physical."

Knowing that all we have is 1st persona experience, there is no difference between what we call current reality and a "hallucination." None at all. Try to join these two images in your mind, collapse the "physical" into the "mind". For if they have the same definition, then they must be the same thing...

[Leo Gura]

2 hours ago, EternalForest said:

@Leo Gura Okay, I'll take you up on that, all realities are equal.

No, "reality" is the ultimate super-set. There can only be one. Anything you imagine beyond reality automatically becomes included in reality. Because reality is EVERYTHING, leaving no more room for anything else to be. Reality leaves nothing out. In the same way that if I say, "all possible movies", that means you can't imagine any movie which I have already not accounted for. Any movie you could image or create, I've already accounted for by saying, "all possible movies".

Now imagine, "all possible possibilities". That's it! There can be nothing more. Everything has been accounted for. That is reality.

Quote

Let's say I have a village in my mind that requires watering the plants, working the power plants, and regulating the weather and sunlight, among other things. I am basically the God of this village. Now let's say I die. What happens to that village? Does the village in my mind suddenly go into chaos? Who would know but me? Where is that "occuring"?

There is no village or you. The village is a hallucination hallucinated by a hallucination. When you "die", the village dies too. The village is just a part of you.

Stop assuming the existence of an external material world. There is no such thing. That's just an image in your mind. When your mind dies, so will the material external world.

Everything is occurring nowhere, and it is nothing. Nothing has ever occurred. You only imagine it has.

It's all infinite hallucinations occurring nowhere and nowhen.

A hallucination is something which is, but isn't.

[EternalForest]

@lmfao What you're saying sounds straightforward and makes sense on an intuitive level but it's hard for me to real feel the "realness" of what you're saying, because I've honestly never felt one with everything in that sort of way. At certain moments of creativity I have felt one with what I was creating, and I've felt one with family and friends, and occasionally nature, but not everything all at once in the sense you're talking about. So it's just not true for me on baseline level, but I've had experiences that hint at what you're talking about.

[EternalForest]

@Leo Gura All possible possibilities = reality, a hallucination hallucinated by a hallucination...hm, that's some stuff I'm definitely going to mull over.

I appreciate your thoughtful responses, as well as everyone elses in the thread. Quality community.

I watch your videos because I believe there's some deep truth there, but feel it's just out of my grasp. I'm going to start doing the practices seriously this year, from my previous posts I've shared that I try starting spiritual practices (meditation, lucid dreaming, contemplation, etc.), get some minor progress but then at some point fall away and get disillusioned, frustrated, disinterested, inconsistent, etc.) This year I'd really like to try and make a meditation habit stick, trying to build from 20min to an hour daily and maybe do a retreat this summer and get to the bottom of this stuff, not through this sort of intellectual discussion but more direct experience/meditation. Hopefully this will click for me, only time will tell (I'm in no rush  )

[Arthur]

42 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

Stop assuming the existence of an external material world. There is no such thing. That's just an image in your mind. When your mind dies, so will the material external world.

 

This is the key. 

This is exactly what I became aware of during a 5-meo breakthrough. My ordinary notion of reality got flipped around. When I died, so did the whole world. From being an entity in an external world, I instantly went to having the external world appearing in me. But It's not something that is understood conceptually. It just became so.

I'm very puzzled as to how this switch can even occur. I think my ordinary state of consciousness is too low, and my mind distorts the perception of reality. Raw and pure awareness gets covered with layers of language and thoughts. It's really hard to get to the bottom of that. Yet at the end, consciousness includes all that, even the thoughts and the Ego.

[Emerald]

1 hour ago, Leo Gura said:

Your doubts are understandable, but actually the one who's lost in the delusions of mind is you!

Doubt is an activity of the mind. Both-sides-ism is an activity of the mind. Other is an activity of the mind. And counting is an activity of the mind.

Yes, it is absolutely possible to become conscious that reality is total, one, and infinite. It is also possible to become conscious that "other" is an illusion of the mind.

It is possible to become conscious that there is no difference between zero, one, many, and infinity. Reality contains within it an infinite number of sub-realities -- which is what infinity means. All of it is ONE.

One vs many is a duality.

My certainty in knowing there is no other is simply my consciousness that I am God, and I am all alone. There can only be one Absolute Infinity. I created all of you and I created myself.

The realization that "other" is an illusion is central to enlightenment. You are not really enlightened unless you are conscious that all "others" are literally yourself.

You are the only thing in existence. I am just a figment of your imagination. You created me. And I created you. Ta-da!

This requires a deep enlightenment. A radical state of nonduality.

There is no blindspot in understanding. Enlightenment is Absolute understanding of everything that exists. It is omniscience. You have 100% unmediated access to the entire universe. Nothing is hidden.

What I am saying is way beyond the mind.

If you tried some 5-MeO-DMT, you might understand.

You guys are still underestimating just how radical total enlightenment is. A glimpse is nowhere near the rock bottom. Lots of people have minor glimpses. Very few people have gone all the way.

Listen, I understand my limitations here. I am still very much ego identified. 

But my impression was that you are too, but have had many glimpses through psychedelics. 

So, given that what you talk about is not rooted in the present but always in reference to past experiences (correct me if I'm wrong), how can you know right now as you are identified with Leo-ness?

How can you know 100% for sure that the mind is not deluding you by creating an interpretation of your past experiences that is comprehensible to the mind and others who read it? And how could you know any of the past actually happened at all?

And could God not create a secondary delusion, that to you feels 100% like absolute truth but would just be another delusion? And could that secondary delusion be what you're describing right now?

Now, I'm not saying it's not true. But I'm asking, do you have 100% certainty that what you're saying is absolutely true... or could it just seem true in your experience?

I just feel like pinning anything down in the realm of thoughts will always be a concession, and may be totally delusion at every step.

So, it is not so much about doubt but a surrendering of the mind and admit that it cannot know anything for sure. And a total embrace of the mystery of what is and our own perpetual state of innocence that never dies.

Edited February 5, 2019 by Emerald

[Jack River]

What @Leo Gurahas posted is actually pretty obvious. It’s only confusing when it is taken out of context. We will build our understanding on a foundation of presumptions. This tends to lead to confusion when we try to understand it according to the contents of our already existing knowledge & experience as consciousness being limited to the body/mind and the world being independent of that body mind. We don’t see it is all I, and implies that aloneness.

Many also associate this aloneness with isolation as well, but that is not the case. Aloneness has a sense of intimacy, and greater sense of harmony/communion. 

But really it is all right in plain site. Direct perception or direct experience reveals it as rather obvious indeed. 

Edited February 5, 2019 by Jack River