Strannik

I said many times before: "What we actually know in our direct conscious experience is only a flow of qualia/phenomena present here and now inseparable from the "isness/presence" and conscious awareness of them." We label this bare fact with the word "Consciousness". If by consciousness you mean something else, then it is your fantasy/concept, which is just one of the phenomena included in the flow of qualia given in the direct conscious experience. The problem again is that we typically "live" in our fantasy world mistaking feelings, imaginations and ideas for reality (including your "feel of infinity"). "Me living in a material world outside myself" is one kind of fantasy world, "I am the Infinite God-Consciousness" is another kind of fantasy world, essentially no difference, the latter kind just feels a little better

did you apply for the Nobel Prise for that? And as I said before, even if it would indeed be infinite in its own domain of consciousness, it does not mean that there could not be another level of a reality beyond its domain.

"consciousness is infinity" can either be your actual direct experience, or your fantasy/concept. Because I seriously doubt that you can have an actual experience the actual infinity of consciousness, no matter how much DMT you take, I assume it is your fantasy. In the direct experience we cannot find any limits to consciousness, yet the experience is always finite. Impossibility of finding limits is not the same as the actual infinity. It was a joke about aliens. In other posts I was talking about a possibility of a level of reality beyond consciousness that is more fundamental to it.

it's also contingent and pragmatic, there nothing absolute in this statement. But if you are so picky, I would rephrase it as: "it's a relatively higher degree of liberation compared to having absolute beliefs"

I already said hundred times that relative knowledge by making contingent concepts is possible and there is nothing wrong with it. The problem is when we form beliefs that such knowledge can be the absolute truth.

are you pretending to be an idiot?

belief in what exactly?

"people" are simply a linguistic label for qualia flow processes. We are using dualistic language because we do not have any other. But it would be nice if you would stop trolling me, thank you.

You need to practice it to experience the difference. It's the highest degree of liberation from fooling yourself. When we stop being fooled by the ideas like "I am a human in a material world" and awaken from that dream, we just fall into another dream of being fooled by "I am Infinite Truth-God" ideas. In some people (and I've seen it) it develops even more narcissism. Instead, we better wake up from any dreams (or, rather, become dreaming completely lucidly) and stop being fooled by any beliefs whatsoever. But it is difficult to do it in one big leap, so it usually happens in step-by-step awakening process where "I am God-Consciousness" is just one of the steps. So, there is nothing wrong with that intermediate step, it is indeed helpful in most cases. Just don't think that it is the final destination if you are on the way to a complete liberation. But no rush, you can do it only when you are ready.

Dennett claims that consciousness is an illusion, but I'm not. Unfortunately, you don't get what I'm saying and there is nothing I can do about it. One thing I like about Dennett though is that he once said: "I know that I can be wrong". That is a hallmark of an honest philosopher as opposed to a religious zealot or a spiritual businessman.

So, according to Leo, there is no meta-reality beyond consciousness, we existentially (=ontologically) ARE consciousness. And it is stated categorically with no alternative options. Now, you say that, even if meta-reality is beyond consciousness, it is still the Absolute Truth. A totally agree and I said it before here, but notice that this is not what Leo claims: Basically, if the Absolute Truth is beyond consciousness, then there is no way for consciousness to know what this truth exactly is. And there is no way to know if consciousness itself the final Absolute Truth, or if there are more fundamental layers of Truth. What if all this God-Consciousness-Absolute-Truth which we are so proudly all part of is only a simulation run by AI created by some advanced civilization? oops... I know, I'm writing for the elite and do not expect everyone to understand (because I'm not trying to make money from it ). Leo is good in explaining elementary stuff, no question about that, even though I personally prefer Rupert Spira, he is more precise. There is a lot of modern spiritual teachers talking the same stuff, there is nothing new in Leo's teaching, it's a typical neo-advaita, may be except for the DMT stuff that makes it more fun for youngsters. It's a marketplace with tight competition where smart people are trying to make money on spiritual seekers. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that it's a scam, people do get awakened, so the teachers earn their money, it's a fair job.

I have two comments on that. One is: assuming that you are right, it still makes a practical difference what kind of formlessness is the "final" layer, specifically, whether it is available for conscious experience or not. For example, in the Advaitic paradigm the ontic prime is pure formless Awareness which is directly available for experience, so we can not only intellectually grasp it, but also spiritually experience the pure awareness in a mystical experience. That makes it very useful for spiritual practice because we can develop an advanced state of consciousness where we are continuously aware of the ceaseless presence of the formless awareness (nirvkalpa samadhi in the Vedic tradition). However, that is not possible if the final formless ontic level is prior to awareness, in which case we can only intellectually grasp it, but never experience directly, it would be a Kantian "thing in itself" for us (only that it is not a "thing"). Another comment: in some schools of the Buddhist tradition, as well as in modern philosophy, there is an anti-ontological approach, which is that there is no such thing as an ontological prime whatsoever, there is nothing in the world more fundamental to anything else. Basically, the idea of ontology is based on a premise of causality: when we see facts or events or forms, we search for the cause of them. This is helpful in our survival to understand casual links between events, so it is basically a cognitive survival mechanism. But the point is that our principle of causality is an idea derived from observation of correlations between events (forms). Then, in philosophical or spiritual enquiry, we also apply this principle of causality to try to understand how the world is structured in general on the cosmic scale. In this case we try to find the "prime cause" to which all events and forms can be reduced and from which they can be derived. Obviously, this reduction to the cause cannot be run indefinitely and at some level must reach a "bottom" which we call the fundamental "ontic prime" which by itself is not caused by anything else more fundamental to it. This is basically a reductionistic idea commonly used in both physics and ontology. However, there are legitimate doubts that this reductionistic idea is applicable to the world as a whole. What makes us think that the principle of causality that we developed from observations of phenomena is applicable to the nature of things? What if there is no fundamental ontic prime whatsoever? This anti-ontological skepticism was entertained in some Buddhist schools. For example, if you read the Heart Sutra, it says "form is emptiness[formlessness], emptiness is form, form is no other than emptiness, emptiness is no other than form", in this equation formlessness is not more fundamental to forms, but they are ontologically equal and inseparable. This is also the Zen approach. Indeed, if we enquire into the raw bottom level of our direct conscious experience, there is an experience of a wholistic "blob" of the stream of forms/qualia each of them inseparable from the suchness-awareness of them (with the "experiencer" nowhere to be found). Or it can be a state with pure formless awareness with no forms, although arguably there is still memory as form present (otherwise we would not be able to recollect such experience). But why do we have to assume that the formless awareness is necessarily more causally fundamental to forms? The usual argument is that awareness is changeless and ever-present while forms are impermanent, they come and go. Awareness is uniform and boundless while forms are variable and have boundaries. So what? Is that a sufficient reason to assume that formless awareness is causally fundamental to forms? I'm not so sure about that.

It actually is still the advaitic one for multiple reasons (mostly practical), but I'm taking it non-religiously as a contingent truth, not as the absolute one. It's my working hypothesis and not a belief. Although I'm finding that even that hypothesis is becoming irrelevant.

I get your argument. The point is, in Leo's paradigm, and in any Advaita-based one in general, the formless ontic prime is conscious/aware by nature, it is Sat-Chit, Being-Awareness, and as such, available to be experienced directly (because awareness is directly aware of itself). Even though pure awareness is formless, there is still a specific subtle quality to it - a quality of being aware. It is possible that some more fundamental and "more formless" level of reality exists which is free even from the quality of being aware, and by which the quality of being aware is caused. This is the premise of the ontology of neutral monism. There are many other variants of neutral, dual property and idealistic monisms developed in the modern philosophy, it would take too much space to discuss them all here. The point is: the Advaitic paradigm, which is essentially a variant of subjective idealism ontology, is by far not the only monistic ontology possible. For me the role model is David Chalmers, the greatest philosopher of our times who discovered the "hard problem of consciousness" and realizes the nature of awareness, but still stays open and agnostic with respect to adhering to a specific variant of ontology. He has multiple papers discussing pros and cons of all these variants of non-materialistic ontologies. Essentially, for me, this well aligns with Zen approach of remaining open and not sticking with any specific ontological or religious belief.

Basically, Leo's teaching is a version of neo-advaita, which is essentially classical Advaita stripped from Indian cultural baggage and presented in modern language, with some psychedelic stuff added as a bonus. But historically, Advaita is not the only approach to nonduality, there was also Buddhism, Zen in particular as one of its pinnacles, that approaches nonduality from quite a different angle, and that is what I'm trying to vocalize here, also presenting it in modern philosophical language. The fierce dispute between Buddhism and Advaita went for 1500 yrs in India until Buddhism was eradicated from India by Moslems, but it revealed all practical and philosophical details of the differences in their approaches to nonduality. I just encourage people not to limit themselves to Advaita only, but stay open and explore other approaches to nonduality. I am myself a long time practitioner of both approaches, so I was able to compare them from both practical and philosophical perspectives. I found that Advaita works well enough, but the Buddhist approach leaves more freedom and opens more dimensions for liberation. Advaita is still a religion (albeit a good one), while Zen is beyond any religion.

I know, I myself went through all these arguments before, they sound very logical, but only providing that classical logic applies to ontology, which may or may not be true. If formlessness precedes all relational qualities, then it also precedes logic. As I said, it's like trying to prove the existence of God with logical arguments that medieval theologists tried to do. But if you want to convince yourself that there is nothing ontologically prior to formless awareness, or just believe in it like people believe in God because it is comfortable for them, you are free to do so. You will just be limiting your freedom, trading freedom for comfort, that's all.

so what? I never said that there is anything wrong with concepts, the problem is only when we believe them as absolute truths and confuse them with reality. But there is nothing wrong with using them as contingent truths and practical cognitive tools.

Concepts can be contingently true in a practical sense. #1 when you really suffer and realize that it was caused by some concept that you believed to be true, you realize that it is "harmful" in a sense that if you would stop believing it, you suffering would also go away. #2 I'm not a single-person-mind solipsist Sorry, I have to stop this discussion, it went too far off-topic (and actually became a trolling...)

It's a matter of definition, which is just a word game Example: typical humans have a persistent though-form "I am a human person, a separate self, living in the external material world" and they unconsciously believe that it is absolutely true. As a consequence, they develop the ego-complex and they experience fear of death, they suffer from all kinds of psychological issues (anxiety, fears, depressions), they pursue useless goals in life etc. This is how this thought form can become practically harmful. Example: our language is essentially a collection of concepts. If we would not use these linguistic concepts, we would not be able to communicate.

OK, let me repeat again: "What we actually know in our direct conscious experience is only a flow of qualia/phenomena present here and now inseparable from the "isness/presence" and conscious awareness of them." We label this bare fact with the word "Consciousness". So, "consciousness", as per the definition above, is the same as conscious experience. Knowing through concepts/beliefs is always part of the "flow of qualia/phenomena present here and now", because all concepts/beliefs are simply qualia of though-forms, just like other qualia like sensations, feelings, etc. They are never actually separate from the direct experience of the flow of qualia. But what usually happens is that we take the conceptual content of those though-forms and confuse them with reality. In other words, we believe that the conceptual content of those thought forms is reality itself, and then we "filter" the direct experience of the flow of qualia "through" these concepts, which completely distorts the reality of direct experience shaping it into illusion. Example: typical humans have a persistent though-form "I am a human person, a separate self, living in the external material world" and they unconsciously believe that it is absolutely true, so they unconsciously re-interpret their flow of qualia "through" a lens of this imaginative thought-form, and that creates the dualistic illusion. So, there is nothing wrong with having thoughts containing all sorts of concepts, we need them in our everyday life. We can have a state of absence of concepts and thoughts in a meditative experience, but it is difficult to maintain it in the everyday life. But that's not a problem. The problem is when we believe by default that the concepts of those thoughts are absolutely true and when we "filter" and interpret the direct conscious experience of the flow of qualia "through" these concepts, or in other words, "overlay" these concepts on the bare flow of qualia. Once we realize that these though forms are simply qualia and an inseparable part of the totality of the flow of qualia, and stop filtering the flow of qualia through the concepts of those thoughts, then they become harmless and we liberate our conscious experience from the delusional power of these concepts and start experiencing reality directly as it is given without filtering it through any concepts. In practice it is easier said than done and requires a radical change in the way we perceive the reality and continuous mindfulness to maintain this state. We usually have a lot of these unconscious and unrecognized concepts filtering our experience and it takes quite a lot of work and enquiry to uncover them and become aware of them until none of them remain in our blind spots. Even though the realization of this simple fact (of the presence-awareness of the direct conscious experience of the flow of qualia) may happen instantly (which is usually called "awakening"), it usually takes many years of persistent practice until this state becomes continuous, effortless and natural (which is called "full liberation/realization"). At first this state may feel like a "mystical experience" as compared to our mundane state of dualistic perception, but over time it becomes so natural that there is nothing "mystical" in it anymore.

Unfortunately you seem to have no clue what I'm talking about

As I said, conscious experience is by itself a kind of knowing, it's a "direct experiential knowing". Another kind is conceptual knowing. When we overlay conceptual knowing on the experiential one, we fabricate a distorted perception of reality that can be called an "illusion". For example, when we just look at a picture of a witch without any conceptualizing of it, we directly experience just qualia of shapes and colors. But we can also imagine that there is a "real witch existing out there" and unconsciously overlay this imagination over the qualia of the direct experience, and start seeing a "real witch out there" and believe that it is real, this is how mind creates illusions and false beliefs. Mystical experience is simply stopping experiencing qualia through a lens of imaginations and concepts and becoming to experience qualia directly as they are experienced here and now, as well as experiencing any arising thoughts or imaginations simply as another kind of qualia present in the experience without believing in absolute truthfulness of their conceptual content and without experiencing qualia "through a lens" of their conceptual content. When we experience reality in such direct way, the reality is experienced as an unbreakable wholeness of a clearly present and clearly awared flow of qualia here and now. That is how we can completely break free from any illusions or beliefs (=liberation=moksha). However, it often happens that a person, after experiencing such undifferentiated state, especially when fueled by psychedelic experiences, re-interprets it through conceptual analysis, and creates a bunch of new thought forms through which lens they start filtering the direct experience, such as "I am Awareness", "I am Infinite Absolute God Consciousness", "Consciousness is all there is" etc, without realizing that this is simply replacing one set of filtering conceptual imaginative thoughts (like "I am a human person in a human body", "there is an external material world outside me" etc) with another set. It usually does improve the quality of life and removes most of the psychological suffering, but essentially it's just consciousness continuing fooling itself, only in a more functional way. Real liberation is stopping filtering or interpreting the direct experience through any conceptual or imaginative content completely.

omg. OK, I quit If this is what Leo teaches you and you believe that, then there is nothing I can do for you. There is a famous materialist philosopher Daniel Dennett who claims that conscious experience is an illusion. Consciousness has amazing ability to fool itself, even to the extent of convincing itself that its direct conscious experience is unreal.

Any attempts to prove that nothing can exist beyond experience by using logical arguments (including arguments referring to nondual or unlimited nature of experience) are doomed, just like attempts of medieval theologists to prove the existence of God by logic. Logic does not apply to ontology because ontology is prior to logic.