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All of these ideas are within absolute infinity. Within enlightenment. None of it is "IT" and all of it is "IT". We can't pull out anything from everything. One trap I see at intermediate / advanced stages is believing the spiritual concepts are true. Buddhism, nonduality, advaita, Ramana Maharshi, Shamanism - all of it. People can get so immersed and deep into one area and not recognize that they have not transcended higher. They are unaware that there is a higher level. It happens at all stages of development. I see it with myself, buddhist, advaita masters, in this thread etc. . . The higher you go, the more subtle it gets. That's why psychedelics are so powerful at the higher consciousness stages.

Use these terms in Google search, you will find related sites: spiritual enlightenment, spiritual awakening, self -realization, nonduality

@How to be wise Was thinking of you today...wondering if this is a helpful line of logic...surely you’re aware everyone has been talking about God for as long as there have been people on earth, but no one has evidence, not a single photo, etc. Most everyone has some fear of death, but of course, also, not one person has any evidence, nothing. The experience of love is pretty common, but no one has a picture of it, or evidence of where it comes from, etc. Do you see, or does it at least make sense from a logical standpoint, that death, God, Love, and The Truth are all the same thing? In the sense, nonduality (You), that it is the infinite you, literally playing, and this person/experience is you (infinite) limiting yourself to have this appearingly finite (person/earth/life story) experience? Is that helpful at all (with the fear of “death”)? @Solace Exactly ??❤️ @Jack River Same thing bruh.??

A lot of activity from me tonight, but I may have just hit on something. I see validity in what I'm saying and also ways it could be a misunderstanding, so bear with me. Looking forward to replies. Attachment is, as I have seen it, generally viewed as this big bad boy in experience. Desires, they should come and go, they hurt or they don't. No matter, we have an internal river of tranquility that stems from Being and Self. We should remain detached. Attachment to something else only exists if there is some separate thing to be attached to. "Ourselves" in nonduality is all. I am all. My true self is all. My ego is an instantiation of a deeper Self. All is an experience of the Self that I am living. Many things are arbitrary (my ego just went "ugh dude wtf that hurts" lol), but ultimately it is all Self that is experience. There is nothing but Self, me / you / my homework is all Self in the nondual sense of the word. This is how I understand it all currently. How, then, is there anything to be attached to? And from where does the command come to detach one's Self? If I am "attached" to another experience or ego, would I not just be attached to part of Self, and therefore drawing on Self for happiness, as is the goal? Of course, I may be attached to an experience in a way that is acutely unhealthy for this biology (e.g. fighting all the time with a friend, struggling with addiction, etc) or toxic to my ego... but basically, why do some people demonize attachement when it seems to be a part of experiencing the Self? I could see possible explanations being that the goal is to detach ego from pure, unconceptualized experience rather than what I just said, or maybe that detachment is about having absolutely no need for any other parts of Self other than your own instantiation of it (which I still wouldn't understand at that point).

@gilded_honour Sorry I don't know the answer to your question but this reminded me of one time when I tried to talk about nonduality with my dad and he just blanked out. I mean he fell asleep in like 15sec and started snoring :D:D:D funny how for some people's mind is resisting so much that even if you utter anything close to truth it will shut off The answer to your question is probably going to be some metaphysical, spiritual, celestial dimensionless type of answer I heard that just by getting exposed to surtain things like a guru or sacred places can deside that you'll get awakened in next life. So there are a lot of things, like a million things that influence this thing. What is the most mind boggling thing to me is how some sages can reincarnate into the next life being fully confident that they'll get enlighten. Like they fix something inside to make that happen. As I said... This is some meta spiritual stuff

Ah, I think I'm on this same page. Just confused as to why anyone claims to know anything, then, even with respect to enlightenment? Just a note: She does seem largely dualistic and parts of Atlas Shrugged make it clear she didn't really understand philosophies like Advaita Vedanta and erroneously assumed that they are 100% illogical and baseless. You may have read some of her nonfiction - so have I. However, I am not as quick to completely debase her, especially in terms of how to create an economy and behaivoral expectations of individuals (or distinct experiences of the one Self, in terms of nonduality). Basically, her systems thinking is interesting to me. I should note that I am not supporting the unhinged capitalism so many people (incorrectly) think Rand raves about. It would be interesting to talk to you and others who so strongly rebuke her about the actual plots of her novels and their implications, bad and good. Also, Rand died of heart failure. Not suicide. So.... weird that Osho claimed suicide.

a slightly different metaphysics than idealism, Spinoza proposed that there was a singular substance which exhibited both the qualities of consciousness and the qualities of matter. It's called neutral monism, and seems to me to be another way of philosophically interpreting the experience of nonduality, besides idealism.

That is the core lesson of mysticism: reality is irreducibly mystical. You cannot know the Absolute because knowledge is a 2nd order process. Being is prior to knowing. You can BE the Absolute rather than knowing it. Or you can know that it is unknowable. Which is what Osho is describing. Nonduality means that knowing must collapse into being. Which is why the ultimate Truth cannot be spoke, thought, or symbolized. All symbols are too indirect. You must directly become the being of which all symbols are made. Language and thought must be entirely transcended. The Truth is beyond thought, imagination, or even your mind. Ayn Rand was of course an arrogant, egoistical, dualistic, stage Orange fool. The hallmark of the ego-mind is that it thinks it can know everything through linear reason. And in this it is deluded beyond hope.

Anyone have suggestions for contemplative meditation questions? Things that are both in support of nonduality and things that seem threatening to it (the latter of which I don't expect any answers to haha). Thinking stuff along the lines of "What is a thought?" "What is your self?" Thanks in advance

No self, not Self / nonduality (a guess). Some remarkable afterglows. Always loved him. Would love to talk with him for a bit.

You'd be surprised who you can meet. I met a guy in a dragon ball z FB fan group that had ideas I only learned when I got into nonduality. Hes only heard of nonduality when I mentioned it but a lot of his ideas are getting close to those levels of contemplation. Amazing what you can achieve on your 'own'

^^ this I have similar problem too. Here all the spiritual ppl are either ppl into yoga (most havent heard about nonduality) or the haru krishna/some indian devotee ppl. Those are the worst since they wont even allow discussion and only see their word as the Truth. I wonder if it would be a good idea to attempt to make nondual groups to attract people

@Aaron p Google nonduality, nonduality coaches, etc.

@Aaron p Not sure about Ireland but there are tons of nondual groups in London I'm sure. What you're looking for is nonduality. Or maybe some kind of meditative yoga center. Not Hatha yoga but serious Indian meditative yoga like Kundalini yoga, Kriya yoga, etc. In Vegas we have a pretty good Indian yoga center. But that will vary a lot city to city. Usually you have to travel to find good nondual teachers. Isn't Rupert Spira in the UK? That might be your best bet. I've traveled to far away places to seek out the best teachers. It is worth it. In the old days folks would fly to India. Also Sadhguru has yoga initiations in London I'm sure. Maybe even Ireland.

That's a good question. I imagine my talks will be in the vein of Actualized.org videos. With some new helpful in-person group exercises which would be focused on raising general consciousness & self awareness. This would be useful for all people across the board, basically delving you into consciousness work. I don't think we'd directly work on life purpose, but consciousness work will help with all your goals, from career to relationships to spirituality. We would probably be exploring topics like emotional mastery, fear, judgment, confidence, self-esteem, self-deception, spirituality, meditation techniques, body awareness, nonduality, shadow work, motivation, getting unstuck, etc.

You cannot invalidate Truth. That's the trick! Lol Nothing the materialist can do will undermined nonduality. In fact, the entire universe could explode tomorrow and nonduality would still hold. That's the value of nonduality. It's FOREVER! If it could be undermined by some silly materialist's scientific discovery it wouldn't be worth talking about. You cannot apply relativistic standards of falsification to the Absolute! You can discover the Absolute for yourself. But you cannot ever falsify it. Because it is true, absolutely.

More nonduality elitists flocking there feathers. Yes I get it, in your “world” cancer doesn’t exist, it’s all labels and illusions. People starving to death, it’s all labels and illusions and distortions of reality. Labels don’t mean anything. We can all blabber like infants cause it doesn’t matter. If you’re just going to regurgitate non duality theory just to explain everything as lazily and sloppily as you are, please don’t contribute. I’m not asking lazily for someone to contemplate for me. If a child on the street here’s the term PTSD, there’s nothing wrong with that child asking “hey does PTSD mean? Does it mean the same thing as depression?” It does help to have someone at least give you some sort of description of what it is that’s being spoken.

However you describe "Emotional Mastery", it is *within* everything. It is within "enlightenment". Could "Emotional Mastery" lead to this awakening? Sure, it could be one of many inputs that contributes to the awakening. It could also be a distraction to the awakening. In general, I've found that relaxing the personality allows for a mind in which the awakening process can flourish. I've found activities such as meditation, yoga and listening to nonduality teachers help to relax my personality. In contrast, attachments/identification to ideas, worries, analyzing, conceptualizing etc. stimulate my personality and is a distraction to the awakening process. The sneaky part here is that "spiritual concepts" can seem so "good", so "healthy" and it's easy to believe in them - which is a distraction. To me, "Emotional Mastery" has a control feature to it that I would consider a trap. Who is doing the "Mastering"? Well, probably a fragment of the self. I suppose it could lead to progress for self improvement or early stages of awakening. Yet, at intermediate and advanced stages, I would consider it more of a hindrance. One reaches a stage in which it becomes about self dissolution, not self mastery.

@kieranperez I feel exactly the same way. I still have some remnants of Orange in me. I still struggle to be open minded about unscientific things, and find it hard to get out of a competitive mentality. Overall though, Ive been having some decent progress. For me, the main thing Ive been wanting to tackle is my vehemency with materialism, I need to let go of it, and I will, slowly but surely. When it comes to making friends, I think that as long as youre open minded and youre able to communicate to them that you are open to the ideas that come along with spirituality, nonduality, and so on, they will be willing to hang out with you, share, and raise your vibration along with them. I, for instance, probably 80% Green 20% Orange, have two close people that are at least 100% Green, if not 50% Yellow and 50% Green.

Sounds like my situation. As for me, quite many shifts have happened in a short amount of time. When I thought I was learning from nonduality, I was not. And now I've gathered so much information from just two goddamn books. It feels so obvious how things should be in my experience and still I'm somewhere in the intermediate space. I don't care much about that ego's life and that makes me challenge almost every aspect there is to care about. Life seems to have been nonsensical service for some illusory self and its fleeting needs, but now it seems nonsensical whatsoever. There is not so much to do in life and similar kind of things continue day after day. I feel like I'm not so inspired of that but somehow consciousness is what it is, and everything satisfies it because it IS everything. But I can't see myself as consciousness get to that. It just seems so vain, in a neutral kind of way. Maybe I've stumbled on my intellect this time.

This is a really good example of how models suck at representing reality. Seems to be a double edged sword, based on the context, the individual and however its ripple effects dance around in the universe. Let's not paint schizophrenia as if it is a good disorder for everyone - I am sure it can be embraced by certain individuals - but the overall effect on people seems to be of pain on people. Statistically higher suicide rates, high rates of smoking, etc. That said, I believe there are just shades of schizophrenia like there are shades of everything else - everything is blurry anyway. Three of my siblings have had schizophrenia and I've always intuited that there was a dream-like quality to the world. Perhaps a mild form of schizophrenia(ish) jumpstarted my inquiry into nonduality. I believe there is a connection. Some excellent systems thinking and deep insights about conciousness could potentially be used to tackle this issue (aka we need turquoise people, according to your model).

I was so concentrating on the benefits of no self/nonduality, that I hadn't really considered what the major downsides could be. Is it possible for my family to think I've snapped and gone fully mental, and having me committed for help. When really I'm just now nonduel and no longer fit into the box if what is considered normality. My family has dealt with schizophrenia, when I beloved childhood friend ended up shooting himself when the schizophrenia got too severe for him. So it's not outside the realm of possibility. I could be viewed as 'lost it' and get committed. And once in the system, it's hard to get out, unless you can get back to acting like you're within the box of what's considered normality. Why am I trying to do this again? Hahaha.

For me, when experience stops being projected on top of “each moment” that is what this “nonduality” points too.

There is value in talking about it so as to point out all the traps, explain the techniques, clear up egoic confusion, and inspire/motivate people into action. But philosophizing, speculating, or debating about nonduality is counter-productive.

I feel ya. To me it’s worth talking about duality, self, thought as process/movement, as thought/self and thoughts-feelings/emotions and how they are related to form certain experiences. But to talk about enlightenment/nonduality does serve the self/ego and is to work within the narrrow structure/pattern of thought/self/duality.