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In other words: Yes, the separate personal self that focuses on 'me' and survival: yes, that self is an illusion. It doesn't exist. There is no little man/woman sitting behind the eyes. But then when you get totally past that, i.e. transcend it, see through the illusion, a new self can be revealed: The Selfless Self. God. This Self is What You really Are. And it's formless, yet it is all form. It's the Dao that can't be spoken. It's the all-embracing, all-encompassing Self. The Self that simultaneously is in everything, yet all detached from it all. It's like realizing you're the Whole Universe observing itself. Yet it's also pure Nothingness. Can we say what this Self wants? What its true nature is? You tell me! No, really, it's the Dao that cannot be spoken. But I'm gonna do it anyway: I am IT. I am You. All I want is Love. I am God. I am Love. ?❤️??

Exactly. There are no trees. No outside world. No inside self. Nothing at all. Just 'experience experiencing experience'. No stuff. There is absolutely nothing but Love/God/Oneness/Experience/Consciousness/Nothingness. As Alan Watts said: there are no nouns in the world. Only verbs. Existence is a an eternal Infinite 'happening' unfolding out of itself by itself over itself. There is not even an organism bro. No 'body' that is 'mine', no organism where an illusory self could hide. It's just pure imagination all of it. Divine play. Leela? It's All just Love. Oh God! ????☯️

Life is all that there is Story of my life The storm aka life. Chaos, change, suffering. Consciousness and nothingness. Duality and nonduality, and so on and so forth.

Whether or not superiority/inferiority makes sense depends on one’s perspective. Reality is reality, reality is Love, and reality is perspectival. One could also say it makes no sense that nothingness is less meaningful than infinity.

@Onecirrus So far the best answer i've come across is that the substance of everything is undefined. I remember one time when i became conscious that the banana i was about to eat was made out of nothingness. I don't think it matters a lot what labels you attach to nothingness/god. I think the banane just IS, and you can't go below ISness.

???? Imagine this dude in front of the Tv totally tripping saying he is a television watching the television. I would laugh my ass off. Like I am now, with this comment. Sorry no offense man. EDIT: It does make sense tho if you realize your brain is just a television and signals are what attract your soul at the womb when you are born.. so in a sense you do watch television program of an inanimate energy/wavelenghts in entanglement with your brain (now in alpha state) like a computer/television... Reality is personal anyways not only made for humans to think and make a mark...but to affect it directly. At the end of it all..there is only nothingness and beyond nothingness is void and more void... with no end to it. Like an infinity void.. look inside. Yohmu might be impressed how much of a void you find in yourself like a tunnel... like Leo says... no end tunnel of void all your personal problems vamish the tunnel becomes void... i.e the tunnel is finite for some who still didnt see beyond it

I'm aware that the title is broad, but I only started this thread after much reflection and not coming to real answers by myself, so I decided to seek any help I can find, knowing that no one I can reach to physically can help me, be it a therapist, friends, or even through deep meditation and some breakthrough psychedelic journeys (by help, I mean guidance, cues about where and how to look for answers). I'll try to give the maximum amount of detail in the coming phrases. I'm a 27y.o male, living somewhere in Africa, I grew up without a father and in a neglected family situation... never felt loved, appreciated or accepted for who I really am. And that made me turn inwards from a really young age, I was always quite, introspective, and I always saw through things, I came to some pretty deep insights about the nature of reality & God at a relatively young age (around 15 and even before) and that made me "immune" to the religious dogmas that existed around me. So in that sense, my "situation" was the catalyst that forged me. In that sense, I over developed in certain areas (mainly spirituality and artistic expression) but I could never put any of my talents into what I feel would be a real, tangible use, to put lightly, I always felt that I was psychologically fucked up from the get go, and no matter how much I try, I can't transform into who/what I wanna be, who I really am. About a year ago I had two massive LSD journeys in the span of one month, through these experiences I achieved a total non dual state, I was preparing for this (consciously) prior to that for the better part of the 2 years that preceeded those experiences, I knew exactly what I was doing since I saw how all the parts of the [meta-encompassing-system] worked, I HAVE FAITH, COURAGE, LOVE, (not to praise my ego, I have my share of flaws too obviously..) anyway, I feel like I had the answers I was looking for, I had them before, and they keep coming to me, but I can't bridge the infinite nature of consciousness, creation, expansion, with my everyday output, I know that there's no single answer that would act like a magical charm for me, but I feel limited, powerless, resentful and frustrated with my life. I have issues accepting certain parts of who I am, things I've been through, and sometimes I just go into total neglectedness (or self sabotage), like I just hope I would dissolve into nothingness, and I feel that would be the only REAL healing I can have. I lost faith in the ways of life, and I'm confused.. a lot. What I've been dealing with lately (and I don't know if this is a lie I keep telling myself, a game my ego is playing) is the fact that good & evil are seen in the same light through God, and that is making me uneasy to be around (even to myself). The way I see it is that integration of the dark side should be carried on with in the same way that light would be integrated. To avoid being misunderstood, I'm not thinking about commiting any violent acts or criminal activities. But sometimes I react in extreme ways.. And those feel totally justified. I know that many of things I said can be seen as serious psychological red flags, but it's not really, I can find my balance most of the time (by lowering my energies), but whenever I try to channel any sort of big energy to do anything "worthwhile" I crash. I don't believe in the zen way of simplicity either, I know what I want but I can't seem to get it. So my final question is, should I just totally give up? if so how can I do it? I know I am mainly fuelled by fantasies, but the way I see it is that reality permits everything as long one can and knows how to do it. Is this idea false? are we ultimately not free in deciding who we're becoming? Because the more time goes, the more this idea gets stuck in my mind that not only I should be COMPLETELY free to be who I always felt I am, and give my biggest contribution to the world, but that I should find a way to do it on my own terms, and only then shall I find peace, or atleast a semblance of it.. waiting for the real thing. I'm aware of the mash of words I just wrote (sorry for the confusion), it may would've been better to separate these issues into separate threads, but in my head it's really the same thing, all the issues I mentionned are related. In the end I just hope to get any insight I can have about any of the things I mentionned. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Is it just me, but after having awakening experiences into no Self, the Self, nothingness and non-duality, I just can't take some of these spiritual teachers seriously. In particular, the ones that have no experiences with psychedelics. I am very sceptical at even the validity of their claimed states of consciousness. After experiencing these non-dual states of consciousness on LSD and mushrooms, I just cannot believe these states and insights are achievable without psychedelics. I'm not claiming to be be better or more self aware than these anti psychedlic teachers but how have they achieved these mystical states? I just don't buy it, there's no way in a million years I could have had these awakenings without them, which obviously doesn't mean they can't but still. Has anyone actually achieved awakenings without psychedelics? Who also has many trips under their belt to reference them against..

Hehe it seems to me we actually kind of agree. Yes, you could say two opposites (i.e. hate, love, or consciousness, physical, nothingness, something, etc) are two aspects of the same thing, i.e. "IT"/Source/GOD/LOVE/The Dao That Can't Be Spoken!:-) What can I say: reality is 'dual-non-dual'. Words are just pointers ?, remember that. Not the Truth. Not the actual thing. Direct experience is needed. Pointers are fine tho. Reality is *smashes a gong* and we will not give it a name;)

Yes perhaps there is something to that ? So essentially we are the non experience, experiencing everything else. That which is changeless must experience change in order for there to be reality i guess, nothingness experiences everythingness

@James123 Conciousness is experience. and there is no limit to what experience can be. You die every night and create a dream character and objects, there is no limit to experience hence infinite. Why reality is consistent is because of memory, for remembering the day before. Sure we are the unmoved being behind all experience but it is still conciousness nature, to dream. To experience. There is no limit to it. Not knowing vs knowing is a duality which is not valid. Deny knowing all you want but it is inherent in being. Reality = experience Conciousness = reality = experience. And according to your logic you are an infant and do not understand anything. You are knowing all the time without an effort. Just as you understand my words here without an effort. Nothingness avoids its own nothingness and void do you get it? Nothingness is infinite forms. There is no end to creation since Nothingness is endless. Everything we do is to avoid the void or else there would be no creation. We are kids in an infinite candy store. But ultimatly we are beyond experiences, changeless reality is what we are

What exactly does science say about reality? What does it say about consciousness? Matter? Time? Being and nothingness? It seems to me that you are actually bying the materialist paradigm, not "science". You are veiling your metaphysical assumptions as science and objectivity. There is philosophy beyond scientific method. For example, what is direct experience? This cannot be answered by scientific method, as science appears within direct experience. I believe the problem here is what you think spirituality is. Spirituality is not really just thinking and philosophizing. It's not about knowing and being right. At least for me, it would make a lot more sense to think of spirituality as a feeling-thing. What makes you connected to life & reality? What gives you that childlike wonder? What makes your body fill with joy and true depth? If it is science, so be it. The real center of spirituality is feeling, the connection to the depths of reality. Science is just the tool.

There are moments of oneness with the Beloved, absolutely ecstasy and bliss. That is nothingness. And this nothingness loves you, responds to you, fulfills you utterly and yet there is nothing there. You flow out like a river without diminishing. Irina Tweedie (Sufi Master)

Reality is Love. How could it be otherwise, when you think about it? I mean what IS *THIS* really? Why is there something? Why isn't everything just absolute pure nothingness/chaotic energy? Why did "The Big Bang" occur? Why did it occur in such a way -- with specifically fine-tuned natural laws/universal constants -- that allowed it to transform into galaxies with stars and planets and even planets spawning complex, sentient, intelligent, even fucking self-reflecting life? After all, you and I, from a material standpoint/realist-standpoint are just fucking atoms. Atoms. Dead matter. There exist no "life-matter". Your carbon atoms are the same carbon atoms found in stones and dirt. But yet, these carbon-atoms, these delicately arranged dance/patterns/structures of protons and electrons turned into something that is capable of self-awareness. How FUCKING AMAZING is that? WHY IS IT HAPPENING? And now that it is happening, don't you think it makes logically sense that it is optimized for Love? I mean why would it be optimized for anything other than Love? I mean I know athiests/rationalists/scientists likes to say that yes, it is interesting that the fundamental constants are what they are, cos even slight deviations would mean physical life isn't possible. But then they still say it's just random:D And yeah I get it, life is pretty brutal at times. Think about how brutal it was 5000 years ago when we lived in cages. Or how brutal it is right now for the african kids who starve every night. It's fucking brutal man. But it has to be. Brutal/at-ease is a duality that's ultimately just Love. Just like all other dualities. Hitler-Ghandi. Evil-Goodness. Hate-Love. It's all just Love man. All of it. It's a realization. Not a belief. And I can't communicate it to you, cos it cannot be communicated. Only felt/realized. But I still tried cos im a sick fuck

There is no physical death. Think about it, if you were to "physically die", where would you go? You'd be in the same place you've always been at but you just end your dream that you created for yourself. Enlightenment is the recognition that you don't need to die to die. Because there LITERALLY is no death. The ultimate goal is always to merge closer to god. More honestly, more truthfully, more lovingly. Once you recognize yourself as god and trace all the steps back to the beginning of the universe, you realize you imagined it all to keep yourself stuck in the illusion. You go so far that existence literally ceases to exist, just pure nothingness, pure god, pure love. Yet it's an infinite existence so it will keep dreaming for eternity, and there you have an infinite endless game of reality. So in a sense, there is no endgame other than to know god.

And yet, my shadow-denier-brother, you are indeed turning not-knowing into an ideology by being so stubborn/slightly narrow-minded in your views ? You see, "I" don't disagree with "you". I actually fully agree with you! And what a relief to find out the separate self is just an imaginary thought/idea. What a relief it is to find out that birth and death are illusory. What a gigantic relief it is to find out everything is just nothingness and that what I truly am is just 'isness", Nothingness, Love, God, The Dao That Can't Be Spoken! What a relief! Let's swim and bathe in this great sea of Nothingness, of not-knowing, of being completely at peace, completely free. Let us celebrate! Or just celebrate! There is no 'us', hell, there isn't even anything to celebrate! And "to celebrate" is just another thought! There is nothing to do, nowhere to get to. Everything just is. Perfection. Absolute Divine Perfection. No. Not even that. Words are just pointers. Let's not name it... "Reality is: ... *smashes a gong-gong* ... and we won't give it a name" said Alan Watts. (And yet, here we are on this forum. What da fuck are we doing? Oh yes, "I" forgot: I don't exist, neither does James, nothing is going on here!) __________ When you say that this dream, this life, this existence, this magical maya-fantasy -- full of dualities such as birth & death, love and hate, success and failure, music and silence -- is *just* a thought, you simultaneously seem to deny the insane amount of intelligence and absolute pure magic behind it all. All paths that doesn't lead to the Heart are illusory/falsehood/not-it. James, you are like the dude in this cartoon: ? Isn't it insanely profound to think about what all this is (even if it's seen as nothingness) ?? Isn't it insanely profound that it's possible to be completely unconsciously lost in all this? Like an actor getting so immersed in her role, she forgets she's acting. And what's even more magical is that it is possible to awaken from it all. To see it all for what it is: play, Leela, nothingness, God, Love, pure Infinite Consciousness. Isn't it mystical as fuck that it's even possible for this 'realization' to occur? You seem to try really hard to 'take the magic out of' // 'deny the magic of' REALiTY/EXiSTENCE ... why? I mean, why is there anything (even if it is nothing) ... Why? How does it work? What are the mechanics involved? Does it serve any purpose? "Camus said there is only really one serious philosophical question, which is whether or not to commit suicide. I think there are four or five serious philosophical questions: The first one is: Who started it? The second is: Are we going to make it? The third is: Where are we going to put it? The fourth is: Who's going to clean up? And the fifth: Is it serious?" - Alan Watts

"When there is not-knownng there is not not-knowing" , hehe, I like it. But when there is knowing, there id not knowing! ??? I have learned lots of things. I have for once learned to read and write in English, otherwise "We" couldn't have this discussion! But it's true: in a sense I have nothing learned, cos there is no I (except the God-Nothingness-I we could say), and all our words here are just meaningless banter! But if you ask me to imagine what is left, if I unlearn all my learning, then this is a mentally exercise, and what is left is some imaginary concept/idea of not having learned anything... and that isn't "it" ! But it's a fun and probably useful pointer/exercise to "get" to that which can't be attained, but what always IS. Peace ❤️

Hey brother ❤️ The point is When there is not knowing, there is no such a thing as knowing or not knowing, duality or non duality, nothingness or thingness, being or not being . As before so called birth. Just take an example as you never learn anything, including yourself, what is left?

@James123 whats up brother ? It's funny to see these discussions between you and Leo. It is like two people standing looking at a coin ('Truth'), and one saying "the coin is heads!" and the other: "the coin is tails!" ... But of course the coin is neither, but both! It seems like Leo's view is slightly more embracing of both sides of the coin. But anyway. All dualities must merge/collapse into one, including the dualities: nothingness-thingness being-notbeing notknowing-knowing It might be a mindfuck for ya, but it turns out, that ultimately, not-knowing and knowing are completely identical. What a relief! Oneness remains. God forbid separation ? *non* - *duality* you know! Or don't know. It doesn't matter --- yet it does!! ? But I get ya. For people stuck in "knowing things" (most ppl these days), they need to "learn to unlearn" & to appreciate and practice not-knowing, if they want to get anywhere spiritually/emotionally. Once you see the power and beauty of pure beingness, not-knowing, you can then once again incorporate 'knowing' into your "life", cos you now see that the two opposites are One. Not to worship Leo, but I think the guy understands the perspective (not-knowing), you're speaking from. After all Leo's favorite book to bring on a remote island is The Book of Not Knowing by Ralston... with some DMT crystals sprinkled inside the cover of course, preferably pluggable crystals ?

@CBDinfused I do not claim to speak for the philosophy of any group, but I can tell you of this from being a human Being. For starters, there are no "levels" and while various models of various things have their place, you would do well to transcend them. Next, very simply, hatred is divisive and love is unifying. True Love of course contains and loves all hatred which in this context then ceases to be. Ultimate Love is like that with all else, it surrounds and swallows up everything in Creation to the point of collapsing all in destruction by revealing unification. Powerful hatred is also a great, but far lesser, destroyer and is a dark unifier but through division and to the deluded extreme of only hatered of hatred remaining of an egoic identity. Because of this hatered can be used as an effective, although conventionally very dangerous and profoundly unhealthy, tool by the spiritual seeker. Ultimately though, hatred cannot overcome itself or Love, while Love can overcome hatred and all else by integration, unification, and beautiful creative destruction to the point of being an absolute unity of infinite Nothingness. A bit more practically speaking, a major defining aspect of being awake to/as Love is to be in love with Creation, to be selflessly in love with YourSelf. Have you ever loved a work of art? Has a work of art of any sort ever brought you tears of joy? Have you ever loved a human being as a work of art and more? Has the shape, the intricacies, the totality, the body-mind and spirit of another ever made you forget yourself and your world? Have you ever felt orgasmic-like bliss unrelated to sexual stimulation, but instead from deep bodily embraced love of any person, place, or thing? Has your sense of self ever dissolved in your love of another like a partner, a friend, your offspring, your sibling, or maybe even a pet? To be awake as/in/to Love is like these things. You are the Everything that is Nothing that is Love itself. In being a human being Love, all you encounter is like a beautiful living loving work of divine art. From flowers and sunsets to death and dung, all can bring tears of joy, ecstatic orgasmic transcendence, and self-dissolution to Nothing, to no personal subjects or objects, to only Self being Love. This is Your stateless state, as in not an altered state of seemingly human consciousness, but the Actual base state of formless Consciousness itself that plays at being your humanity and all else. It is the Meta-Subject that is You and there are no objects, only Everything that is Nothing that is Love as Absolute Unity. And all of this can seemingly take place in Being a human, but when aware of it One will know better, lol I hope this makes at least some sense?

I did not say that. I said that it is a bit odd if this nothingness can imagine conciousness/awareness and is not concious/aware itself, how does that work? Is it really possibly to imagine awareness? Try to think of awareness or imagine it. should be no easy task ?‍♂️

Hehe... Or maybe it's the other way around Find out for yourself which is which. But there is no contradiction between Truth, Love, God, and Nothingness. These are all facets of the same exact thing. All the greatest mystics teach about Love. Don't poo-poo that clue

@Adamq8 why would you assume nothingness is something separate from consciousness?

This is a misunderstanding, because by that definition simply having a body and living are also a form of ego. If somebody is fully enlightened but also tends to to the body in a particular way, there does not have to be an identity involved. If we are limiting ourselves to higher states of consciousness from the crown chakra, which is one dimension of experience, whether we refer to it through no-dual language as nothingness, reality, love and so on, then we won't necessarily selflessly embrace other modalities of life and energy and attend to them in a relative manner, as a multi-faceted energy form. Living as nothingness, reality, love and embodying higher levels of reality is not a practical solution for all of the world's problems on the outset, because like the world, our physical bodies comprise of pranic physiology and the five elements, lifetimes of karmic impurities on various levels which exist regardless of our state of consciousness. If we are in touch with things in this spiritually holistic and sober sense, the realistic pace at which we can help ourselves and other people, especially those outside of the spiritual community who are not willing to immediately transcend everything, will be more obvious. It is important to attain to non-dual states through ground up purification, so that energy can function from other dimensions without an identity. I agree with you that prana is a duality, masculine and feminine, the five elements, these are all dualities, but it is our purity in prana and the elements which determines how dualistic our experience of life is. Taking 5-MeO-DMT and transcending the karma existing in these physiological bodies is not a scientific approach, and we risk lopsiding our spiritual development. Look at the Dhyanalinga for example, it has no karma or identity, but it is reverberating as all of the 7 chakras and dimensions of life, it is a fully developed energetic form with the non-dual dimension of sahasrara at the highest possible peak Likewise, the energetic forms of the Divine Mother do not have an ego or identity, they exist as deities in the form of the pure five elements, so that people can surrender and make use of them to purify themselves. Language makes this difficult. Isha's practices work to strip you of your identity very early on, which is also what I meant when I said that they allow you to function from subtler energetic sheathes, to purify and transcend gross forms of karma in mind and body

Nothingness is Love. Absolute Love hardly ever looks like relative love, but sometimes it can.