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@Jed Vassallo "Only when you wake from the dream can you understand that it was all meaningless, just an experience you dreamt up to experience." "Existence is both meaningless and infinitely meaningful. There is no meaning to nothingness, yet there is meaning because you God created it. " So if it is both meaningless and infinitely meaningful, why does awakening only bring about the understanding of the meaninglessness of life? Don't we already find life meaningless or meaningful in our non-awakened states? Or to put it another way, isn't meaning just another mental construct?

An awakening is waking up from the dream to the truth of your existence, to infinity. Remembering. Then you come back to the dream, your body, your point of view. You won't have the present moment experience of infinity, but will have the knowledge of it. Existence is both meaningless and infinitely meaningful. There is no meaning to nothingness, yet there is meaning because you God created it.

The answer to all this is you need to awaken to find out for yourself. Nothing anyone says is going to be a satisfying answer, as everyone is part of the illusion that you (God) are creating. So you are essentially asking a character in your dream why you are dreaming the dream you are in why the dream is the way it is. See how that can't work. Only when you wake from the dream can you understand that it was all meaningless, just an experience you dreamt up to experience. Nothingness imaging somethingness. So if you want answers, do the work to awaken from the dream (the how has been documented at great length on this site). Then you can go about the rest of your dream (life) knowing why it is the way it is, and can sit back and enjoy the dream for what it is.

It's undeniable that the body does "stuff" outside our conscious awareness. Our blood pumps, food digests, and myriad other mechanistic things churn around. Occasionally that "stuff" is brought to our attention: we feel lethargic, we feel hungry, we have a heart attack. But what about the more intangible things: things like our learning and memories and ideas and emotions? Do they have a life outside of our conscious awareness? Most people would say "yes". Most people call it the subconscious. It's an interesting term: sub-conscious. Sub comes from Latin and it means below or under. It metaphorically betrays itself; the metaphor being that consciousness is like the clear air above a lake and the subconscious is the murky water of underneath it. And, occasionally stuff pokes up above the waterline to delight or scare us. There's also a mechanistic assumption that somehow the machine is churning away somewhere in the murk. I'd argue it's nothing like that at all (but see my previous post for a contradictory view!). Unlike bodies and the world "out there", thoughts and feelings have no permanent form. They are whispy and etherial. Because of this they don't have permanent existence, there's a kind of nothingness quality which permeates them. All machines operate on a kind of algebra or symbolic manipulation. For a four stroke engine, this is shiny steel and liquid gasoline: the steel has a certain shape and configuration, the gasoline has certain attributes and explosive tendencies. For a body the machine is chemistry and physics: different elements each having their own chemical and physical properties are configured in specific interlocking patterns in a vast network. In theory if you can specify a machine in enough detail you can replicate its workings. What sort of machine would work on thoughts and emotions? The obvious one would be language, with all its symbolism and rules and logic. But immediately there is a problem with this idea. Unlike a four stroke engine, the engine of language is not made of thoughts and emotions, but words and sounds. Language is more of an intemediary than the actual thing itself. Thoughts are converted to language are converted to thoughts. Nonetheless, is it possible that the machine of language is churning away and subconsciously processing our thoughts and emotions? I'd say not. The main evidence against it is that you can't get your subconscious to supply you with tomorrow's essay on "Consciousness" whilst you do other things. In other words producing language always involves conscious exertion. The thoughts and ideas come on a whim and are converted there and then into language - the same being true in reverse. There is no language machine under the waterline, it's all above the waterline. Could there be any other sort of machine which sorts and processes thoughts and emotions out of sight of consciousness? For this to happen thoughts and emotions would have to be stored somewhere so that they could be held for processing. But how do you store a thing which is ephemeral or highly abstract like love? If you talk to a materialist then both the machine and the storage mechanism is the human brain and more specifically neurons. And this effectively reduces it to chemistry and physics. But this has precisely the same problem as the language machine idea does: at best the brain is an intermediary for mind. Somehow the brain must have to convert electrical signals and activation potentials into such intangible things as the thought of a swooping bird (and possibly do it in reverse). A four stroke engine is just the same chemistry and physics (mostly carbon): can it process a basic kind of thought? It seems extremely unlikely. Again as with the language idea, is it possible to ask subconscious to churn away and reproduce a kind of mental play for you, ready for you to hit "play" and consciously re-enact it? All whilst you're doing other things? No, it seems not. Even dreams are conscious activities. It's all above the waterline. There is no subconscious, give up the idea. All the processing and machinations of the mind happen in consciousness. Yes, consciousness is that powerful.

I can understand through my own awakening what you mean, there's just a different language expressed on subtleties. Like Yes the moment of you happening (feelings, thoughts, sensations) is what you are, and your the infinite interpretations, infinite view points, infinite births and deaths, the labeling, the naming, everything!!! theres nothing thats not "You", the falling away of distinctions and the distinctions, which is just you. The beautiful smell or breaking out in hives reaction to smelling a rose, the stinky or pleasant odor of baby shit, the perspective of no-mind, the happening of void/nothingness, the falling away of all distinctions, the forgetting of that and the feeling of being human and the infinite ways that can feel.

I dont refer to say as “If animal bites my leg”. When animal bites the leg, i am the pain. There is no feeling trough the body, because there is no body. Whatever happens in the moment thats what you are (feelings, thoughts, sensations vs). When all happening is you, distinctions of experiences collapses, because all you. So when you become the moment nothing happens, it is just you. You are happening. But, ironically you are nothing thats why every happening is you as nothing. Thats why nothing is happening (simultaneously 2 meaning). Thats why big bang never happened , it so called happened because of the thoughts, naming and labeling. Lol ? Unbelievable. This is the void or before the big bang, that nothingness, now.

I wouldn't be so sure they are the same. Sure in the Totality of ALL, everything is the same, but the experience of each of those, its very very different, and thats part of the fun and beauty of those and all experiences. "on-duality - surrender - enlightenment - presence - being - god - nothingness - love - no-self - zen - tao - no-mind" Sure there is and will be similarity and overlap, but some can be so radically different, you will question deeply in your soul if you were mistaken about what you thought you knew or if you were deluding yourself, or just what the fuck.... and then again perhaps not

is there any way to experience non-duality state ? without psychedelics? how can I do this ? is all those terms are the same or there is a difference ? non-duality - surrender - enlightenment - presence - being - god - nothingness - love - no-self - zen - tao - no-mind

@Samuel Garcia moving on to the next step.. The definition of a "thing" is infinity. Thing =infinity. Infinite means non-finite=non definitive=unknown =no thing. Meaning that It's undefined. You can't define a thing at a fundamental level. I don't mean giving superficial labels.. I mean going to the existential core of what things are.. What is this present moment that you call reality? Obviously it is a "thing" right? But what Is a thing? You can't actually "say" what that is because all words are defined in terms of each other and they give you circular definitions that don't explain anything. Why is there something? Because there is awareness of something.. And why there is awareness of something? Because there is something!! You see the circulation. You already assume that there is something before actually investigating the question. And when you investigate it enough you will see the circulation . The paradox.. The self-reference proplem. You can't prove all the premises of a logical structure from within that logical structure.. You have to go meta at some point. For example how do you know that you are aware? You actually cannot prove to yourself that you are aware because that will lead to self - reference proplem and infinite regression.. "I'm aware that I'm aware and I'm aware that I'm aware that I'm aware and I'm aware that I'm aware that I'm aware that I'm aware... To infinity". It's not something that can be proved rationally that you are aware.. It's a first hand experience and not a matter of proof. Why is reality nothing? First of all it's not nothing as in zero or blankness and Leo said that clearly in the video. Nothingness is the quality of emptiness.. All these forms that you see around you are inherently empty.. Always changing and morphing and shifting.. There is no fixed reality.. It's just a Flux. Reality is a shape shifter not a static thing.. And that's why it is not a "thing" but rather a No-thing constantly shifting from one "thing" to another "thing". Look at this GIF.. Notice that that's not a "thing".. You can't give it any identity.. You can't say what that thing is.. And that's like all of reality.. It's nothing because you can't say what that thing is or give it any fixed identity because it has none.

Absolute Love is formless. It's Nothingness. So long as you are experiencing existence as a limited form, you have to be involved in the survival game. Now you can survive consciously or unconsciously. But, it doesn't matter whether you choose conscious or unconscious survival, it always comes at a cost.

@Someone here @Someone here This is not about concepts. Deep sleep is an experience we all have. The waking state is the experience we are having now. I am saying there is a clear distinction of the nothingness of deep sleep and the something of the experience of waking life, as we look at this screen. Nothing and something is not the same in this instance. I'm thinking it is better think of ''finite'' and infinite'' rather than something and nothing. Nothing it better attributed to infinity because it nothing is undefined. If infinite has any ''something'' to it as some religions define God, it would not be God, the absolute. To know the world, we have to overlook the infinity/nothing that is here. But that infinity is absolute, and always remains. Self inquiry is a practice which points to the absolute.

100 ➗100 = 1 100 ➗10 = 10 100 ➗ 1 = 100 100 ➗0.1 = 1000 100 ➗0 = Infinity 100 ➗Infinity = 0 Infinity = 0 Nothingness = Everythingness

Nothingness might be real but we can never prove it.

@Nak Khid It's like you're trying to be dense on purpose. The reason you don't get it is because your mind is closed and you are attached to your own position. Drop it and have a genuine desire to understand what was said. Stop arguing. You are clueless about this stuff. Any idea you have of Nothingness is wrong.

Why Is There Something Rather Than Nothing? Leo Gura Jul 19, 2020 _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________ However in the video Leo says: " Everything is Nothing" and " there is no distinction between something and nothing " But the title does not say this. The title says that nothing exist only something exists. So where is the evidence that nothing exists other than "nothing" being an abstract dualistic concept but not a real thing? The title of the video is not " There is no Distinction Between Something and Nothing " Similarly Leo has said there is only Love and that hate doesn't exist and he justifies that because assuming nonduality is true then if we add hate to Love it's two things not one. ____________________________________________ So we return to the original title Why Is There Something Rather Than Nothing? Prove that that is not true. That "nothing" doesn't exist. It's a mental construct. What about the idea Nothing is all there is , everything is an illusion? It doesn't matter, an illusion is not nothing. What about the statement alone Nothing is all there is ? That doesn't work because we experience different things. We only experience things, thoughts etc You go into a pitch black dark room insulated from sound yet you can sense your feet standing there, or your own breathing , thoughts memory etc. Just being alive you are experiencing and that is not nothing. Ok what about statements like Infinity is Zero Up is Down Hate is Love Everything is Nothing I am you You are Me If you take two words like this that are considers opposites and you put the word "is" or "am" in between. The are interesting because they doesn't make sense. They seem clever , paradoxical and your brain tries to make sense of them but it keeps looping an it can't In the video the idea is raise why does the universe have various things in it ? Wouldn't it be simpler and more elegant to have nothing? Hypothetically yes but that would be extremely boring. So we return to the original title Why Is There Something Rather Than Nothing? Why wouldn't only something exist? Where is the proof that nothing exists? See, the intuition gets it right the first time. There is only something Then the mind comes in, intellectualizes and imagines that nothing also exists That's the minds illusion, nothingness. It's elegant in it's simplicity. However reality is not elegant in that way. Sometimes we find peace in simplicity. But that is because our minds can be overwhelmed if attempting to be aware of a multitude of things at once. To focus on on one sometimes is a needed relief from the whole universe Meditation is an artificial thing, But it is useful to use to step out of distracting, repetitive chatter We need to get away from "it all" sometimes ______________________________________________________________________ https://www.huffpost.com/entry/emptiness-most-misunderstood-word-in-buddhism_b_2769189 Emptiness: The Most Misunderstood Word in Buddhism “Emptiness” is a central teaching of all Buddhism, but its true meaning is often misunderstood. If we are ever to embrace Buddhism properly into the West, we need to be clear about emptiness, since a wrong understanding of its meaning can be confusing, even harmful. The third century Indian Buddhist master Nagarjuna taught, “Emptiness wrongly grasped is like picking up a poisonous snake by the wrong end.” In other words, we will be bitten! Emptiness is not complete nothingness; it doesn’t mean that nothing exists at all. This would be a nihilistic view contrary to common sense. What it does mean is that things do not exist the way our grasping self supposes they do. In his book on the Heart Sutra the Dalai Lama calls emptiness “the true nature of things and events,” but in the same passage he warns us “to avoid the misapprehension that emptiness is an absolute reality or an independent truth.” In other words, emptiness is not some kind of heaven or separate realm apart from this world and its woes. The Heart Sutra says, “all phenomena in their own-being are empty.” It doesn’t say “all phenomena are empty.” This distinction is vital. “Own-being” means separate independent existence. The passage means that nothing we see or hear (or are) stands alone; everything is a tentative expression of one seamless, ever-changing landscape. So though no individual person or thing has any permanent, fixed identity, everything taken together is what Thich Nhat Hanh calls “interbeing.” This term embraces the positive aspect of emptiness as it is lived and acted by a person of wisdom — with its sense of connection, compassion and love. Think of the Dalai Lama himself and the kind of person he is — generous, humble, smiling and laughing — and we can see that a mere intellectual reading of emptiness fails to get at its practical joyous quality in spiritual life. So emptiness has two aspects, one negative and the other quite positive. Ari Goldfield, a Buddhist teacher at Wisdom Sun and translator of Stars of Wisdom , summarizes these two aspects as follows: The first meaning of emptiness is called “emptiness of essence,” which means that phenomena [that we experience] have no inherent nature by themselves.” The second is called “emptiness in the context of Buddha Nature,” which sees emptiness as endowed with qualities of awakened mind like wisdom, bliss, compassion, clarity, and courage. Ultimate reality is the union of both emptinesses. Some Buddhist students think that a meditative state without thought or activity is the realization of emptiness. While such a state is well described in Buddhist meditation texts, it is treated like all mental states — temporary and not ultimately conducive to liberation. ___________________________________________________________ Reality is impermanent. Things come and go. When they go do they go into "nothingness? " No they disappear. They don't go into a place called "nothingness" Nothingness is the mental construct. That is the idealistic illusion things don't have "no" or "non" in front of them. Those are abstractions There is. There is no such thing as nonduality. Absence of duality is not a thing And because it's not at thing that doesn't mean duality is real. that is another construct There only are things And if you says there are only illusions of things illusions are not nothing They are something Welcome to somethingness

Concentration? Daily: 1 hour concentration on Metronome 1 hour concentration on repeating some artificial word in your mind like "Bam" 1 hour concentration on emptiness/nothingness 1 hour of concentrating on Letting Go of thoughts that steal your attention But after many years of doing concentration practice - I find it useless... I still have shitloads of useless thoughts throughout a day + my suffering has actually increased after 5 years of consciousness work + I am in the dark night of the soul + concentration techniques caused Dissociation disorder for me.

Being = non-symbolic state of consciousness. It's not strictly a prerequisite but it sure helps. With a psychedelic you can be conscious of Nothingness while also thinking and using the mind. But sober, it helps to silence the mind in order the realize Nothingness. Although later you will realize that mind itself is Nothingness, and so having thoughts is not really any different than Being or Nothingness. But this is an advanced stage one has to reach through lots of awakenings.

For me the state of non-symbolic consciousness is when all duality is removed, and the only proper descriptor for everything becomes nothing. Is a state of Being a prerequisite for experiencing nothingness? All of these different concepts I've learned have suddenly intertwined.

Leo's latest video has helped me connect some dots, and I'm finally understanding the nothing-infinity paradox a lot better. I've also been integrating concepts such as Ralston's "not-knowing," and it appears as though the act of not-knowing is what reveals the nothingness of everything. Is this off base, or am I onto something here? I have also struggled to experience the interconnectedness of all things in the past, and I am wondering if it is this nothingness that equates all "things." And where does "consciousness" tie into this? My concept of consciousness disappears when I am not-knowing.

I don't want to put words in his mouth but I believe what he's pointing to is the importance of clearly seeing what you are NOT as a prerequisite to clearly seeing what you are... which is the ultimate condition of nothingness.

Yes, I am interested in metaphysics and spiritual work, which is why I am here, asking questions. I am a human being, made of body, heart, mind and spirit. I don't believe spiritual work works by ignoring the emotional, physical and mental aspects of our being. The whole "nothing exists" just seems like an escape hatch. If we are God, and here to have a human experience, why is it that when someone asks a practical, human question, some run away into the land of nothingness? How does that help have a human experience?

Expectations are results of the ego. Which is an illusion. Thats why nothingness hurts you or ego.

Yes. Because nothing is simultaneously infinite. Therefore nothing is absolute. Thats what enlightenment is. Infinite nothingness, thats why nothing is there. And everything is it.

Sounds, thoughts, visuals , feelings are identical as nothing. You just name them and label them thats how your so called life is existed. They created by nothingness and within nothingness. Nothing is nothing and simultaneously everything. Thats what have you become after passing gateless gate. Therefore every happening is you, because you are nothing. The sentences that you write, every word is actually identical. ?

Not sure if this helps but it's a great read...from Robert Wolfe's Ajata sunyata project: Nothingness Underneath the condition when you are awake and aware, and beneath the condition when you are in bed at night and dreaming, there is the deep-sleep condition. Here, there are no thoughts, there is no “you”, no mind, no relationships, no other, nor world, or universe. There is merely a condition of empty presence, no-thing-ness. Everything, every form, event, etc., is superimposed on this empty presence, by the mind in the waking or dreaming state. But the organism, the body, continues to exist despite these daily reoccurrence of emptiness. This condition in which there is no mind, no thoughts, no forms, and no you, is the “ground” state, your natural state. This empty presence is the condition of the organism before its birth (and its conditioning and the arising of the I-thought), and will be its condition once again upon the death of the form of “your life”. In other words, an organism appears to arise within empty presence, matures, and recedes again into empty presence (similar to the way an electron arises and recedes in the quantum field). The organism knew nothing of existence or nonexistence before birth, and will know nothing after death: “You” will not know that you— or anything else— ever had “existed”. Recognizing the fleeting temporality of “existence” – and that existence will be completely non-existent, in due course— it becomes clear that not anything that you do, think, feel or say has any lasting significance or meaning. (This is the message of the Bhagavad Gita.) All that appears, to the organism, to be done is merely a momentary expression of the field of ever-present beingness—utterly lacking in lasting reality. This is why it is said, in the nondual writings, that “nothing really matters”. It is also why it is said that (as a book about Papaji is titled) “nothing ever happened.” All that we learn in advaita is intending to point our attention to nothingness. (And not its “existence” or “nonexistence”, since where there is nothing, neither of these are applicable.) In other words, the intention of advaita, or nonduality, is to direct us to ajata. And, I would say, a thorough understanding of the former is necessary in order to comprehend the latter. When we come to recognize that, in truth, there is nothing from the start, we understand what is meant when it is said that all that we perceive is simply a dream, an illusion— seemingly superimposed on ever-lasting empty presence. Now, is this information simply an interesting “analysis”, or does this have practical value? Someone recently sent me a book by the Dalai Lama, and I’ll extract a few quotes. All phenomena are empty. Emptiness pervades not only your individual ego or sense of self, but the whole of reality…That emptiness of mind is its ultimate nature, or mode of being. To realize that, is to pierce and see through the deception of ignorance…freedom from ignorance (is called) nirvana… Realizing emptiness is directly related to our quest to purify our mind of afflictive emotions like hatred, anger, and desire…We project onto things a state of “existence”, and a mode of being which is simply not there…. This understanding of emptiness..is one of the principal factors of the true path….For such an insight cuts right through the illusion created by the mis-apprehension of grasping things and events as existing… We realize the emptiness of all phenomena, not just the mind and body of the individual.