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@0ne With psychedelics, you have to go slow, gradual, and steady, sometimes taking months to integrate a trip before going back for another drink from the well of nonduality. If you just blast yourself with it, that's going to be traumatic, and it won't grow you properly. The process leading up to enlightenment is just as important as the enlightenment itself. That process is necessary to prepare the mind to surrender. If it take years for some people, that's sometimes because that's what they needed. Of course other times they were just dragging their feet. The problem with psychedelics is that you can easily shortcut this ramp-up, which sounds good on paper, but in practice it leaves you unprepared to handle the Truth when it reveals itself to you.

That was what they call a samadhi experience. A merger. Very common to lose your first glimpse like that. That's just the tip of the iceberg. It goes waaaay deeper. You got a good introduction to nonduality. Now the real work begins. First glimpses tend to be easy

@Space All that stuff is helping. Sometimes you gotta clear out emotions before you can dig into the existential questioning. The psychedelics will def help you with self-inquiry if you keep exploring them prudently. You've only scratched the surface of them. Any kind of retreats are good. I find meditation helps with self-inquiry, and vice versa. Of course a week-long 24/7 self-inquiry retreat would super-charge your practice, and likely get you a glimpse of nonduality. 1 weekly retreat is worth like 365 days of practice.

@smd You have no idea what you're missing. You're speaking about nonduality or 5-MeO as if it's a fad diet or a new TV show. It's not easy, but nothing life-transforming will be easy. "Looking into Zen" isn't Zen. Sit down and start doing some serious self-inquiry and go do some serious meditation retreats. If you ever try 5-MeO you will realize it is the single most important human discovery in history.

@Mathew Pav thank you for posting this. It feels great being able to relate to someone on such a unique experience. Man I love trip reports. The veil is really something man. What. A. Trip. Right? I had almost the word for word same breakthrough just a few months ago. The clarity on the One that I am, and the person / reality through the veil. I used to see the veil as something on the human, now it’s clear (for now lol) the veil is on God, imposed voluntarily by God, allowing / creating the experience of the human, which of course is God, or The One, and not seperate from the human. Last weekend, I went on a trip again, and the veil slipped off like taking off a pair of sunglasses. Like nothing. Effortless. But then I had a new experience. My previous experiences were basically, everything is One, then everything is dual of the One, which is actually me and non-dual. But this new experience was that what is, is, and there are no words or thoughts for it. Nothing to be said. Nothing to be thought upon it. It is. I get something I didn’t get. The ‘why people don’t talk about it’. It’s because there’s nothing to say. It is. It just is. There’s this factor of all this that I want to ask you if you can relate to or have any thoughts on.... It’s been a few days since the last ‘unveil’, which I’ve experienced a good number of times. But the ‘back in normal reality’ right now, is a new experience. I feel that (and who knows if there’s any “accuracy” at all in my experience) the veil isn’t there, yet at the same time, here I am. Maybe I just accepted the veil? I don’t know. It’s like, where did all the little emotions about everything go? Or, as if the micro judgements that I wasn’t so aware of are not there anymore. There is everything and nothing at the same time. Anyways, thanks again for sharing Mathew! Love you brother! Side story, two ufo’s hovered about me last Thursday night (while driving. Completely sober) then the same two hovered above me Saturday night. That could really sound crazy. It is crazy. But, it’s true. Nonduality is a hell of a drug in it’self. ❤️

@Psyche_92 from the nonduality perspective, there is no we or us. Thinking is illusion. Reality can never be manipulated because it is absolute. Thinking we manipulate ‘reality’ is part of the illusion. What you’re calling ‘reality’ is the illusion. What you really are is absolute.

@Wes Thoughts No, I think your brain may just be less vulnerable to psychedelics. Which means you require higher dosages. 250ug of AL-LAD for me is full-blown nonduality, can barely walk or think straight. Deep deep stuff. Or maybe your stuff is weak. Maybe they told you it was 150ug when really it is 50ug?

@Brimstone Thanks. After about 25 years of personal development, I’ve recently had some glimpses into. . . I don’t know what to call it. . . Yet listening to Leo, Rupert Spira and Ananta Kranti speak of nonduality, I’m like “yea, ir’s kinda like that.” That kind of talk used to drive me crazy. I’d think “Just explain it in plain English!”. Now, relating to people feels odd. There’s like a familiar dual perspective with language. Then, this nondual whatever. So many things seem important and meaningful from my dual perspective, yet there is a singularity from nondual perspective. It’s almost like flipping between two different languages. Or, English and some alien sixth sense of just being like everything else, without thought or talk. It feels awkward at times.

My job allows me to take a month off each winter and two months each summer. I'm considering using that time for solid consciousness work. I have a career that I find rewarding and it comfortably pays the bills. I'm curious to what extent full-time communities, such as ashrams, are necessary or helpful. I've had a few glimpses into nonduality (mostly with psychedelics, yet a couple sober as well). One recurring message is that "IT" is right here, right now. That I don't need to travel thousands of miles to India in search of anything, because right now I am zero miles away from "IT". The sense feels like "truth". Yet then I read about people going to ashrams and monasteries and think perhaps some are a good idea.

@Wes Thoughts You have to be smart here. Of course 2 solid months of personal development or consciousness work would be a huge boost. If you did it seriously, you might even get a glimpse or two of nonduality. But then what? You go back to working at McDonald's in your half-enlightened state with hardly enough money to pay your next bill? Going for broke is a bad idea. You don't want to paint yourself into a corner. It would be smarter to figure out a more sustainable solution. For example, many Zen monasteries charge a low initiation fee for living with them for a whole year. So if did that, you could buy yourself a whole year of practice. Or you could hatch a plan to save up more money so you have more time later and you don't go broke. If you are SERIOUS about pursuing enlightenment full-time, there are plenty of ways to do it. Society does have avenues created specifically for such people. That's what monks and yogis do. There are entire communities designed for that, and they don't require you to be a millionaire. But they do take serious commitment. So the most important first step is to clearly decide how serious you are and what you really want to do for the next few years. If you have no good career prospects, pursuing enlightenment full-time for a few years might be a really good option. But it must be done seriously.

@Nahm That's true. Nonduality is always the case, it's just whether you choose it to be the main theme of your life or not. Possibly in the next 20-50 years when psychedelics become more and more mainstream and accessible. Removing its negative stigma. The growth on the planet could be raised exponentially. I could hear the news, "young man took acid and realized he was mere frequency vibrating at a high velocity. Realizing he was one consciousness..." (Bill Hicks, something like that. 1:45 Jim Carrey is so going to be the next Hicks holy shit!

@JustinS Every person discovers nonduality. It’s almost always when they ‘physically’ die though. I think you did this life so you wouldn’t know and then could discover, the truth, and still be ‘alive’. That what we’re aware of is all that we’re aware of is a real mind bender. I hear you on avg Joe. It’s like being Jim Carrey who’s no longer Jim Carrey and trying not to pull a Jim Carrey.

There is a point during the trip (as in all my trips) where I have a feeling this nondual experience will surely last forever and that I'm awaken now. It surely is convincing at that peak experience when I feel limitless. But of course I eventually come down. However, I can see the subtle nuance pathway being veiled to me for me to be awakened. It's just a continual peeling of the onion and seriously questioning my limiting beliefs and paradigm locks and not to get so easily sucked right back into them as I sober up. Really I feel sharpening of awareness, more trips, and continual studying is necessary for a persistent breakthrough. I like the slow motion water droplet Leo posted in his blog. Each I time trip it's just easier and exciting to just go as far as I can. Dying becomes a skill to be learned or better yet surrendering is the most beautiful art. How willing are you to die right now at this moment? Enlightenment is right now. I am nothing right now. A ghost, a hallucination is a breathtaking dream we call reality. But it's so convincingly real. My parents are convinced, my friends are convinced, and society is convinced that this is real and that we are born and we die. How would an average joe in western society possibly find out about nonduality?

@Voyager I have an insurance agency, so I’m biased I’m sure, but man have I seen some horror stories when people do not insure themselves. Hospitals should not be this way, but they are. In terms of nonduality, it doesn’t matter.

I've experienced many ego deaths. When the self dies it's gone. There is no "lower" or "higher" self. In my experience, absence of self is nonduality.

Hmmmm, so a solo retreat without talk and thought would be nondual. And. . . using inherently dualistic language to describe my summer trip to Peru is also nondual - because the fundamental nature of nonduality cannot be separate. So, the nondual must be a "nothing" and "everything". Because as soon as I try to classify things as either "nondual" and "dual", I am making "nondual" a something that is separate from a "dual" something.

I especially like this segment because it elucidates research by Jeffery Martin and his term for non-dual consciousness, which is Persistent Non Symbolic Experience (PNSE). This is a crucial misconception many people have about consciousness work-- nonduality isn't simply about dropping linguistic paradigms; rather, it runs MUCH deeper. Reality is not simply the models that precede language, but something that precedes (and includes) even that. All perceptions are partial, symbols we construct for survival needs. To do consciousness work to look beyond that. What lies beyond experience?

@Leo Gura I doubt I've experienced deeply enough to really grasp this, and am of course asking this without really having taken a stance, but is asking about organism's survival in relation to the perception of reality, not a valid question just because of non-duality? Sure, you can make an arbitrary distinction you want, and of course, there's not really a separate being there, but is it misguided to investigate relative frameworks, like how organism survive while having certain mental models? I know that it holds lots of assumptions, like there being such thing as "organism", "life", "death", "survival", etc., but it just seems like a valid inquiry on the relative plane. For context, I've only had tiny, tiny glimpses of nonduality and am pretty indoctrinated by culture, naive realism, etc. I haven't experienced God, Absolute Infinity, absolute relativity, etc. directly, only heard about such things second hand.

@Barna Was just wondering if you had anything on that. I have 'channeled' as well. Not sure what else to refer to it as because it was not the same as nonduality experience. As far as I can see, we are the connection between quantum or superposition or everything everywhere....and physical, or positionally certain, or manifested (atomic). I think when there is something that just can not be seen, it might be me.

@Joseph Maynor For you, yes Don't worry, they will come back. Life goes on, even after enlightenment. Lots of enlightened folks are also deeply intellectual. You just gotta divide and conquer this thing first. Of course a lot of mental masturbation will fall away. But that should actually trim the fat off your intellectual pursuits and make it very potent. Why waste time studying bullshit? These days, a lot of books or papers I can't even be bothered to read, or some people I can't bother to listen to, because it's just such bullshit after you experience nonduality.

@Dodo Ah, thanks, Dodoster, for the compliment about my website. It is not very big and it is not growing rapidly, but boy, have I put in tons of time polishing up those essays. It sometimes surprises even me that I get inspired to rewrite an essay that I have had for years. This happened just last week when I took 4 or 5 days to rewrite this essay: Why Do We Call It Nondual Wisdom? https://infinitelymystical.com/essays/nonduality.html 4 pages

@Serotoninluv My opinion is this: The traditional "you" is an illusion and that means that it does indeed exist, but it exists in a deceptive way. First of all, the reality of what you commonly think of as "you" is indeed a person. What is the deception? It is not an autonomous being even though it looks like it is. It is not who or what you truly are in the most fundamental way. What you are fundamentally is Source-Awareness. As you know, I talk about this in many of my essays. By the way, I wrote the following essay two years ago but I recently rewrote it. Here is the link: Why Do We Call It Nondual Wisdom? https://infinitelymystical.com/essays/nonduality.html 4 pages Some of my points in that essay might be of interest to you. Best regards. In truth, I honor your divine nature. - Thomas Razzeto

@Joseph Maynor Hi Joseph. Thanks for taking the time to read some of my work. There might be more items of interest on my website. Below is a link to an essay that I wrote two years ago but I just spent about 5 days rewriting it. I just uploaded it yesterday. (Most people would be surprised that it takes me that long to rewrite a four page essay, but I just keep reading and editing until is feels done.) Anyway, here is the link: Why Do We Call It Nondual Wisdom? https://infinitelymystical.com/essays/nonduality.html 4 pages As I often say, this material takes time to sink in so no rush and no worries. All my best. In truth, I honor your divine nature Thomas Razzeto https://infinitelymystical.com/

@Serotoninluv You touched on a point that I am going to be a little picky about: (paraphrase) you said that if something is an illusion and doesn't exist, then why do we (etc). The correct definition of an illusion is something that exists in a deceptive way. I go into this (and much more) in the following recent post. The comments about correctly understanding what is meant by the word "illusion" is right in the beginning of the post: Now let's get to the main point you make about using "I," and "you" and so forth. I think it is perfectly fine to speak conventionally most of the time. For example, if you want to know if someone went to the beach (or whatever), just ask with conventional pronouns. Now, when it comes to what you truly are (fundamentally), well, by that I mean pure awareness, the power of sentience. This is the One Divine Awareness and "it" is the Source of everything. This is why my mentor, Timothy Conway, and I call it Source-Awareness. (Very few people in the so called nondual community use this definition, but that is a different and long conversation. Ha, I think it is very, very, very few people that use the phrase Source-Awareness but I really like it since it reveals the two capacities of this transcendent Reality. I go into that in many essays but especially the one titled The Loving Heart of Enlightenment.) Once you get the hang of it, you can easily tell from the context what is meant by the pronouns. Does a sentence make sense with the conventional understand? Yes? Then use the conventional understanding. So if you ask someone if they went to the beach today and they reply that they are the unborn formless Source-Awareness and can go nowhere, well, that is true in the larger sense but it is a dysfunctional reply since it does not address what was really being asked. I touch on the value of being able to use these pronouns and still hold the nondual perspective in the following essay, which I first wrote about two years ago but recently rewrote. Note the part where I talk about the sentence "I love you." Here is the link: Why Do We Call It Nondual Wisdom? https://infinitelymystical.com/essays/nonduality.html 4 pages You might find that essay helpful. All my best. In truth, I honor your divine essence. - Thomas Razzeto

Thank you. For the past few months, there have been some glimpses of awareness that seem nondual. Would you recommend pursuing teachings on nonduality / teachings from a nondual perspective? Or, is it more effective to continue with duality teachings with an awareness that it's from a non-dual perspective?