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Non-duality is saying that everything is One and pantheism is saying that everything is God. Are both of them actually pointing to the same thing but just using different terminology?

Perhaps my best trip to date, but only because it builds on top of all the previous ones. Tried to structure it as best as I could, however at some points the thing being talked about requires context, but then that context finds itself backed by the very notions it's supposed to explain. Some related themes come to mind here - strange loop, paradox, Indra's net, social matrix, etc. For about 2 weeks prior, I haven't taken any substances, been doing pranayama, sexual transmutation, and some light meditation. Studied and contemplated various Sufi and Beguine texts. I believe all of this greatly helped set the tone. Close to midnight, I took 60mg of each on an empty stomach (these are very large doses), then proceeded to shower and make preparations like food, candles, and incense as I usually do while waiting for the comeup to begin. The beginning wasn't so great though. There were subtle, and then extreme, demonic overtones. Haunting and vivid visuals and sensations of various evil entities from mystical traditions, creepypastas, horror movies, urban legends, and so on. Point is, things were going south fast. I needed some escape. So I played Leo's Self-Love video. After a couple minutes in I managed to calm down, but then decided this won't do. Can't keep running from these fears, the time has come to integrate and transcend them. Made the counter-intuitive move to go back to those visions and attempt to apply Love to them, meaning I'd no longer hold all this ugly stuff as separate, but accept it as part of my own self and love it. Initially it was an incredibly bitter pill to swallow, akin to drinking poisoned water. However that's where burning with Love comes in, the bright white fire of consciousness lit up and burned it all away. I guess that's where the stereotypical imagery of religious nuts ranting about vanquishing evils with the divine light of God comes from. That's right, this metaphor is true, but of course their understanding is so limited that instead of burning with love they burn other people at the stake. The rest of the trip is overwhelmingly positive. This seems to be a recurring theme in my recent experiences, things going full-circle from suffering to joy. There are good reasons for that, I'm being taught the lesson that acceptance and integration are key in spiritual practice, so I try to apply the same principles in daily life and welcome such challenges. Case in point, I never have a purely bad trip. Things get just bad enough for me to understand important truths, the negative is always recontextualized into something great, it's only a matter of time. I preemptively forgave myself for inevitably forgetting some of the insights that would come to me during the trip. At multiple points throughout the experience I wanted to get up and write about it asap, but every time trusted myself and decided to continue, as more good stuff would surely happen. That's the fleeting nature of insight, it dissapears just as fast as it appeared. However the insights aren't really my own anyway, a lot are Leo's, and more broadly of the universe, and as such, there's an infinite capacity to produce them. This abundance means there's no need to worry about the loss of one or two - there'll always be more. Then again, each tiny part of the whole is also precious on its own, so it's wise to not be overly nonchalant either. I had an insight into how a spiritual ego may subtly co-opt the insights of others, justifying it with solipsism/nonduality for the purposes of self-aggrandizement. Somewhere along the way I also forgave and loved everyone who bullied me at school and other annoying people. Next came one more dip into darkness, I dove into the minds of serial killers and other 'evil' people. I've studied tons of crimes and evils of humanity and watched hours of gore of all kinds, so vividly imagining it all from their perspective was simple. I managed to love that, but in a bittersweet way. Had the circumstances been different, these people could have been contributing something to mankind instead. The suffering they cause is only to themselves, on multiple levels. The metaphysical, and also personal. These are miserable people, it's a sad state of mind when the only way one can experience love is by raping and torturing some child. But, them doing their evil stuff is ultimately what's required in the grand scheme of the universe's self-expression. Then came two profound realizations. I grasped the nature of inanimate objects as manifestations of universal Love, which they also possses in their own way. The love of a rock is first that it accepts itself as a rock, it doesn't need to be any other way. But it's also not attached to being a rock, it doesn't mind if you grind it to dust - it doesn't have a traditional sense of self. So on the whole, the love of a rock is being a rock, and selflessly allowing itself to be used in industrial manufacturing and whatnot. As I was marveling at all this, I also realized that for God, this is the most mundane and obvious stuff ever. But at the same time it also paradoxically understands how amazing it all is. There comes the human - a limited self to whom all this is grand and mysterious. God admires itself through a human mind in the process of realizing God's (and its own) divinity. Somewhat confusing, I guess it's a bit like a two-way mirror. This plays into the theme of the mundane and divine being the same, ultimately because they're one. As I have previously discovered, the lofty 10D realms of God consciousness can actually become boring if you visit too much, while there's immense beauty on this Earth that's easy to be blind to. Interestingly the majority of bodily sensations of love during all this were in the chest area, the heart chakra I believe. Another thing of note is that I've had a callback to my complete solipsism awakening, which the Love reinforced and complimented perfectly, and vice-versa. A couple relevant excerpts from my notes on that: "I checked how solid the illusion is. Biting my hand with all my force, and feeling intense pain as a result, told me two paradoxical things. First, that there's nothing at all to pain in the sense that it wasn't some objective property of reality, it was just perception. The resulting marks quickly disappeared in the following minutes after my focus shifted elsewhere. A supernatural self-healing power? If it's not in the field of my direct experience, it's not real, quite like how the textures in a videogame are only rendered as the player approaches them. But second, at the same time there's nothing more real than pain, in the sense that it was all that was real in that moment, by which I mean what I was experiencing." "Then I realized my complete self-referential and self-defining nature, as Yahweh, "I am that I am", the Alpha and the Omega. My birth really was the immaculate conception in the truest sense. I am all the majorities and minorities, the whites, the blacks, the asians, the straights and the gays and everything in-between. The animals, the aliens, the roads, the plants, the stars. Ultimately all of these are one and the same, adding a true meaning to equality." "My intuitive disdain for lies, deceit, manipulation became all the more clear. All of these are in essense 'crimes' against myself. Yet at the same time I'm all the liars, cheaters, and frauds of the world, the most important fraud of them all being this very illusion. Ah, how hypocritical of me. I always disliked conflict. At least engaging in it, watching could be fun at times. I'm conflicted. What a mindfuck." "The self-reference is so dense I'm melting and collapsing into it. It's beautiful. Brings me to tears. All the infinite layers to the illusion for me to endlessly peel away at, what more could I ask for? Yes, the illusion gets unpleasant and nasty at times. But that's part of the beauty. The entire reason to even have this illusion is so that I can experience all the dualities that stem from it, which is something that's not possible at the absolute oneness domain, my highest nature". These may sound somewhat egotistical and perhaps not entirely correct, but it is what it is. At the peak I was so filled with Love, I didn't need anything at all, everything is already perfect as-is. Despite this, the fullness turned into overflowing, so I made a commitment to develop more empathy and compassion, and in general live my life to help others experience a sliver of this Love. I guess that's my life purpose in a broad sense, and the precise manifestation of it I'm still working out. After that the comedown begun, so I took some notes while still blissing out. A good way to sum up this trip is with one of my favorite poems, written by Fakhr al-Din Iraqi: "Beloved, I sought you here and there, asked for news of you from all I met; then saw you through myself and found we were identical. Now I blush to think I ever searched for signs of you." Well, that's that, the work continues.

If you haven't seen 'Midnight Mass' on Netflix I highly recommend it. Starts slow, but it all comes together masterfully. This is a conversation that happens at the end (spoilers obviously). For a show about fanatical Christianity, this powerful speech at the end is quite on-the-nose Nonduality. Just goes to show that Nonduality is truly becoming mainstream and part of the collective-consciousness. As the character is dying: ‘What do I think happens when we die? Speaking for myself...myself...myself. That's the problem, that's the whole problem with the whole thing, that word, “self”. That's not the word, that's not right. How did I forget that? I thought I'd despair or feel afraid, but I don't feel any of that. Because I'm too busy in this moment remembering. This body is mostly just empty space after all and solid matter, it's just energy vibrating very slowly. And there is no me. There never was. I'm no longer breathing and I remember. There is no point where any of that ends and I begin. I remember I am energy, not memory, not self. My name, my personality, my choices, all came after me. I was before them and I will be after. And everything else is pictures picked up along the way. Fleeting little dreamlets. And I am the lightning that jumps between. I am the energy. And I am returning, just by remembering. I am returning home. It's like a drop of water falling back into the ocean, of which it's always been a part. All things, everyone who's ever been, every plant, every animal, every atom, every star, every galaxy, all of it, that's what we're talking about when we say God. The One. The cosmos, and its infinite dreams. We are the cosmos dreaming of itself. It's simply a dream that I think is my life every time. But I'll forget this. I always do. I always forget my dreams. But now, in this moment, I remember. The instant I remember, I comprehend everything at once. There is no time, there is no death, life is a dream. It's a wish, again and again and again, and on into Eternity. And I am all of it. I am everything. I am all. I am that. I am you.'

Recently in another thread, I got prompted to watch a video about spacetime,and I was astounded how the video creator was speaking about Spacetime in the same way Spiritual individuals might speak of Consciousness - The canvas, as in, the most fundamental thing, that which allows us to be, that which allows the painting, life, etc. (1) It is logical to believe spacetime can exist without conscious agent (?), as in, the conscious agent may arise after certain unconscious spacetime events. (That's pretty much the normal "atheistic" view of the world, and I myself held it as true for a long time so its nothing insane to me, and probably to you too, if you forget about nonduality conditioning). (2) On the other side are those who believe/know that consciousness is fundamental, and is outside of spacetime and therefore primary and spacetime is just a result of it, basically the idea flipped, and making a Conscious "God entity" / non-entity which "created" spacetime itself, for further more complex paintings, life, but also "exist" independently of Spacetime and is completely untouchable and eternal. Why does one have to be wrong and the other right? Can there be a way we can say both of these are true? Paradox? Your thoughts on any of this? I find both these fascinating. I never watch something to agree with it or deny it, I simply love exploring and taking in new ideas from all directions. Fire your own at me.

I feel like this video does not get enough love and attention - It's by far the best nonduality video of Le's (for me). I've watched it 3 times now. Does anyone have any book recommendations on the topic of Aztec Nonduality?

Yup. When "it" is not Absolute. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Absolute_(philosophy) Can't get more Absolute than Absolute, can't get more Infinite than Infinite. I agree in so far that many Enlightenments (by far most of them) are announced when it is not Great-(Zen-lingo) or final/full-Enlightenment (Impersonal, Death of the separate self, real Satori), but just Nonduality, or Unity of the separate-self with the universe (just nondual, not impersonal, just unity of personal + Universe, or Kensho). Or, the difference between waking up and a nondual dream.

True God Realization is the realization that there is Duality, and there is NonDuality and the two are not mutually exclusive. Whatever your experience is, whatever you are aware of, that is what is Absolutely True. So if you are experiencing duality then that is what is true. If you experience both NonDuality and Duality then that is what is true. The teachings of Duality deny Non Duality, and the teachings of Non Duality deny Duality. It is possible to live in a world of pure Duality, and it is possible to live in a world of pure Non Duality, this is possible and accomplished through using the power of awareness to deny. But if you are all accepting you will realize the world is BOTH Dual and Non Dual, not either or. If you believe either is true and the other is false, or one is superior to the other you are trapped behind a mental experience of your delusion and that is what you will experience. Understand that Reality is a Self Delusion that whatever it says/interprets is absolutely true, until its not because it creates another delusion that is true. Why is it true? Because it has no other. Because it has no other it is authority itself, and gives itself permission to run around delusional and claim in defense that it is innocent and is absolutely right at all times. As such it can only discover what is actually true by creating a bunch of others who will complain and tell it what it likes and doesn't like. Through this it discover what itself is really like, because all others are itself in disguise. Understand that Reality is a Self Delusion that whatever it says/interprets is absolutely true, until its not because it creates another delusion that is true. Why is it true? Because it has no other. Because it has no other it is authority itself, and gives itself permission to run around delusional and claim in defense that it is innocent and is absolutely right at all times. As such it can only discover what is actually true by creating a bunch of others who will complain and tell it what it likes and doesn't like. Through this it discover what itself is really like, because all others are itself in disguise. But the user ivankiss said something profound that is true, you are me but you are not me. What this means and thanks to ivankiss for pointing this out is while we are one in our being, we can be world's apart in perspective and action and also the ability levels of that action and perspective making. Our biggest issues comes from recognizing our ONENESS, with our DIFFERENCES. This can only be accomplished by realizing...that Reality is a DELUSIONAL TRUTH and that is pure....ridiculous, circle jerk, crazy, wonderful, beautiful, treachery itself. This is crazy love, and that is why it is so hard to figure out. The more understanding in life you have the more crazy you are because life made you crazy. Life was birthed crazy, and is learning and striving to be Perfect Order. But to do this it has to see the perfection in everything.

I dont have direct experience in this, I am not at that level yet so Im only repeating what other 'enlightened' or nondual teachers have wrote or spoke to me It seems that the beleve that there was a 'self' behind the eyes controlling or doing anything is permentnatly gone. The context change from duality to nonduality. The energetic/emotional contraction/pain/traumas accumulated since a child and attributed to a self completely gone I guess if I could sum it up: they are claiming that the negative emotional states of conciousness are gone, the contractions associated with that are gone, the pain associated with it are gone, the escapisms/compulsions associated with it are gone, the sense of identity creaitng the personal linear self is gone, and along with the default mode of time has changed to non-linear etc etc To what degree do you corroborate this? Can we expect pscyhedelics to help achieve this if it is achievable?

@Osaid good points. I find the following thought experiment interesting: Imagine that all it would need for Enlightenment (realization of True Infinite Being instead of being a separate-self/human) would be taking psychedelics. Truly realizing Infinite Being means understanding that each and any identity and thought is just an object. No character/ego-element not made from subject into object arising in Infinite Being in real time. If psychedelics don't deliver that (which they apparently don't do, has been tested many times), and yet would cause a permanent blissful nondual state, that would mean nothing else that ego and its normal occupations with I/me/mine and all its endless needs Maslows pyramid up and down, not to talk about being soooo special (a brief look at current state of the world suffices) would at least partly survive untranscended. And then we would have permanently blissful non-suffering (and hence NON-CHANGING) super-egos running around, established in blissful nonduality, doing its remaining turbo-egoic-thing. . Not for the faint of hearted... So, there is and will remain an entrance price for staying in blissfull boundless impersonal nonduality: The transcendence or seeing through each and any separate-self I-feeling and I-thought in real time. The death of the little self, understanding it never existed, and only Infinite Being IS and apparently played the game of being something separate. And what would a Roshi say to Water by the Rivers telling his little pet theory and thought experiments: Empty your cup and back on the pillow! And he would be right. Oh well... Singing "If I can Dream..." by the River

No, not human logic. Basic laws of duality when Infinite Being splits itself apart and plays hide & seek and return to the source. How do I know that? Well, there are Awakened states where that is blatantly obvious what separate-self arisings that hide/cloud True Being are (separation= a spectrum of evil, from very mild to very very dark), and how they they literally contract the original Infinite Blissfull Being just with their arising into duality and separation. And contraction IS suffering, it is directly realized and felt that way, a cluster of sensations and contractions assembling a localization and center, most often in the head. And if one is able to cut them off fast enough, the Infinite Field returns to its original state: infinite and groundless and nondual without a center again. And full of love and bliss. True Being is boundless infinite Nonduality and (your much absolutized) Infinite L-O-V-E. Sat-Chit-Ananda. and anywhere were that Awakening and love (when the clouds of ignorance is removed) is not and where it is clouded by separation, there is just necessarily suffering (in cycles and various degrees) and the self-contraction. It is totally obvious and infinite/absolute that it is a no-brainer. And that realization my friend, that is absolute. There is no realm where that is not the case, because you know, Infinite True Being. Nothing outside of It.Either nondual and infinite and mere appearance and love, or duality and out-thereness, and fear. Somebody ought to make a youtube-viedeo about it. “Reality unfolds like a fractal divisions within divisions reunions within reunions. Consciousness polarizes and depolarizes it expands and it contracts back it diverges that it reckon verges and it keeps doing this forever eternally and that is the dance of consciousness or Infinite Mind” Aha. And now lets think that to the very end. And again, I am not talking about animals, nor rocks or bacteria. But higher level beings and their evolutionary lines, starting on a certain level of complexity. A molecule can not be evil, but the game of Karma/souls and return to the source starts at beings/perspectives with some level of self-awareness. But thanks for commenting, I understand you and your behaviour a bit better now. I assume you think that something like a (relative, just appearing, but appearing nontheless) soul "storing" in a higher dimension all this self-contraction or openess/love, and other lessons and the impact it had (on others, and oneself), from life to life, doesn't really exist, even in a relative way. Or is subordinate to hey, its all imagined anyway. Which is true, but forgets the power that suffering and/or love still holds for a separate being to either be awakened in sobre states or not. Including you my friend. I have a bit the feeling that you believe yourself to be a bit above the game of cause and consequences, or in other words Karma. You still are not telling why you stopped doing psychedelics and what happened, and write more about crocodiles. If you don't just want to escape via psychedelics (spiritual bypassing) and want to find genuine happiness and sobre Awakening in daily life, I wouldn't consider myself (or my relative being) to be in any way above this game of cause and effect. How about this view? "Although my view is higher than the sky, My respect for the cause and effect of actions is as fine as grains of flour." Padmasambhava If newbies take over this way of thinking (like lets go into a haunted house and try some DMT to meet something really evil, or blow up your relative life & values and just do spiritual/psychedelic bypassing, and I don't know what other less-than-smart-irresponsible stuff)... all these a bit less than funny posts in your forum where people somehow go for spiritual bypassing, although you write in places that is a no no?) and follow their idol, and then wreak their lifes... Ever considered its actually YOU in just another form suffering that? Literally You? Not metaphorically, not only true in some way out psychedelic states, but literally, all the time, just Absolutely True. Is that intuition and resulting love and compassion still so far away from your sobre life? You think that Infinite Intelligence will not give you some "less-than-positive-credit-points" on your Karma-Bill for just letting that happen? Where are your clarifying comments when a 20 year old again writes some irresponsible stuff that anybody with some more life-experience will see will f*** u* their lives? And what does Infinite Intelligence have in stock to finally correct such tendencies? Crocodiles. But is that really necessary? Although the law of cause and effect and the crocodiles are just imagined, their imagined bite creates very painful imagined sensations. As we are all probably quite aware of. Ok, that was the sermon for the sunday at the imagined church of Selling basic cause & effect by the River

I also believe using both is best and most efficient. At the final stages of meditation, one can dissolve these last and very subtle lenses. When taking for example the Mahamudra-system, which I consider as the most sophisticated system on the planet (together with Dzogchen), the Yoga of One Taste (advanced practice, 3rd stage in Mahamudra system) makes the visual field boundless, infinite and mere appearance/lucid. Basically the effect that many psychedelics have. And no, that is not yet Enlightenment. https://www.actualized.org/forum/search/?&q=yoga of one taste&author=Water by the River The final lenses of deception/illusion are not yet dissolved at stage 3. But here we are already on very trippy terrain, visual field nondual, boundless and infinite and mere appearance. And now comes the kicker: stage 4, Nonmeditation Yoga automizes the techniques done at stage 3 in such a way that even the meditator can be dissolved. There is no longer a separate-anything doing anything, the meditation does itself. Awakening, or Awakened Awareness (nondual, boundless, infinite, groundless, and impersonal, or not only personal), does the meditation. As long as someone does the meditation, the illusion with the dream-character is still well and alive, even if its nondual and what not. A nondual dream. https://www.actualized.org/forum/search/?&q=Nonmeditation Yoga&author=Water by the River What happens at stage 4 Nonmeditation Yoga can no longer be fully described. But it can be understood what happens or happened once it happens. And it takes a loooong time at stage 4 Nonmeditation Yoga, at least for most, until crossing over to Enlightenment happens. No other. No you. Just Infinite Consciousness/Reality, an Infinite Ocean of Awareness, its essence forever unchanged. Eternal. Always having been the case. The former separate-self just an illusion. And until one gets the hundreds or thousands of hours (if one is not a prodigy) in these states to make it to the big bang, if one tries to do that with psychedelics, one has ones brain fried long before. And a God-complex on top if one doesn't start on the humble side from the beginning (which few do), since the ego projects itself already busily on the nondual infinite field, see stage 3. And if one has bad luck, ET comes along and gives a seductive smile... But that is another topic. And the limitations/problems of meditation practice: Getting to Nonduality, stage 3. Takes a looong time, and many things can be implemented incorrectly. Then, meditation practice NEVER leads to Nonduality,boundlessness-infnite and mere appearance. That happens to 98%+ of meditators, because the meditation techniques used are so inefficient that multiple thousand of hours of hardcore head-against-the-wall meditation would be needed... Few are made for that. Mahamudra on the other side can be used efficiently in daily life if done correctly. Without Mahamudra Pointing out the Great Way style I would have gotten nowhere, and even with that I read the book 15 times over 10 years to get it. To get a nondual state take enough shrooms et voila. To experience Infinity take some 5-MeO et voila. It prooves that its real. Most meditators without psychedelics give up before that. One knows if one does something correct with meditation if these psychedelic-induced awakenings happen from meditation. Hope I have answered all your questions. Selling Water by the River

I wasn't asked, but since that didn't prevent me from commenting ever since, please allow me my musings... So, here is the Ultimate Crocodile. Or Trap. Since it is pretty close to Ultimate Truth: The problem (or rather near impossibility) in realizing Ultimate Truth/Full Enlightenment (not even to talk about realizing & keeping that on a stable basis in daily life) with mainly/only psychedelics (vs. a combined meditation and psychedelics-approach) is that the separate-self/ego is never fully seen through, and happily hijacks all insights gained and projects itself onto them. Like nondual merging with the visual field, aka non-dual-Unity-states of a still separate-self merging with the visual field. that the visual field is mere empty appearance hovering in Nothingness that this Nothingness is "IT", is Infinity, in all possible dimensions, is boundless limitless nondual Consciousness/Suchness "God-Realization" (aka that pretty much everything which appears is imagined to fool oneself into a false-body-mind-identity. That includes past&future imagination. Which is true, but still there is a subtle separate-self-something left and not seen through having all these insights, and proclaiming "I am God". It is not truly impersonal yet, and Absolute Reality is impersonal. Yes, True You is totally impersonal. Shocking, but true. But only shocking from before the Gateless Gate. After the Gateless Gate, it was just one more trap on the path/maze to Infinite love&liberation&freedom). That is pretty much the development Leo has taken, from nondual, to Infinity, to "God-Realization". And then some ETs (which is of course just more appearance/mind-stuff/content consciousness) since the God-Realization didn't went any further from there. And then after some psychedelic-substance-fallout-crocodiles ET said not permanently in this life darling, but maybe permanently in the next life in the 7th heaven, and the message was heard, and the phone was (increasingly) hung up (for now). Ultimate Truth is beyond all of that. Contains all of that. Unchanging. And eternal. All the rest mentioned above rolls "before" and "in" your true formless Infinite Being like a show. Waking/dreaming/deep sleep/normal life/nondual/infinite/God-Realization/ET/crocodiles: All these states roll before your True Being like a show, never changing anything real even for a moment. All just appearance. What is watching all of that? What can never not be here, even in Deep Sleep? And btw., the essence of the frog is completely understood by throwing it into a mixer and looking what it is made of (Suchness). That is how the frog gets truly impersonal. And the essence is all that stays, eternally. The rest is just changing appearance, an illusion, a show. Including any "understanding", which can be dead&gone&forgotten. The essence never can go anywhere, ever. That is what each being truly is. And realizing & embodying that is true freedom and liberation. And why is this kind of psychedelic "God-Realization" not stable? Psychedelics: The filters/lenses of the last subtle separate-self illusions don't get disassemled/transcended/cut-off in real time (aka impersonal, or "not-only-personal-awareness,"). Because of lacking strength&speed of Awareness in cutting all of that off in real-time. And that is why Infinite Nonduality/mere appearance/Awakening states break down after the trip: Unearned wisdom/states. Not impersonal, but still personal/separate-self/ego. In "God-Realization" there are still remnants (although subtle ones) of an ego/separate-self too much left alive & hijacking the insight/state. Meditation: Transcending separate-self/ego-elements (speed and strength/knowing each and any separate-self-arising illusion/I-feeling/I-thoughts/...) leads to nondual/infinite/mere appearance states: stable & personal transcended (aka impersonal), "earned". Psychedelics: psychedelics lead to nondual/infinite/mere appearance states without transcending all (subtle) separte-self/ego-buildings-blocks: unstable &"unearned" & can hijack the states: "I am God/-realized, whatever". The True Being of every being (Infinite Consciousness/Reality, impersonal or universal Awareness) is always right here, eternal. Can never change. It can only appear to be clouded. Looking out for less-than-impersonal-crocodiles by the non-personal River

I know, I said this to Razard also. When we talk about paradoxical subject with words, we are bound to contradict ourselves. Youve probably heard spiritual teachings that contradict themselves. This is not a conversation for minds, you agree that male and female are different? You want to be both? Separation and diversity is natural part for Life. All united under consciousness. Duality is the creation of nonduality, opposition, play of form. The creation is not the creator. If there is no creation, there is no creator. If the creation is the creator, then was anything really created?

Just to understand my point, I equated mind to male and heart/being to female, because mind is duality and the other is nonduality, the exact polar opposites. Mind Is Duality, you can't have nonduality in the Mind. Mind is a tool designed to divide. It is useful to divide, I am not saying to scrap the mind, im saying its not the Absolute.

You realise every time you separate duality from nonduality you are creating more duality? Its you, the enlightened who know the truth vs them, the egoic newbies who don't know what is going on. Ah, they are soo ignorant right? So much for nonduality being Absolute Truth then, if it has an opposite in the face of duality. You need to work on being inclusive

Which video series of Leo's will give me a deeper understanding of nonduality? Would it be the 'Understanding duality' series? Also anyone got any good book recommendations for better understanding?

Perception never changes. İt is nonduality = love. There is no such thing as world. You are in heaven.

Any ideas? Was it because he was so stuck in his mind and so attached to theorizing? Or what? Surely he must've known about it, he has studied (whatever that meant to him) all kinds of spiritual traditions. But he said they didn't show him what he was looking for, until he found psychedelics. But why is it then that I can't even find a single talk where he speaks of nonduality? And trust me, I've listened to everything...? I know that he wasn't very interested in spirituality as such to begin with, but still - you can't tell me that in 30 years of doing high doses of psychedelics he never experienced oneness/nonduality. I remember in one of his talks he spoke of enlightenment as "an act of rational apprehension"... So yeah. Guess he didn't study spirituality very deeply. Side question for @Leo Gura how much influence did Terence McKenna have on your relationship with psychedelics?

Hey Leo, and others Have you looked in IFS, which is the latest, most formalized version of Shadow Work? I feel a lot of people involved here can benefit from this framework. It's as close as psychotherapy can come to nonduality and still be practically useful. It'd be great to get your perspective on it.

That's true... you are right. Nonduality, sad, and funny at the same time hehe...

There’s a certain practicality of skepticism and surety in one’s own worldview to ever progress on the path really as these are all normal, sensate and transient bundles of sensations pointing to something more primary than sensations which is the nature of what the holon of human vs. god vs. nonexistence vs. not thinking about a moonwalking bear vs. you reading this right now… we’ll forget everything I just said. It’s all gone. The aspect of fresh present ness is now ruined by the CONTINUITY of it in a formless mind state. You are so much desire and aversion that the friction created by your most fundamental investigation creates an illusion harder than any truth that does or doesn’t last in time as a defined thing. Haha. Wtf.

Ive gotten into Sri ramana maharshi and h9s teachings lately. nto I can quote the greates yogis and could explain it well with pretty words to others if I wanted to. Ive read the books. Blah blah it all does me no good really. How can reality not be a subject-object reality? I am thinking to much I know but I havent been able to think about anything else for a few days. What is my sense of self than? My sense of self doesnt fit in with this at all. And this sense of seld is undeniable even when deep in meditation... On the bright side, I am motivated to start a kriya yoga practice now which i have been procrastinating about for months.

I just truly discovered this notion of "wholeness", "unity" or "oneness" from non-duality. This idea is very frightening for me.. because it collapses my experience of reality. Awareness is all that there is.. every other thing is a mind-created concept So, Non-Duality is awareness itself. There is no separation of ego/thought or object/subject. Precisely because experience is all it Is.. and experience IS consciousness. There is no experiential state if there is no awareness, therefore "being" is all there truly is. This is without having this "I" that is assumed to be doing the experiencing. For some this mystical ego-transcendence is beautiful, because of the divine nature of it(How this pure state of awareness feels). And also because it is the ultimate truth. It is the true nature of nature. Duality is the greatest enemy to non-duality (Obviously). But get this, in order to reach non-duality you MUST purge the duality of the mind. So, having a firmly dualistic mind will not comprehend this in any way. Because non-duality is experienced, it is not known by a rational explanation. For the explanation of it is dualistic in nature, because language is dualistic and always implies separation. People engage in meditation to reach this perceptual change of awareness. My biggest fear is knowing that everything I have experienced up until now has been an illusion. A product of the mind's intrinsic tendency to dualism. Everything seems false, nothing is real. Truth is just one. Up until now my philosophical "truths"(Or any thought of that matter) have been dualistic. So, I reach some sort of existential crisis or nihilistic crisis in nature. Not only that, but all of my dreams, hopes, my personal realizations are far from truth. Any meaning becomes meaningless. It is not worth living for something at it is just a concept, a construct of the mind that separates me and true reality. In a crude way, it is all fake. I can't even think without separation so it troubles me more. I think the most terrifying thing is looking out into space and realising that that for the most part.. is reality - this yawning near-void filled with things that would kill you. Here we are.. little fragile Flatlanders hugging the increasingly disordered surface of one planet.. with the yawning hungry cosmos poised to take us all back.

what is non duality? and what is it's use in Sprituality? is non dual means good and evil are one? what non dual teaching conclude? and how non dual is non dual? we know we are one with the soul but we are different in sprit too. so which positions we take? dual or non dual?

You can only get close to it. When duality stops existing, experience cannot occur. Consider a dream of a beach. The very moment you see the beach you are localized at some point within it, and there is an appearance of duality. If duality ceased, it would be impossible for you to see the beach at all because seeing is an experience, and experience creates experiencer and duality. When there is no appearance of duality there is only everythingness which = nothingness as above. That nothingness is the same state entered during general anaesthetic. We don't come "out of" nothingness and "go back" into it (there is nowhere to come out of or go to), we are all currently as we speak in a state of something like general anaesthetic. That is the ground, the foundation. We are always nothing, but something appears, and when that something appears duality appears and then it is possible for there to be an experience of something, and thus an experiencer. Who is looking through your eyes, hearing through your ears? The Absolute ("God") is. Not you AND God. Just God. You are an illusion, there's no such thing as a "you". There is only God. Where are your dead loved ones? Your dead loved ones are looking through your eyes. They are God, and so are "you". What you call "you" is merely something God experiences, God tastes with your tongue, feels your emotions, smells with your nose. God experiences your brain and hence your memories and body and so on. All of these things are inside of God and made of God... How could God possibly create something outside of itself or with anything but itself? There is no space so nowhere else to place anything. There is nothing else in existence so it can only craft something with itself. There is nothing else at all.