Leo Gura

@Deep "Just your awareness expanding" is a rather mild way of putting it. More like: Infinity descended upon me like a giant hungry motherfucking pterodactyl.

@Motus I never said to presume anything. I'm merely suggesting you keep an open mind and question deeper in the nature of things. Who knows what you might find.

And those "7 factors of blossoming" happen whenever they happen Also I'd be more cautious of turning desire into an enemy. Some nondual schools, like Shaiva Tantra, like to leverage desire rather than rejecting it. Desire is a good thing. Even "wrong" desire. It's all grist for the mill of consciousness. You might find that the path of "rejecting wrong desire" takes longer to bear fruit than the path of "just let desire do its thing while staying mindful". Or not.

@cetus56 For me it sometimes feels more like a hollow hologram.

By that definition, Disneyland is exactly the state of consciousness you presently find yourself in You haven't just been there, you ARE Disneyland every day Wakey-wakey

@Motus Yes, that's WHO you are. But now you gotta experience WHAT you are! Much harder. WHAT is awareness? WHAT is the I AM? Go from Atman to Brahman.

@BeginnerActualizer Be kind as opposed to being a prick You're over-complicating it. The difference between acting out of selfish interest and altruistic interest is just obvious. You feel a contraction whenever you act out of self-interest at the expense of others. You know when you're taking too much pie for yourself. Imagine how you would act if you believed that every other sentient being was literally, physically you? You would exhibit great care, and tread lightly. That would be the Jain ideal.

I've experienced what I would call "minor" infinity or Holy Spirit or Atman during a meditation retreat. Absolute Infinity I think is what they call Brahman, and that is so much deeper than Atman that it's like a million times deeper. And that I've only experienced that on 5-meo. To me it seems unimaginable to experience it through human means alone, but clearly people have done it. I must admit I'm not a very good meditator or contemplator. My mind isn't built for high creativity, not one-pointed focus. And I suspect that there is a much deeper version of it yet to discover. But just getting a 10 second glimpse of Brahman is enough to change your entire life forever. Your realize in an instant that all of life and physical reality is just a dream.

There was a malfunction on 12/15/2016 which lead to a corrupt database. Luckily the forum database was not affected and things have now been restored. Sorry for the inconvenience to those who weren't able to access their Actualized.org accounts. I will be looking to move to a better server in the future, which should be much faster. Carry on.

Consider: when you look at your hand. It's infinite. What if it continues on for infinity, without an end? And that's just one hand, on one creature, on one planet, in one solar system, in one galaxy, in one universe.

Actually, this has been proven false by Cantor. It IS possible to measure sizes of infinity, and there are infinitely many sizes of infinity. And finally, Absolute Infinity, which is beyond them all. As an example, the infinite amount of real numbers between 0 and 1 is LARGER than the infinite amount of whole numbers between 0 and infinity! To understand this, you have to study set theory. I will talk about this in a new video. Guess what Cantor called absolute mathematical infinity? God Smart cookie that one

@Lorcan Yes, something like that. Which is where the concept of ABSOLUTE INFINITY comes into play. There are different sizes of infinity. In fact, there are an infinite number of sizes of infinity. But then there is ABSOLUTE INFINITY, which is infinity to infinity to infinity an infinite number of times, making it utterly COMPLETE beyond all additions, because it is ALL and NOT ALL. It's everything that could possibly be. And the coolest part is that you can experience it for yourself. Because you are it.

@Motus On the practical plane, you can certainly engage in practices that makes surrender much more likely. Like long strong determination sits, or week-long meditation retreats. So practically-speaking, there is much work to be done. A fisherman who bothers to prepare his gear, wake up early in the morning, and drive out to the lake, is gonna catch a lot more fish than one who doesn't.

Clearly you haven't actually done psychedelics, otherwise you'd never compare them to a trip to Disneyland. Be careful judging things you haven't actually experienced. This is one of the mothers of all mistakes. If you had one breakthrough experience, you'd be back here raving about the power of God. And you wouldn't be wrong. The core problem with psychedelics is that your mind has been filled with propaganda about them, so all your mind's judgements are tainted, but you don't know it yet. If you ever find out that what I say is true, you will be shocked. There's one easy way to find out who's right: put a few grams of mushrooms down your throat Your life will never be the same again. But watch out for the ego-reaction during the trip, as the mind doesn't give up it's prejudices without a fight.

@LetTheNewDayBegin The idea of an ego surrendering is silly. Ego's can't surrender. Surrender isn't something you can will. It happens whenever it happens. It's the same problem as stopping thinking. Ego is the thinking, so ego can't stop it. But it can stop. Ego just won't be doing it.

@jse 7 billion monkey-minds is what we've got at present

@Arman 5-meo is like Zeus. Mushrooms are like a trickster demigod. Like Zeus's demented little half-brother who might twist your nipple if you aren't paying attention.

Mushrooms can be brutal. It ain't always rainbows and butterflies. Mushrooms can give you a thorough mind-fucking. They can get very twisted. I'm more scared of mushrooms than 5-meo these days.

@key Chop wood, carry water. You ain't out of the delusion till you're dead. So make the best of it. Or don't. Up to you.

This is a false belief. You don't NEED to plug-in to re-energize. That's just part of the social addiction. Which is not to say that it's easy to break free. It's pretty hard if you live in a Western 1st world country. Too many juicy distractions. Once your meditation habit becomes very strong, you'll find you can use it to re-energize better than watching TV. But that might take 2-3 years of daily practice, to get to such a point. Totally unplugging is very hard. I suggest you start with baby-steps. Eliminate 1 thing at a time, not everything at once. Start with the lowest-consciousness crap like news, memes, or pointless messaging. Video games and porn aren't too bad, just reduce them a bit for now. Later you can eliminate video game entirely. Porn will be the hardest unless you find a girlfriend. And as long as you don't do it daily, it's really not a big deal. Twice a week will actually save you time & energy versus having a girlfriend. It's important to find healthier alternatives: nature walks, going out with friends, reading, sports, fishing, cooking, music, etc.

@Dodoster Yes, basically. But you're not likely to grasp this through karma yoga. Sit down and OBSERVE your DIRECT EXPERIENCE. Right now! Where are you? Who is observing this sentence? You gotta sit down and force yourself to observe direct experience. The selfless action is good, but it's purpose is different: to develop good character. All the good character in the world is very unlikely to get you to notice that you are Nothing. You have to grapple with direct experience. The best way for you to align yourself to this right now is by becoming conscious that it is TRUE. Then you can work more to embody it. But first you gotta realize it's TRUE! Taking it on faith DOES NOT COUNT!

@stevegan928 It IS intelligent though! Like pure free-floating intelligence. You gotta figure, if you consider yourself intelligent, this little "you" is just a sub-set of it, so in fact IT is the intelligent one. The part cannot be more intelligent than the whole. God is a perfect word, if you actually experience it. It's got a wonderful divine quality to it. It's like pure divinity. Worthy of bowing your head to. But of course, IT is YOU! There's nothing but you.

@Toby Yes, it has to be embodied by the parent. That's very important. You can't just lecture nondual theory at them. If, as the parent, all you did was meditate yourself for 60 minutes every day in the living room for the entire 18 years of your kids growing up -- without explaining anything to the kid -- you'd have a HUGE impact on them without even saying a word.

@Arman The craziest part is that space and time are just two of infinitely many aspects of infinity. Infinity is not subject to space or time. Those are finities. There is no waste in energy because the energy is infinite! You can't waste it because it has nothing to waste into. God is not powerful in the sense of "he intelligently arranges the right stuff". God is an infinite EXPLOSION in infinite directions. "He" can't help himself but to create everything. It's really not that intelligent. It's indiscriminate. Like splashing every color on the canvas without limit. Sort of a brute-force-of-love strategy. Imagine if you had infinite energy and infinite computing power. You'd just let the computer run without care. To the max. Nothing would need to be conserved. Or imagine if you had infinite money. You'd just make it rain 24/7!

@Emerald Wilkins Well, Absolutely Infinity means no limits. Everything you know or perceive is a limit or bound. That's what thing-ness is. It's limitation or finity. So in-finity is every finity or form possible. It's staggering to the mind. It's outrageous beyond imagination. But also it's formless. So at the same time you experience all the possibilities, and nothing at all. It feels sorta like looking at a cosmic slot machine spinning with an infinite number of rotating drums and symbols. Every possible state of the universe sorta flashes before your eyes, but there's nothing there! It's just like thin air. All of it amounts to nothing! So you can't put your finger on anything. But you get the gist of everything. And you understand that it cannot be any other way. The only possible mechanism of existence is an explosion of infinity. Nothing more is possible, because it includes all mores. Yes, it's an infinite fractal of infinity. There's no upper or lower bound. No smallest or largest element. No beginning or end. It includes all distinctions and no distinctions at all. Even the real and unreal, existent and non-existent become indistinct. It's a formless potential energy that contains infinite creative capacity when unfurled like a fractal flower. It's simultaneously furled up and unfurling. The ultimate paradox. It is unquestionably God. No wonder the mind cannot grasp it. It's infinitely beyond the mind. A billion minds working for a billion years will never even make 0.00000000001% progress towards grasping it.