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Nonduality is knowledge that occurs when you die. You can read about it all you want, but you'll never obtain this knowledge through concepts. Don't get me wrong, a certain amount of theory is extremely helpful. Enlightenment is being. Free from ego, free from psychological time, etc. Also your death. There are many levels to awakening and nondual understanding, so don't think of these as binary on/off light switches. Nonduality and enlightenment are two aspects (and not the only 2) of the same coin of consciousness. Your question about how many times is completely relative and dependent on factors way outside one's control. I'd posit that there's no fundamental difference between nonduality and enlightenment; they only point to your relative experience of the Absolute, which itself is not absolute... you are usually only conscious of one or two aspects of the absolute at a time, in varying levels or intensities. So just because you had a nondual, mystical experience but it wasn't full-blown enlightenment doesn't mean you were removed from enlightenment, or that these are somehow separate. All it means is that you weren't ready to become conscious of that aspect yet.

@tedens deeper nonduality than last time, this my usual line when people aso this question cuz there isnt any other way to describe it tbh lol. Also relaxed and more clean energy.

@winterknight sorry i dont believe that, enlightenment is a real thing, it shouldnt be something that one just convinces himself just bevause he awoke to "nonduality", ive been through the same stage u are now, u arent done in my opinion, and life will show u that whwlen it triggers your attachments and fears. Cux whats the point of all this enlightenment talk when your experience isnt truly liberated? Dont deny your karmic body, there is a process going on. Its what seperates the yogis from the buddhas in my opinion. And why the quotatiob marks on "emotional system" tryna show me how much things dont exist in ur experience? Lol Advaita nondualists including ramana had alot of insights but are also terribly escapist and incogruent to their experiences, it basically a game of just saying i dont exist so that u dont look at ur karmic bodies issues. Zen masters are nuanced enough to realize that this process going on. This process doesnt go againat nonduality at all really, but it does go against your enlightened identity however, tell me if im wrong, no?

@OneWithAll The no good or bad thoughts is an important insight, yet not what I am pointing to. Once nonduality is revealed in direct experience, the mind will try to contextualize it. The mind will try to make sense of it. The mind will start to believe that these new concepts are true. It seems that nonduality has been revealed to you and your mind has entered a deeper level. What I have found is that when my base consciousness level deepens to a new level, it is unstable at first. Then my mind wants to create grounding so it contextualizes the deeper direct experience. It tries to make sense of it. The problem with this, in terms of maturation and embodiment, is that the mind tries to take ownership and believes the concepts are true. It confuses the map for the territory. After a while, this deeper framework may get challenged and the mind has resistance. It says "No, nonduality is really like this. No, thoughts really mean this". At each deeper level, the attachments/identification gets more subtle, nuanced and sneaky. It's easy to see the attachments one had when they were at a more surface level. It is much more difficult to see attachments at one's current level. The mind needs to go through the whole rigamaroll again: become humble, open and willing.

@OneWithAll Be aware that the mind tends to contextualize nonduality.

saying i am god/i dont exist over and over or getting in your feelings from nondual experiences wont get you enlightened, realize that the part of you that likes saying it/feeling it is doing so because you subconciously want to escape, which is ultimately delusional. instead of trying to force yourself to enlightenment which will only backfire, be patient with the process you're in. reflect ,question and let go of every emotion when its due, but dont numb yourself to those emotions, you dont truly let go that way, and the mind can frame numbness as "letting go" as well. the mind can use spiritual feelings/experiences in the most trickiest ways, to keep you more stuck in mind, let go of mysticism, true enlightenment will happen when it happens, it wont need egoic reaffirmation. I feel like many here and outside claim to be enlightened when they really arent, they just have an "enlightened" identity because they awoke to nonduality i say this because i went through the same thing, which is just the start, many fail to see or give up on the process thats releasing attachments/fear from their system. actions speak louder than words, i would like to see what happens if these "enlightened" people were to have a big ass pitbull chasing them, prob wont be saying i dont exist now would ya, lol. runnn bitchh runnnnnnnnnnn, as shorty would say from scary movie 3 lol, im only joking ofc i dont actually would want to see them getting chased but just trying to show my point. im not fully enlightened ofc, but i have been in "nonduality" for a long while and discovered that this is the case, many others did too ofc and leo aswell. you could be in a deep"nondual"state sure, but are you truly fully enlightened? i put quotation marks on nonduality because you arent trully nondual until your consciousness' energetic system harmonizes with the awakening, your ego has to truly die, not just to reaffirm its own spiritual attachments such as non existence or godhood.

@Epsilon_The_Imperial people take different practices to uncontract and stabilize nonduality more, but ultimately the practices would be dropped aswell, insights can be thought of as practices or spiritual experiences too, but ultimately they all drop at full enlightenment. The best way is to reflect on yourself, buddha called it mindfulness meditation, being mindful and reflective of the ways your ego traps you, through urges and attachments which ultimately come from fear, which we all know is non existent in a true nondual state (full enlightenment), just observe and let go, you will also find out that this process will give you many more insights and depth of life, though it isnt important to cling ot them, maybe as a raft of sorts until full enlightenment. But ultimately everything jas to be dropped at full enlightenment, its just that when ur still in the early stages of awakening, you cant really drop everything just yet or youll go crazy, unless u choose the ascetic path, so using concepts such as compassion or other spiritual concepts can aid your path so that u have a more smoother ride to enlightenment. Once youve been in nonduality for a while, youll see these nuances of the path more and more. This is why the buddha emphasized the 8 noble path, but said at a certain point even that will be dropped.

@Epsilon_The_Imperial spot on mate, but just one thing though, you cannot deny that once you awoke to nonduality that your system is going through shifts that will uncontract your experience so that it will fully embody nonduality, because you arent truly nondual if you still experience fear yes? i understand that ultimately everything is one and the universe is always nondual,but as a being, you experience duality, because god contracted itself so that variety of experience arises, through fear mechanisms which create the different urges that humans have. awakening to nonduality is only the beginning, after a few years you will see what i mean by this process, your life experience will harmonize slowly but surely into full nonduality, to which you have awakened to truth, but not the full embodimient of it. but dont attach to experiences most important thing, the full thing cannot be percieved until the ego truly dies. holding on to concepts such as the ego doesnt exist and not being congruent to your experience will just backfire on you and isnt conductive to the full process of awakening. I suggest you read some of shunryu suzuki's work, he is a zen master which i highly recommend tbh.

if i were to ask to imagine a dangerous scenario where you are in it, will you experience fear? even if its just a subtle fear in your emotional system, dont you think if that was the case, then you arent actually enlightened? not saying this to demean your spiritual progress but i just notice some people are quick to call themselves enlightened, just because the awoke to nonduality, yet dismiss the process thats going on in their energetic system. you could be in a deep nondual state for sure, but have you really fully embodied nonduality? @winterknight and please dont mistake me questioning you about your enlightenment as ill intention, its just that i had a time where i thought i was enlightened too, but life gave me a reality check of the process thats occuring in its saguna aspect, we have awoken to nirguna but has saguna harmonized with its nirguna aspect fully yet? your limbic system can be the judge of that. your feedback would be appreciated my friend.

@Epsilon_The_Imperial i dont think anyone really knows what full enlightenment is, but they just walk the path towards it. i think enlightenment is a process thats occuring in your limbic system after awakening to nonduality, that slowly going through your egoic paradigms and its underlying fear mechanisms to see through it/have perspective over it and ultimately let go so that full uncontraction (release of attachments) occurs and from that point, you can truly say you have embodied god. before that is just states of nonduality getting deeper and clearer but still contracted. and ty <3

thats nice man that you had nondual realizations and awakening, it can be pretty cool at the start of it, but just remember that there is a process in you thats occuring. dont be quick to fall into the egos desire to keep calling itself god, consciousness or whatever, because u awoke to insights/nonduality but not fully enlightened, i dont think anyone in this forum is really,including me. but its a slow process ofreflecting/letting go your fear mechanisms thus letting more of life in you. good luck man <3

Nonduality for Idiots 1+1= 2 Duality 2+1= 3 Nonduality Working disembodied out of only the emotional and intellectual centers perpetuates dualistic thinking. 'Being stuck in our head'. By grounding, thru sensation into the Physical body we can upgrade our system from an egoic operating system to a nondual operating system. In purifying the emotional center one begins to see with "the eye of the heart", as it's called when it begins to be used as an organ for spiritual perception. Our intuitive capacities begin to awaken. Negativity that is suppressed in the subconscious messes up our metaphysical transmitter. Until I clean a lot of the garbage out of the basement I'm going to keep on having flies. It can't be peaceful and quiet inside if there are thought/flies buzzing around everywhere. Cynthia Bourgeault gets credit for the metaphors.

This brings to mind what might be a big difference in perspective. I was meditating for around 20 years before the permanent change / oneness. I had never heard of it (enlightenment), never heard the word “nonduality” prior. I found this forum from googling the experience, trying to see if other people experienced it. Now it seems people are reading about this stuff on the forum and other places and more ‘working towards it’, than simply meditating for the daily benefits. So the mindset is very differenct than mine was, in the sense I actually didnt have an idea meditation was accumulative, and headed to anything “bigger”. There’s pro’s and con’s either way I guess, but it is a weird difference. After the oneness breakthrough, and then learning a lot from other people on the forum, I tried psychedelics. Having experienced what I have at this point, I can’t imagine why anyone wouldn’t just take psychedelics and do the daily practices, while focusing on living the best life they can. I’m not sure though, even if someone heard plenty about nonduality - when it is realized, or “happens” to you - it’s still probably like you never even heard of it.

Sort your life out, that seems productive and something you clearly want to do. Start eating healthy and exercising in some form as a start. Build your base up, then when you come back down from the glimpses of nonduality you'll love where you're at even more.

Imo, astral stuff tends to be a huge waste of time, other than perhaps for opening up your mind. I used to mess with astral stuff a lot after I first hit nonduality, entities, gods, what-have-you, and was rather enticed by how alien it was. Things seemed cool, and I thought I was doing highly conscious thing simply because it was out of the realm of "ordinary" experience. I'd later realize that instead of getting caught up in the bizarreness, real spiritual work tends to be quite straight-forward, and is all about self-purification and constant self-reflection. Tapping into some subtle energies is not something I see as relevant to true growth. It's just a subtler level of mind. If anything helped me grow, it was probably the really bad experiences, like hell realms and demons, since those helped me realize I was lying to myself when I thought I had largely conquered fear and suffering. Nevertheless, the real lesson for me was to not get seduced by fanciful aspects of spirituality and become more grounded in self-purification and depth. If you're still interested nevertheless, then I'd at least recommend checking out David R. Hawkins on YouTube. He was pretty experienced with that kind of stuff and knew well of its limitations. I agree with a lot of his conclusions and views on it.

So does that mean once I become fluent in bird chirping I won’t be able to convey nonduality to my bird friends? ? ?

@Serotoninluv You will never be able to convey nonduality to someone. (I trust you’re laughing)

Get a glimpse of nonduality, suddenly we think we are enlightened, or think we know the truth, but in reality we dont, we just have egoic impressions of it, ultimately no one really knows, they only know the path, they may use perceptual concepts of allness, or nothingness, but ultimately if you "experience nonduality" you are lying to yourself in my opinion. the buddha also mentioned that all these are still perceptual realities from our egos, no matter how mystical or "nonexistent" your experience may be, until your actual system is cleared of its fear mechanisms which build the ego, and the concepts that comfort or should i say numb your issues which you are not reflecting, until your system is cleared of mechanisms which make your experience dual, you arent in enlightenment at all, you just got an energetic opening/glimpse. . look at any dude here who uses realizations as egoic masturbation, anyone who dealt with self esteem issues and such can see through the wowness and power trip of these types of experiences and this can be subtle perceptions in the subconcious aswell. because the people who grew out of it they know it ultimately stems from insecurities not yet dealt with, just being real. but as you go through more of life, you get triggered of your issues, and you grow, you shed, and you let go, and each egoic paradigm thats broken down, more and more depth of reality is realized, because you're going through a process of reflection and understanding, being more and more inclusive (love, word can have baggage though) and open to reality, yet also unclinged and indifferent, not numbed. my point being, forget about nondual experiences, use the experiences as guides for your path, but even that attachment to those guides will be dropped too at a certain point. Leo is fully right when he says that this is a process, no doubt about it.

@OrpheusNovum You are REALLY lost in concepts. Everything you said above is a conceptual fantasy that your mind constructed. Time, space, physics, objectivity, depression, body, mind, inner, outer, other people, nihilism, solipsism, Aristotle, Nietzsche, ancient Greece -- are all mental fabrications. If you think Actualized.org is "nihilistic" or "solipsistic" you are really not understanding nonduality, spirituality, or consciousness yet. Neither focusing on the mind or the body is the real solution. What is necessary is to self-reflect and become more conscious. Consciousness is neither inner nor outer, neither mind or body. What you call "the body" is really just another aspect of your mind. And the entire domain of mind is unreal anyways. More practically-speaking, if you're new to this work (and it's obvious you are given what you wrote), nothing I say is against the body per se. If you are stuck in depression and you want to use a body-based approach for breaking out, like Hatha yoga, gym, cleaning up your diet, going out to nightclubs with your friends, starting a business, going mountain-climbing, etc. -- that can be a useful approach. But in the end it will not be a root solution to depression because depression is deeply rooted in your metaphysical disconnection from consciousness & being. No amount of body work will solve that. No amount of success will solve that. For that, you must deeply investigate the inner workings of your own mind and your entire identity. The deepest work you can do it is done in solitude sitting on a cushion. But this is advanced work. Most people are not yet ready to do that. They need a lot of external actions first. And that's okay. I have nothing against taking external action. I spent many years taking external actions. But nowadays I'm at the point in my own development where I mostly care about internal actions. Pretty much all of your external actions are driven by ego, and this is the root problem. You are not going to solve that problem through more external action. But this is not to say external actions are somehow bad. In practice most people need to take a lot of external action when getting started with personal development. Not only is objectivity not necessary, it is impossible! There is no such thing! You made it up.

It's easy to dismiss drugs like psychedelics as fake hallucinatory experiences but the problem is your default state of being is no different. It's just most of life is configured in such a way where they have similarity in hallucinations to some degree. All experiences are legitimate and authentic. To determine what is and isn't useful for digging to see a more holistic outlook of reality requires contemplation and integration. Ego death taught me separation is a mental construction. But I didn't realize this until I found the concept of nonduality contemplated it and saw the link.

Can be . If you are still dreaming , believing in nonduality .

General mind's visualitazion for 'I' should be that the duality is kinda gates for nonduality. See: https://www.actualized.org/articles/reality-is-a-strange-loop If it's done... then 'I' / You can realize that the 'I' / mind will never be more clever than it can be by exploiting duality only. Then spiritual work is required for further progress. That's why religions exist.

The realization of nonduality is an extremely radical shift. Really, your old life is gone. You are dead at this point, so the question of "function" (survival) is moot. There is nothing left to survive. The game of life is over. You have awoken from survival. Consider, the only reason you worry about survival issues is because you hold the belief that you are alive. What would happen if that belief was surrendered? What would happen if you surrendered all control over your life such that there was zero effort or struggle? What would happen if you became God? Would worry about anything? Nonduality is not a paradigm. It is Absolute.

Thank you for the feedback. From reading your posts lately, You also seem to be deepening in your understanding and you have a good use of putting matters of the mind and nonduality into your own language.

Everybody means well,,, Judgement divides. Forgiveness unites. My metaphor for forgiveness- A nondual reset button. We exist in nonduality anyhow. It just has to be realized.