Search the Community

From another thread, I was pleased with this: "Perhaps everything IS nothing. Maybe there ISN'T a something outside of nothing. Maybe nothing IS everythingness. Maybe that's what nothingness literally is, infinity. Not even infinite consciousness (although that would be part of it), just infinite potentiality or something. Though I fear infinite potentiality might be wrong too, maybe that too is just part of it. Perhaps it is LITERALLY nothing and this is some utterly insane paradoxical thing... The paradox being that Nothingness IS Somethingness. Such insane paradoxical answers satisfy me the most because of the oddity of the fact of existence itself even being a thing to begin with. I don't think it could exist via normal logic." ... What do you think? Something being literal nothing (literally nothing at all) seems illogical, but if nothing exists neither does logic so that might not matter.

Total cessation of God with zero experience ever could not be possible, because of the nature of infinity. If something can exist it will and evidently experience can exist. Because of the nature of time, that also means that experience is always happening now because the passage of time is an illusion. So although inside spacetime we could cease to be localized beings, that cessation is reliant upon time. From outside time, eternity is a block (or point). So the experience you are having right now is permanent, eternal, and imprinted into that block of infinite time. It is always being experienced... The book is already written you are just flicking through the pages... The big bang happend and at that moment where was the observer? Are atoms able to observe anything? Perhaps consciousness is more useful as a moniker because it can lie dormant. I read before Sir Roger Penrose say that for a photon of light in a vacuum, it would subjectively experience infinite time immediately. Which sounds a lot like cessation (there is no experience of passed time just like two parts of a movie reel pasted together). They are made of what we are calling consciousness but experientially they are dormant in "cessation". That might be of some importance. Perhaps it is not so much that the thing can be dormant or cease to be, but it can be set up in such a way that experience cannot happen because there is no appearance of duality. There is no experience of no-experience just a time gap. In that time gap, the substance itself, perhaps that has gone nowhere. There is just a gap because there is nothing to experience. Perhaps to contradict millenia of spiritual teachings, the fundamental nature of reality isn't consciousness it is GOD. And consciousness is simply the property OF God. That God nothingness can exist when experience ceases, because it is the ground below consciousness. God being simply the most apt term, lest I call it literally "__". The question of "why is there something rather than nothing" is very enduring. Perhaps everything IS nothing. Maybe there ISN'T a something outside of nothing. Maybe nothing IS everythingness. Maybe that's what nothingness literally is, infinity. Not even infinite consciousness (although that would be part of it), just infinite potentiality or something. Though I fear infinite potentiality might be wrong too, maybe that too is just part of it. Perhaps it is LITERALLY nothing and this is some utterly insane paradoxical thing... The paradox being that Nothingness IS Somethingness. Such insane paradoxical answers satisfy me the most because of the oddity of the fact of existence itself even being a thing to begin with. I don't think it could exist via normal logic.

I have a question for you If the ground is nothingness aka no experience whatsoever, no observer, no conciousness, then what makes the nothingness become somethingness. How does it become experience? Try to imagine non existence, if its the ground, how can anything be? Then somehow something makes "non duality" become "duality" I dont think that this pure cessation has anything to do with any ground of existence at all, it is just another experience in a form of a "non experience" Like Leo says, there is also infinite conciousness which is very different from the nothingness of cessation. Which is the one that tells you more about the nature of reality? Perhaps neither, only that conciousness has an infinite range of knowing itself. Here is where buddhism and hinduism often clash, new age buddhism is making a biased claim in that cessation is the most important. To me it feels like a spiritual suicide since sone buddhists just say that the psycho-physical is all that there is, Aka atomists/materialists. If GOD is nothingness etc, why does it become this? Why does it seemingly produce an infinite variety of experiences objects subjects etc. Maybe our ordinarie waking conciousness is the ground of existence? Just a contemplation exercise. Either we are GOD which is eternal/immortal/infinite. But it does feel off that GOD could kill itself with a cessation "forever" it is obviously not the case, I think cessation is a good night sleep sorta thing.

Yes absolutely nothing is neither finite nor infinite but no proof nor logic exist in the context of absolute nothingness. Logic is a sequence of statements and it implies time. My point is that we can't work from this relative context to prove infinity. The only nonduality is nonduality, there is no shortcut.

@VeganAwake Yeah that's an issue, if there are no laws or possibilities in literal nothingness. What then can exist? You can't make anything outside of 0 because there's nothing with which to turn it into a 1. So it does need to be inside of 0. But how and why would it not just REMAIN as 0?

@RMQualtrough YES, cessation and dissolution comes with a partial or total loss of memory, but nothingness doesn't, you're literally awake in the dream. Its not like being asleep or under anesthesia, you're fully there in eternity. That's the peace you're missing. You remember it also, there's no loss in memory. The key thing is you can't differentiate the waking stste from the dream state. That's the experience needed to realise that reality is not distinguishable from a dream. Which is 100% nonduality. No edging. I have no experience with psychedelics, so I couldn't tell you, I also don't advise taking psychedelics. Just know that cessation and dissolution is TOTALLY different from nothingness. There's more to "IT"

@RMQualtrough have you experienced the nothingness? Dissolution or cessation is very different imo.

Ok, I get what you're saying. We are not the layers of the onion, whe are the dream/structure of the onion. If you think you can only edge nonduality but not enter it, then you haven't had a real full glimpse yet. Because once you are there there's just nothingness, the dream, divinity or oneness. You can be in 100% nonduality. I have had glimpses of it and I guarantee it. Ask enlightened people, they are going to tell you, you're all the way IT. Even the glimpses show you that it's no edge its IT. There no closeness or approximation to it. You can be full INTO it. It's absolute, I can't communicate it, it's absolute. Once you're close, merge with it, let it fill everything, surrender to it or whatever your spiritual practice tells you. I promise, ask enlightened people (I'm not I just had glimpses of a part of "IT")

We are the one thing there is, there's no way we couldn't be. We always are. Everything is in fact... But when experience exists, the appearance of duality appears. Toad venom white void = white + something observing the white. When the white is gone there is nothing to observe and hence no observING, and there is the Absolute ground. That is the total return to the Absolute. We exist as localizations, when a localization ends, it is no longer localized but everywhere and everything. If seeing were not localized there'd be no seeing possible. Like the beach dream, as soon as you see any part of beach there is the observed (the beach) and an observer. When duality is gone, there is no observed, so no observer, hence Nothingness. When in that white void, the whiteness is the final bastion of this localization. White ends and it ends. And you are then Everything, but it's experienced as Nothing like a time gap while under general anaesthetic.

I'm an alcoholic. Take my word. I am kind of spiritually lucky. Experienced nothingness with 16 and remember infinity during feaver when I was a child. I drink 2-3 liters of beer every day. Even when you're sober you cannot meditate. You need abstinance to have your maximum level of concentration/consciousness. Alcohol makes you depressed. When you're drunk you can't be conscious, and thd day(s) after you're drunk you can't be conscious or meditate. Of course it depends on the quantity. But this only damages your "progress" tremendously. I have an EEG at home I can show you the difference in brainwaves when I am drunk, when I drank the day before and when I am sober for a few days. The difference is ENORMOUS. So take my advice alcohol will not bring you 1 millimeter further, in fact it will bring you miles away from consciousness. It's ridiculous how big of an impact it makes. If you need further proof I can document it with my EEG and my personal experience. But until I find the motivation to do it, you'll just have to trust me when I say that for enlightenment/awakening, alcohol is the biggest hindrance possible (unless you take other drugs I haven't tried)

We are there it's the ground. Experience always appears as duality. In deep mystical states you might be nothingness in a white void. There is experience of white, and hence something observing white. Still an appearance of duality even though the boundary of self is subjectively gone and the white is "you". Cessation is nonduality. That is where we reside always.

Why make it so complicated. Just call it an experience even though there is no experienceR. Is a change in perception not an experience? I kind of get what you're pointing to, but it probably doesn't help those who haven't had a significant awakening yet. Nothingness transcends time. So there's no going in and out because the dream structure transcends the dream time and dream causality. However, from the subjective perspective the dream starts and the dream ends once you're back into the dream. Knowing that you're dreaming transcends the content of a dream but it still happens within a dream. You know that you know within a dream. So it's still something you go through within the dream. You can't lucid dream without a dream. Call it a meta experience then... I don't mean to attack your hypothesis of god, but this is more confusing than useful. It's describing the moon instead of pointing the finger towards the moon. I also don't like refering to awakening as God, because people have misconstrued God and have underlying ideas about her. (I say "her" deliberately misleading to confuse people so that they get that God doesn't have any attributes [like gender].)

THE FEELING OF NOTHINGNESS “When the Work says that a man must come to realize his own nothingness before he can be re-born, it does not mean that he must humble himself and so on, but that he must by long self-observation actually begin to realize that he is nothing and that there is no such person as himself. The object of this is to get into a position, psycho- logically speaking, between the opposites...Why is it so important to get somewhere into the centre of the pendulum and not swing to and fro? Because here, between the opposites, lie all the possibilities of growth. Here influences from higher levels can reach us. Here, in this place where one can feel one’s own nothingness (and where one is therefore free from contradictions), influences and meanings com- ing from higher centres, which have no contradictions, can be felt. Not regarding yourself as good or bad, not priding yourself on being just or otherwise, not thinking you are well-treated or badly-treated, not being caught by either movement through identifying, you come into this mid-position. This is not easy! With personality active, it is impossible.” V. 1, p. 329 - Maurice Nicoll Taken from - https://inner-world-books.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Gems_of_Wisdom.pdf

Good looking out and that's actually a great thing to point out on a thread like this...❤ Yes absolutely, nothingness or emptiness can be turned into a concept or ideology to attach to, or into a form of detachment or denial. But that's not what's being pointed to here, what's being pointed to, transcends the idea of there even being an individual or a something that could cling or attach to a concept or belief. It's an attempt to slice through the illusion at its root. (identification as a separate individual)

@VeganAwake Yeah, saw this gem. Though 'emptiness'/'nothingness' may be an island to cling to, no writing on you.

That would be true if everything you do and happens depends on environment and conditions. You forget you can make new thoughts out of nothingness. We have unlimited imagination to work with. There is always free will when you can make a duck out of nothingness in your mind. We are definitely robots, what you are explaining is how a robot society would work.

Subjective truths are important IMO. I don't really care to purposefully use Absolutist terminology to describe things... The Absolute is nothingness anyway so describing anything in those terms is futile. You may as well consider yourself to be the brain because relatively speaking that is how it is. There is no conflict between this and non-duality, none whatsoever. Leo's best video IMO is where he said God is looking through your eyes. That hits home for me. What is seeing through my eyes and experiencing my brain is God. However, if I mentally reduced myself to God I'd be nothing (because God is nothing), so what is the point of that? While in a localized form, relative truths are all that matter unless you want to use Absolute truths to psychologically help you in some way. They're not actually really helpful lol, apart from when it comes to the "big questions" and dead loved ones etc.

I was just doing a little thought experiment assuming that this waking world is literally a dream. All of it, all matter etc is part of the dream. All aspects of us apart from pure consciousness (the dreamer) are part of the dream. Seeing is part of the dream. Hearing is part of the dream. Physical matter can be responsible for causing our localized selves to see or hear because our localized selves are localized inside this dream. So for example, say we had a dream and in that "universe", there is a brain and the laws of the dream dictate that if you stimulate the left frontal lobe or something, the sensation of fear appears. Well because we are then localized selves inside that universe, that would be our experience if inside the dream we were to do that. The localized self adheres to the setup of the "dream" (universe) it is inside of. In this "dream", something called matter exists which form brains and brains cause seeing. Because we are ALSO inside this dream, we require a brain to see. Inside this dream is space and time, which we experience because it is part of the dream we're localized in. Sheer consciousness I am considering is literally void/nothingness (because without experience there is no longer an experiencer), and yet it's also everythingness at the same time. Everything exists inside nothingness. Nothingness is God. Nothingness is Absolute? When the localized form ceases to have experience, all that is left is that sheer consciousness/void/nothing. We came from "nothing" and still are nothing?

It does make alot of sense when you put it that way and I cant say other then I mostly agree on what you are saying here. Like what can possibly exist without an awareness of its surrounding? Experiences ive had clearly points to the fact that it is conciousness that it is extremely empty/nothingness like space and everything in it is imagined in one way or another. It is like empty space but full of possibility. It has a certain order or structure to it. Atleast this dream universe has. I wonder what dreams might come next it is just "sad" that I wont know how this dream went when another one starts. Perhaps there is some sort of akashic record with all the memories from this dream and others which one can access, I certainly see it as a possibility. Either way conciousness is immortal and eternal no matter if its in pure nothingness or in "GOD" mode. Tat tvam asi ?

@Adamq8 Nice reference to Donald Hoffman. I enjoy his speeches. I think though that with many teachers, what makes the idea inaccessible to "hardnosed scientific" type people, is that they say experience only has correlation in physical matter in a way that makes it seem like they're implying physical matter has no bearing at all on experience. I don't think you need to deny the science of the external world or neuroscience etc. for nonduality to be true. In fact, because this "dream" (the universe) IS God, science is perhaps one of the most divine practices of all alongside meditation, as exploration of the science of this universe is very literally an exploration of God, since God IS it. I do not see any issue if the brain does in fact control what this "localized form" experiences. I do not see that it is any issue whatsoever or that it is contrary to nonduality in any way. Matter is made of consciousness, the brain is simply millions of years of evolution constructing a sort of superorganism where millions of points of experience work as one unit. There isn't a combination problem because the little points of experience don't vanish... The combination problem is like hypothesizing that animals like horses are just one single giant cell. In reality, it is millions of cells, none of the smaller cells vanish when they come together as that horse. Not only do I think it's possible, I think it is FACTUAL. I think most robots are conscious. Think of this... If there is a little robot vacuum cleaner, it moves around on wheels and has a laser sensor that detects when there is an object ahead so that it can turn. When that laser detects a wall and sends a signal to the robot's chip, it turns. Why? Because it is AWARE that there is a wall ahead. It has KNOWLEDGE that a wall is ahead. If there was zero awareness that a wall is ahead, it wouldn't turn it would just run straight into it because it doesn't know the wall is there. Because it is so alien to us this is almost impossible to understand, but I do not see how it could be any other way. By dictionary definition, that little robot is displaying an act of awareness. How could it not be? So inside that robot there is a localized form of consciousness. When the robot is turned off, the localization is no more, like a whirpool in a river (whirpools being localized in the stream) going away leaving just river. When our brains are turned off, the localization is no more. Consciousness and qualia all exist inside God which is "nothingness" and the "place" where things go when there is nothing to experience them like the example of red.

But then we have the other side of the coin and if we borrow a terminology from the hindus, a saguna brahman. That is brahman with infinite qualities, infinite being with infinite conciousness and infinite experiences. Which is an infinite mind as well. I really like the saguna/nirguna brahman teachings. Nirguna is more of a principle and saguna is the active part of brahman. Nirguna=non being perhaps Saguna = GOD as it is traditionally known. Perhaps you created the universe and this is a play since there is nothing to do. Either bliss forever within itself or create exciting dreams where there are others and you forgot your true nature. I think the both theories can be combined into one unified whole which can include Nothingness and everythingness. An infinite fractal and it is also a holon. That makes sense to me ? Infinite candy store with infinite possibilitys of horror,bliss,excitment,universes etc.

@RMQualtrough But the general anaesticia is a "jump" In concious awareness, there is no possibility to remain in an unconcious state since it is like time travel. What does that say about the nature of conciousness in my opinion? That conciousness can not experience unconciousness. But still there are people who has OBE's or remain as a silent witness through anesthesia as well so it is not really a valid argument for nothingness either, my GF was awake during surgery even tho she didnt feel anything and she was put to sleep. A more valid point would be the cessation in meditation, but that as well may last for an eternity but it is not possible to "experience" it in that manner. I like your theory btw. Some teachers/lineages talk about the Absolute prior to conciousness but they also claim that it is an awareness with infinite potential and that conciousness is its agent. Perhaps it is the case of a nothingness that exist or that it is being and non being at the same time and both and neither as it is said. Perhaps nothingness is the "ground", maybe it is more of a principle then a being. Like pure GOD in it self might not be a being but an creative principle that has no other choice then to actualize its infinite potential since it is not a being. If that is the case then it is safe to conclude imo that conciousness is reality and it has always been since the Absolute is outside of time and space and it does what it does since it is what it is haha if you get me. God is perhaps existence and non existence but transcend both. It is a radical thing which kinda is impossible to grab. But the Absolute produces dreams and different universes and it is not two and then you are IT always and forever since time is the dream. To paraphrase Donald Hoffmans statement : We are like kids in an infinite candy store ready to explore for all of eternity ?? There is no end to conciousness since there is no possibility to experience the absence of conciousness forever, then it is just experience happening to no one. I think that it is possible to experience without a body and brain, why wouldnt it? What would say that is not possible? You can experience yourself as a glass of orange juice lol. So experience is the only thing that can happen since the Absolute is more or less like non existence to us, it is a principle and a produces infinite dreams and universes. Nice conversation btw i really enjoy it. ?

I am theorizing it's deeper than experience. It's just "nothingness". It is consciousness by nature but without experience there isn't experiencer. Consciousness then exists but in a manner similar to how we experience general anaesthetic? Anyway consider this... Consider that humans are the ONLY things in the entire universe that can see red. If all humans stopped existing, the qualia of red can't be found anywhere anymore, it vanishes. If a human is magically born again, red reappears. In between those stages, the qualia of red "ceases". I am theorizing that in that period where there are no humans it returns to the Absolute/God where it """doesn't exist""". God contains ALL and infinite qualia whether they are being experienced or not. Right now you can envision there very literally are infinite colors but they are all in God and not being experienced. But they have the potential to be. In some other reality perhaps it is. But where red "goes to" when nothing experiences it is the default and the Absolute. It is where our localized forms come from and go to. This dream is a dream of the "science universe" and experience happening inside this dream is localized here so adheres to the rules of this dream. E.g. gravity etc. And brains are just one such thing that exists which has "experience". Where there is experience there must be "experiencer", and the qualia is pulled from "God" (nothingness). Kill the brain and localization of experience etc ends and it goes back to where that red goes when nothing perceives it. What do you think of that? Perhaps consciousness isn't fundamental. Perhaps consciousness is just a possible quality of "God". And God is nothing.

Dream is metaphorical here. From inside of the dream is duality. I saw Leo say in a video, that "God" is what is looking through our eyes. I get that. That thing is one and absolute. The eyes and human it is sensing is finite and localized. Like in a dream we humans have, how could you possibly experience anything without being localized somewhere? E.g. something Spira said, if there is a dream of a beach, the moment you see the beach you are somewhere localized inside that dream. The second you have any experience there is duality. Without duality when things return to a total nondual state, there is cessation. Call this universe the "science dream". This is a dream where math, matter, space and time exists. Experience that happens inside here conforms to the universe it is happening in. It just so happens that in here, matter came together to create forms. The matter IS consciousness but it has no experience so if we could experience an atom's relative view it would be permanently in "Nirvana" (void/nothingness). It does not mean it is not consciousness it just has no experience (I am assuming). When matter formed complex lifeforms and experience began to occur, consciousness is localized inside where that experience happens. Like the dream of a beach thing, say there is some disembodied sight receptacle floating around a mountain, as soon as that exists, consciousness is localized into that point where there is experiencer and experience (the experience being the vision of the mountain). Complex lifeforms are millions or perhaps billions of points of experience working together as a singular unit. As you destroy the brain you are wittling away elements of localized consciousness. When localized consciousness is destroyed it stops being localized and is immediately sent back to the One, Absolute, Infinite, "God". There is no issue I can see with brains literally causing localized experience. It is not creating the qualia or consciousness itself. Or is there an issue with that theory?

What if there is nothing but experiencing? Experience experiences experience ??? What if the universe is only experience and experience has always been forever and ever. What if nothingness is just a construction? Not saying that this is true. Have you ever in your entire life had something that is not an experience? What if prior to your birth you had a different experience but the memory is not clear on that? What if the universe is a field of phenomenal conciousness and there is naught else but experience? The universal mind, the unconcious in jungian terms, it is not unconcious as in not conciousness, but it is not a self reflective conciousness, "meta conciousness " but it is phenomenal conciousness, just like in a dream, you only know you are dreaming when you become lucid, exactly like in life when awakening occurs, then you become lucid also. There is nothing else but phenomenal conciousness and it is always moving and changing aka impermance. The universal field is a transpersonal infinity of phenomenal conciousness, that is obvious in psychedelic trips, dreams, NDE's etc. What if reality is experience and there is nothing else? Conciousness is the substratum of reality, it can go infinitely "low" and infinitely "high" There is no limit to what kind of experiences thats possible. Everything is brahman and that thou art.