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@OneIntoOne In the absolute sense, everything is imagined and pretended/self-created/"hypnotized." You are God pretending to be a being that thinks enlightenment is just self-hypnosis, which in itself is self-hypnosis. It still doesn't give you any clarity in what self is and what hypnosis is. Enlightenment can be defined in many different ways, and it has many different degrees. But the definitive point for me is if you have had a direct experience in absolute source/love/nothingness and no longer have any doubt about what you are, after this point is liberation. Now the only way for you to find if this is true is if you reach that point. Same as how for you to truly know that if enlightenment is just self-hypnotization, you would have to become enlightened first. The only way out is through. So keep going. Your ego is trying to trick you into stopping doing the work. It happens often on this path.

@The0Self You can delude yourself into nothingness. Might take some discipline, but i don't see why its not possible. And hurray! i'm Enlightened.

Exactly. We agree, bro. The body -- and everything, including the sense of being a self inside a skull/ego -- is ultimately seen to be: imagination = formless Nothingness = Love.

God is Love bro. Which also happens to be Formless Nothingness ??☯️????❤️

I have been contemplating on what makes sound and movement different from silence and stillness respectively. But as I observe deeper and deeper, I cannot seem to find a difference between them. It's a mindfuck for me. When listening to music or someone talk, silence itself seems to define the sound. I couldn't interpret the sound if there was no silence. But I tried to focus on does silence actually follow the sound? And if silence does follow the sound, what is sound while it is happening. All I got when looking into this was a mindfuck. That sound IS silence, But then how can I differentiate between sound and silence if they are literally the same thing. I have no idea. It makes no sense, yet it does. Sound seems like a wave into awareness, that pops up and down in different frequencies. But even it is popped up, it is no different from silence. I have no idea how this is. Same with movement and stillness. Movement is literally just infinite amount of stillnesses. But even without that way of thinking, it still is equivalent to stillness. It lead me down a rabbit hole. I had to contemplate distance/space. I realized that I just imagine space/distance including the feel of it(Just like Time). And it's not just about me seeing technically 2D images through my vision. It's the fact that there is literally no difference between any sensation at all. Vision = Sound = Every Other sensation(Physical, emotional or mental like thoughts). And that vision and all sensations are happening at the same singularity which has no location and no dimensions to it. It's literally nothingness. I am imagining everything including myself, and the imagination itself is part of imagination. A strange loop. So it's not that everything is beyond space and time, there is literally no space and time. What the fuck?

I think my main point here is that everytime we speak or write... we are always telling a story, even when we are trying to convey/point to a 'non-story' ;-) So this is exactly my 2nd point: what actually matters is *experience*, FEELING, consciousness, perspective. So while it's all fancy to go meta ((and IMO go highly conceptual, which is I why I guess you're also a Five!)) and say: "oh well, in truth there never was a separate self that could be dropped in the first place, so nothing actually happened to no one" ... This is IME some kind of mild spiritual bypassing, cos that is -- at least to me -- not how it felt, these times I had profound ego-deaths. It very much felt like my sense of self dissolved into, well, Nothing/Everything :-) And it was profound. We might just be different, and you guys may prefer to not talk about it much and to not make a big deal out of it. So your way of describing such an awakening experience may be to just say "the veil was lifted. There was and never were a self to begin with. Just Nothingness". And I can vibe with that too, sure❤️ But you see, my friend, to me, it doesn't matter if we call it "something" or "nothing". I can vibe with both opposites pointing to the ineffeable. The only reason I go so much 'anti-no self" here in this thread against you and Veganawake, is because I smell dogmsticism about whether 'nothing' or 'something' are equally true (they are! Just two different perspectives pointing to the SAME ineffeable Truth). To me, both opposites point to the same ineffeable Truth. (Sorry to repeat myself lol). If you insist on one end of the spectrum being more "right" than the other, you are -- in my humble eyes -- still stuck in dualistic thinking. What I am interested in is the "best way" to communicate truth//point to truth, to a normal stage orange person. Even though I'm aware all souls need to hear something different. But I think the best way to speak to a stage orange guy, is to take their level of consciousness/their perspective/"the ground they are standing on" and then turn it on its head; show them the paradoxes that arises when you take their belief system/logic to the extreme! I think, thus, it is by far best -- along the way at least -- to speak to him in a way that includes both the perspective of 'something' & of 'nothing' and not just parrot one of the "stories" ( ;-) ). If you tell to a normal stage orange guy that is inquiring into spirituality: "there is no self, so there is nothing to drop, nothing to get to, nothing to achieve", I don't think it will help him much. I'd prefer to say something (?) along the lines: "What does this self you speak of consist of?" ... etc.:D Experience is what is. Trying to go beyond experience is an alluring trap that easily makes you stuck in concepts instead of The Now/Present Moment (feels much better to be 'stuck' in the latter, I tell you!). Seems like we are (sort of) on the same page after all ? Oh, as I said, I do like them. I just like to play The Devil's Advocate, when I sniff something is out of line ? My sniffing may be wrong, though, hehe. But it's still fun. Good! Now we can go a level deeper and say "yet, something IS opposite to nothing!" , although it simultaneously is not hehe. Non-duality is such a strange loop. If I say 'nothing is not opposite to something', I have simultaneously implied that it is! Haha. Okay I'm just lolling around now. Gotta stop ? In regards to the Enneagram model, if you're not a Five, whar core type are then? 9? ??❤️?

Being is a better way of explaining what YOU are as eternal nothingness, better than saying consciousness as people may misinterpret that as what is being conscious of.

Unknowable is a good answer. Yeah, ego is all that energy inside of us that wants to make distinctions, comparisons and make us feel guilty or superior. It's indeed all that energy that latches onto something and identifies with it. "Ego = identity, so it will always identify itself as SOMETHING whether that be God, Higher Self, Pure Consciousness, The Self, No self, Nothingness or what have you." Fixed it for ya.?❤️ Thank you my friend - you too??❤️

No self : meaning that you are not the thoughts, beliefs, concepts and body mind. Self : conciousness/emptiness/nothingness/GOD. Without the Self there is no isness. Isness IS.

QFT. Well said. Spot on. Beautiful. You are brilliant with words. I fully agree. It's hilarious! So fucking funny.? The shadow is called the shadow for a reason. An actual "physical" shadow follows you all the time, yet often you are unconscious of it. When people project onto others, they are often projecting an aspect of themselves they deny/suppress. Very interesting and hilarious to study this dynamic. The most hilarious thing is that all my projections are probably something I suppress / deny in myself, I'm just not conscious of it. So entertaining ?? For instance, the no-selfers like to point out how we "no-no-selfers" (?) like to create stories and fairytales, not realizing their own belief of 'nothing/noself' is on its own a VERY cute story=D Tell me about no-self/nothingness when shit hits the fan and a bear ? jumps in and breaks your window and run towards you in your bed. Yes, indeed, nothing is ultimately going on, but tell that to me while you yourself jump out of your bed window in panic while screaming, then landing on your left ankle on the ground breaking multiple bones, screaming even more, while suddenly the Scarlett Johansson appears out of nowhere and shows her boobs to you, saying you can lick them, if you want. Tell me about no-self ans nothingness while all this is going on ?

When you say "apples tastes good, sweet and sour" or think that line -- it is indeed conceptual in the sense that saying that or thinking the line isn't equal to biting an ? with your teeth. You can't eat the menu. You can't replace direct experience with concepts (you can try but ultimately you will fail and feel miserable ?). The map is not the territory. Etc. So "ball" as a word is indeed a concept. Sure, the word points to a direct experience of seeing the ball, feeling it, etc. but without direct exp, the word 'ball' remains inherently conceptual. But okay, I suppose you mean the physical appearance of the characters ' b a l l ' or the sound ' b a l l ' - yeah that is just experience -- sight or sound. But I don't really see your point here. Fundamentally, only awareness/Consciousness/EXPERIENCE exists. Have you ever experienced something that was not 'an experience' or not a part of consciousness? Hehe. You choose to call "that-which-nothing points to" for "nothing" and not spaghettimonster, right... And it's because you find the meaning 'nothing' convey to most other people the most appropriate for that which you are trying to point to. I don't even know what point I'm trying to convey here. I mean, that which "no-self" or "nothingness" points to isn't impossible to grasp. I grasp it multiple times a day during my meditation, run or just looking at trees. I'm so lost in the experience, so happy, so at peace that it doesn't feel like there is a 'self' present. Just raw being, pure experience without mental tension/fear/thoughts/concepts attached to sort of contiminate the experience. And I sort of - simultaneously or slightly after - understand on a deep intuitive level that the trees I'm looking at are nothing. Nothingness. Love. God. Me. Everything. Consciousness. Etc. *That* which can't be communicated because it's so obvious, yet so ineffeable. That's the thing. When I use the words "all my doing", Love or God or Imagination so frequently, it's because I literally feel/experience THAT which these words point to throughout my day. Otherwise i wouldn't use them. If you have noticed I'm only active here during the spring/summer. Haha ??? I feel Love. I see God in everything. Myself. I see it's All Imagination. Play. Nothingness. So beautiful. Unconditional Love isn't ungraspable. I have experienced it directly multiple times in my life now. It's something you become. Or rather, we all already are IT; all layers of belief, ego and fear and falsehood are just removed so we see it more clearly. But okay, I guess you mean ungraspable by the conditioned rational mind. Yes, you're right ? All paths that do not lead you to the Heart aren't it.

❤️ Sad, I'd be delighted if you would write it again, but I understand if you won't. Happened to me once or twice too. Absurdly annoying ? Yeah, the lesson/insight of no-self and Nothingness are surely important and necessary for many rational-minded people to grasp first, before being able to dive deeper. I've been there. And I still find a lot of value in the concepts of no-self and nothingness. By the way, don't tell me it's not concepts. Words are conceptual by nature. Yes, I know words are just pointers and for sure, I naturally cannot know 100% what no-self/nothingness refers to in your direct experience, and vice versa. Same goes with "God" and so on. Just word-play. Yes, these words are good pointers. We are all different though. I feel God or Love are more direct pointers, but on the flipside, these words are pretty contaminated (by virtue of our culture), indeed. For me, the next step was to realize that nothingness/no-self is equal to God. And further down the road, I had the insight that Love is the answer to any question.❤️

I am actually speaking from direct experience. I'm not just parroting a belief system I have bought into (although I see it could easily seem like that was the case from the outside, since, for instance, Leo also talks about Infinite Imagination) But believe what you want. You should go validate for yourself. Don't believe what I say -- that would be a mistake -- but don't dismiss it either. "There is an apparent human body but that is just words shining light on a particular set of forms" Yes. But likewise, there is an apparent separate self, but that is just words shining light on a particular set of mental patterns. You see? I get what you mean. The separate self (ego) can't be seen or found anywhere -- while the physical body can -- so it's tempting to only dismiss the separate self as illusion/imagination and call the physical body -- a particular set of forms as you say -- a real thing. It's true, the physical outside world with all its different forms is - in a sense - more real than thoughts and in particular the false identity/attachment of/to these thoughts (ego). But ultimately, also the material 'real' forms can be seen to be: imagination. Your imagination. In other words, the outside world can be realized to actually be 'your doing', i.e. it's a reflection of YOU. Your imagination. A more low-level pattern/structure of thoughts, if you will. The outside is seen to be the inside -- and the inside the outside. It's so fucking beautiful. Actually, if you go deep enough in your contemplation, you will see that --- just like the mental illusory separate self cannot be found anywhere, cos it does not exist --- any 'physical apparent separate object', eg. an ant, ultimately is ALSO an illusory construct and *actually* cannot be 'found' ! Take the ? walking around on the ground in the rainforest along millions of other ants in an ecosystem filled with plants, mushrooms, dirt, rain, animals, bacteria, viruses, trees etc. Can you describe the ant without taking into account its environment/surroundings? You could try but then what 'you get' wouldn't actually be the 'essence of the ant'. The essence of the ant cannot be isolated. It is just as much part of the rainforest as your right little finger is part of your body. And the Amazon rain forest is just as much part of Earth as your feet is part of your body. And the Earth is just as much part of the universe as your stomach is part of your body. And YOU, your body, is just as much part of the whole universe, as a wave is part of an ocean. Or even more correct is to say that the ? IS the WHOLE ocean. That wave is something THE whole ocean 'is doing' -- just like 'the real you' is something the whole universe is doing! Forget free will vs. no-free-will, this is just ONE Eternal Infinite Unfolding/Happening. ? Non-duality - all distinctions & opposites collapse into ONE. So, thus, yes, when I say 'everything' is imagination, yes, you are right, from a logical PoV this is an absolute meaningless statement. It's like saying everything is Love/God/Consciousness/Nothingness etc. Meaningless - from a rational PoV. Yet, Absolute Truth cannot be comprehended by the logical mind. It simply cannot. Absolutely speaking, everything is ONE. Everything is Consciousness/Love/God/Imagination/Nothingness. All opposites are seen to 'arise together' ... i.e.: they are 'of the same substance'. If you, instead, isolate and zoom into the ant (reductionism) to 'see its true nature' you start seeing millions of cells, billions of complex biomolecules arranged in intelligent ways, quadrillions of neatly arranged protons, neutrons, electrons, quarks, ... hell, what do we got, strings? Ultimately just: pure energy/potential/nothingness! And EVERY form (physical object) is built of THAT. It's ALL seen to be Whole & One. No parts! If you zoom out indefinitely, you get ♾️ If you zoom in indefinitely, you get ♾️ You are obviously already very conscious (like VeganAwake). You have gone deep, but the mistake you intense 'no-selfers' are making is that you think you have gone as deep as deep gets. That 'no-self' is the ultimate insight. That the rabbit hole ends here and that all the jumbo-mumbo-talk about 'God, Self, Love, Infinity, Imagination' is just pure delusion/fantasy-stories that their ego is spinning (( funny how you say the ego doesn't exist in the first place, but can still 'create' fantasy-stories, huh? )). But you still have much deeper to go (so do I). The rabbit hole of self-realization/Consciousness is infinite -- of course! How could it be otherwise? To believe it's finite is actually rather silly. But you guys seem to be so fucking stuck in the belief that 'no-self' is the ultimate realization. Let me tell you: it is not. It's just one important aspect/nuance of the path. Go deeper. Don't stop here. Communication has its limits. Direct experience is needed. But let me highlight: Forms are formless in nature. Formlessness IS form. All forms are imagined. It's all whole. Oneness is what is! Always. Yes, there can be 'apparent' dualities, fragmentation, separation, distinctions, opposites, parts. But that is just what YOU -- whatever this < You / I > is (it's not the separate illusory self) -- are imagining "into existence" ! Exciting, huh? So Good, so fucking amazing. The mother of all mindfucks: IT IS ALL YOU, silly! ? YOUR doing! Haha???❤️☯️??????????♾️

I was walking alone through the hallways of nothingness.. Maybe I was walking towards ultimate silence, a place of peace, a place I could call home. Through every door I could hear echoes of my alter egos talking to me, where was my authentic self lost in those egos that society built?

@Someone here I did respond once, and i will do so once more. "Never has really happened", this is like saying "something is eternal" and "anyonce is plausible", is this what you mean? You say "Nothing needs to happen" a. do you take necessity out of all emergence and being (either present or continual)? Or b. do you say that there must once be nothing happening whereby 1. no other thing can ever happen again? or 2. something may occur once more? If the former (a) then do you not think there must be another thing then necessity which made due for existence? Is it will, is it love or what is it? Whatever it is, do you not think it is emergent confined to the nothingness you refer to as death?

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.

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..

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.

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.

@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

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