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1 hour ago, Water by the River said: Like any other being, it seems to me you strive for what brings you satisfaction. Now you equate pleasure with bliss or non-suffering. Which I didn't do: The Sat & Chit in Sat-Chit-Ananda, or the bliss & love that a sobre Awakened Nondual State brings is also not pleasure, and I assume you are well aware of that. So lets look up Wikipedia (I know..) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pleasure "Pleasure is part of various other mental states such as ecstasy, euphoria and flow. Happiness and well-being are closely related to pleasure but not identical with it." "Pleasure refers to experience that feels good, that involves the enjoyment OF something". For example of Infinite-Consciousness-chasing-exploration. The bliss or love of Awakened Nondual States doesn't NEED the enjoyment OF something. Then we would have to consider the nondual essence Nothingness behind all appearance as OF something. Which luckily it isn't, because it is not OF something (but Infinite Being, Nothingness and nondual appearance and not something specific IN/OF it) Selling the basic difference between pleasure and between causeless Sat-Chit-Ananda by the River

The issue that after you experience heroinepsychedelic levels of blissconsciousness, nothing less will satify you. Ken Wilber once wrote something along the lines of certain states of bliss can only be accessed in higher subtle realms or states of Awakening, and Heroine/Opiades can give a foretaste. Of course that is addictive. It is a kind of unearned divine bliss, not accessible sobre because the structure to do that is not in place. Of course that wreaks the whole growth path and its dynamic. And that is why heroine is truly evil stuff. It is true that nothing less will satisfy oneself than the awakened states True Being brings along. And that it is normally a long and hard road achieving that sobre. But what is the alternative? Addiction? Meditation done in the right way/technique, over long time in daily practice (even if its carried into daily life and not on the cushion) early over a decade can produce fascinating results. I can testify that, and I consider even short amounts of meditation as adding up if done with the right technique. Key is getting it working in daily life, then the necessary time of thousands of hours can be added up. The strength of consciousness to transcend former identifications is strenghtened always, even by small amounts. Which can add up over years, decades, or lifetimes.

No my friend. Consider there are Infinitly Consciousness enlightened Awakened States and Realizations (where that is totally obvious and how that holds for Infinite Being/Reality) that maybe you haven't had yet. Hey, I start talking like you Selling demon-eddies-in-the-River-are-not-permanently-without-suffering-but-rather-the-opposite 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

Suffering in cycles is the force that pulls all beings and souls back to the source. Even the demon. The more separation/duality/split off from the Source is experienced, the more suffering happens, and the more evil arises as coping mechanism. If love is not available, evil acts as coping mechanism. And only huge suffering forces the demon back on its path, away from separation and evil towards the other path, returning to the source/love. Ever heard of hell-realms/dimensions, full of evil? Thousands of NDE and OBE reports exists of these, throughout all ages&cultures. Anything split off from True Infinite Being as apparently separate being (illusion) suffers in cycles. That is totally obvious in certain Awakened states. Where there is not THAT, there is only suffering in cycles. Anything but impersonal nondual Enlightenment with the self-contraction of the separate-self gone suffers. Not all the time, but in cycles. Only in these realizations/awakened states of Infinite Impersonal Consciousness is the love of True Being flowing fully and unrestricted, and that finally lets the separate-self-contraction drown in oblivion. Interesting that you are not aware of that, not even conceptually. Evil is separation and splitting off from the source, and compensating and coping for that in extreme cases with evil behaviour, and love is the opposite force, which pulls all beings back. Reality "breaks" evil with suffering. And huge evil = huge suffering necessary. What do you think hell realms NDE/OBEs are? That is spirits way of nobody gets left behind... PS: I am not talking about animals here, but more complex beings. Like humans/demons and so on... Selling basic spiritual compass/intuition 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

Where did the Buddha say this? I think your quote is mistaken or at least misunderstood. Here someone gave a breakdown on the validity of that quote: https://fakebuddhaquotes.com/what-you-think-you-become/ All mental formations are described to be not self. This includes thoughts or any type of mental phenomena you can conceive of. A crucial element to understand about the Buddha’s teachings is that you do have the ability to control your mind to varying degrees, based upon the amount of practice you have devoted to developing this capacity. You control your mind in Buddhist practice by guarding your sense doors, that meaning you become aware of whenever you are grasping after transient elements of experience as if they will provide some type of lasting fulfillment and stop that grasping once it is recognized. I’ve been studying The Middle Length Discourses of the Buddha (Majjhima Nikāya) lately, and over and over again it is stressed that you should turn your mind from the unwholesome to what is wholesome. What is considered wholesome in the Buddha’s teaching is whatever leads one away from the hindrances and instead leads a person closer to the destruction of the hindrances or otherwise called the taints which is synonymous to awakening. The hindrances are sloth and torpor (essentially being lazy, unmotivated, and lacking energy when it concerns reaching full enlightenment and liberation), restlessness and worry (anxiety/stress essentially), desire for sense objects, ill-will or hatred, and doubt (mainly referring to doubt in the Buddhist methods as effectively leading to the ending of suffering which is related to ignorance). You should rightfully be concerned that you are having intrusive thoughts that not only produce suffering now but also condition your mind to further suffering in the future. Consider your mind like a computer’s CPU. Unwholesome thoughts are like viruses or malware on a computer. The higher percentage of the CPU which is taken up by this sort of malicious activity in a given moment, the less ability the computer has to run your desired programs properly. The desired programs in this case would be your mind recognizing the Absolute, being full of contentment, confidence, loving-kindness to all beings, stillness, happiness, etc. Basically this means non-resistance to what is. The experience which you really want is an awakened mind free from the woes of petty ego worries and problems which are all self-generated of course by seeing reality incorrectly. Intrusive thoughts obviously bring you to more ego bullshit and issues. Watch for those thoughts, and incline your mind to something healthy or productive instead. As you do this, over time you will find that your CPU has less and less viruses and malware up until the point it is running at maximum capacity without issue. Here’s a video from a Buddhist teacher, Dhammarato, who does a great job of focusing on the essential practices of early Buddhism: He has tons of videos on this topic, and his teachings line up quite closely with what you find in the Suttas. I’ve spoken to him a number of times, and it is clear that he knows what he is talking about and has the ability to clear up a lot of misconceptions people pick up from quasi-Buddhist sources.

If there is only Your True Infinite Being, what is there not to love? There is no other. The only "thing" not loving is the self-contraction called ego or separate-self-Gestalt. That self-contraction hindering the flow of love can be switched off a lot by 10g dried shrooms, quite sufficiently to give a foretaste (I know, but wait and see...) to what happens when the flood-gates of the self-contraction become disassembled structurally, or thrown into the mixer. Then, the River can flow unconstricted by the self-contraction called ego, or separate-self. Which kills any remaining separate-self-contraction even further. https://beezone.com/1main_shelf/self_contraction_04_05_06.html separate self= self-contraction= ego (large parts of it) = separation= fear = not nondual = not awakened = not love psychedelic = temporary off-switch of that self-contraction. Ok, Water by the River admits that this is not really a new discovery: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saccidānanda Some guys had that insight already 2 millenia ago already, so it appears Water by the River is dishing out old wine in new bottles. But it seems, eternal unchanging Being implies handing out old wine in new bottles every generation... Selling River = love by the River

Please excuse my sloppy answer. It is just when one assumes that no Ego-elements/separate-self-elements are remaining in the psychedelic state... That is a bit, um, Contrast it with this here: Adi Da was quite problematic in other ways , but here you can get a feeling of what no filters/lenses/clouds looks like. And that is a nondual/infinite/mere appearance/awakened state up the hilt, making the true state of "things" absoltely obvious, the realization of Absolute Reality/True Being/Infinite Consciousness a no-brainer. Concerning the last subtle ego/separate-self-clouds/lenses/filters: One just doesn't see them, since there is way to little time in the psychedelic states to transcend these filters/lenses, and normally way to little training in transcending these filters/lenses/clouds done before. One looks THROUGH THEM, and doesn't even notice they are there. And then interprets the infinite nondual experience through them. And what is missing for Enlightenment is the impersonal part: No filters/lenses/clouds left. If you would understand/see these (very subtle) filters in these states, you could sustain the enlightened/awakened/boundless/nondual state AFTER the psychedelic has lost its effect. The infinite and "godly" states of consciousness are nothing but a big trap that parade "in front" of your Real Eternal Being. And btw., "classic" full Enlightenment is infinite, nondual and boundless, and mere appearance/imagined. And impersonal. And the "godly", ET or "whatever" states in that case parade "in" it, "in front" of it. And its YOU by the way. Just the True You. Not the god-state+reamaining filters/lenses. When filters/lenses/clouds/ego are switched off, isn't it logical that Awakening/boundless/nondual/mere apperance states just continues (or is no longer covered by duality), making the eternal always here "suchness" of True being available all the time. Just throw the frog in the mixer and see what remains. What remains is eternal. The rest is just illusion, parading in front of your eternal Being. Ranging from rat to crocodile to human to God to ET. And ET is better for sexy marketing and probably more fun than throwing the frog in the mixer, I assume. It is just if you throw the frog in the mixer, the imagined crocodiles tend to stay away, because, um, they intuit they would follow the frog into the mixer. Selling Water by the River

No its the beautiful work of God. The goal of God for this illusion is to keep you in the illusion. God is good at what he does. The reason is so it can completely lose itself. It is the sole purpose of the dream - or any dream. This is a feature and not a bug. If everyone awakened so easily there couldn't be reality.

I think animals are awakened. What's their IQ?

@Razard86 because of our childhood and environment conditioning? Or also other reasons you think? Or umbrella term 'survival'. So awakened species doesn't wanna survive?

Such a species hasn't and will not exist. Perhaps an awakened species which feeds on sunlight or stones could exist. On planet Earth, survival has always been dirty and cruel. But that can change for the better when AI and robotics become advanced enough.

In the Book Conversations with God book 4 there was outlined 16 differences between awakened beings and non awakened humans. This can give a look at how awakened beings view morality. The 16 differences 1. An awakened species sees the Unity of All Life and lives into it. Humans in an unawakened state often deny it or ignore it. 2. An awakened species tells the truth, always. Humans in an unawakened state too often lie, to themselves as well as others. 3. An awakened species says one thing and will do what they say. Humans in an unawakened state often say one thing and do another. 4. An awakened species, having seen and acknowledged what is so, will always do what works. Humans in an unawakened state often do the opposite. 5. An awakened species does not embrace a principle in its civilization that correlates with the concepts that humans refer to as “justice” and “punishment.” 6. An awakened species does not embrace a principle in its civilization that correlates with the concept that humans refer to as “insufficiency”. 7. An awakened species does not embrace a principle in its civilization that correlates with the concept that humans refer to as “ownership.” 8. An awakened species shares everything with everyone all the time. Humans in an unawakened state often do not, only sharing with others in limited circumstances. 9. An awakened species creates a balance between technology and cosmology; between machines and nature. Humans in an unawakened state often do not. 10. An awakened species would never under any circumstances terminate the current physical expression of another sentient being unless asked directly by that other being to do so. Humans in an unawakened state often kill other humans without that other human requesting them to. 11. An awakened species would never do anything that could potentially damage or harm the physical environment that supports the members of the species when they are physicalized. Humans in an unawakened state often do so. 12. An awakened species never poisons itself. Humans in an unawakened state often do so. 13. An awakened species never competes. Humans in an unawakened state are often in competition with each other. 14. An awakened species is clear that it needs nothing. Humans in an unawakened state often create a need-based experience. 15. An awakened species experiences and expresses unconditional love for everyone. Humans in an unawakened state often cannot imagine even a Deity who does this, much less do they do it themselves. 16. An awakened species has harnessed the power of metaphysics. Humans in an unawakened state often largely ignore it.

In the Conversations with God Book 4 there is a section that talks about the 16 characteristics of Highly Evolved Beings. Here is a link that talks about it. Scroll down to the bottom to see them. https://www.countdown2contact.org/awakened-species/

Right, it's really about strategic positioning because anyone will fall into a trap and be easily lured when they are very, very, very desperate. Like if you're broke and you have no money, yeah, you're going to be lured into all sorts of shady business deals. And if you're in this position where you haven't been socializing, you've been playing video games your whole life, living in your mother's basement, yeah, now you're in such a desperate position for sex that you're going to be tempted and lured in by all sorts of shady sexual schemes and offers. So, it is about positioning yourself strategically such that you're not in these kind of compromised positions. Then, of course, you can't avoid all of them, but you do the best you can. See, as you get trapped, you get more desperate, and as you get desperate, your options get worse, trapping you in even more. And it's sort of this negative vicious cycle. This can be sort of a cycle of addiction, like maybe you were abused as a child and you got traumatized, so that's already made you kind of desperate, emotionally vulnerable and so forth. And that makes you, of course, now, because you don't have a healthy emotional state, now that makes you susceptible now to intoxicants and drugs, and you start with a bit of alcohol, then you move on to weed, then you move on to cocaine, then you move on to heroin, you see? And this gradually makes you more and more and more desperate over time. And then, you know, when you're at the bottom of that spiral, you're so desperate that it seems like you have no way out. And in that case, what you need to do is you need to ask for help. You need to look for help from other people who are, you know, who can, who are in a good place in life such that they have abundant resources that they could help you because you're at the point where you've tapped yourself out. So, be careful about those kind of compromising situations that you can put yourself in. Traps are a mirror of our desires and fears. We fall into traps because they tap into something we crave or wish to avoid. Here's a quote that I'll read to you from an AI that I got from an AI. The Claw 3 AI says, "Traps are a mirror that reflect back to us our own psychological and emotional landscape." I thought that was a especially eloquent beautiful way of summarizing this whole thing. Here are some exercises that you can do that will help you to get a better handle on traps and to avoid traps. The first exercise is write down a list of 10 traps you've fallen into in your life in the past and then ask yourself what led you to fall into each trap. What did you learn from each trap? And importantly, in what way were these traps ultimately a gift? Don't forget that traps are not just purely negative things unless they're catastrophic, but even some of the catastrophic traps honestly can also ultimately be converted into gifts, and your ability to do that, your mental resourcefulness to do that is a very powerful skill. And maybe that deserves an episode all on its own, how to reframe this kind of negative stuff. In fact, I need to do an episode on reframing. That's powerful. And here's another exercise for you. Write down a list of five traps that other people who you know have fallen into. Friends, family members, romantic partners. And then ask yourself what led them to fall into these traps and how will you avoid falling into those traps? And then, here's an extra powerful question which is, what traps am I specifically susceptible to? What traps does my unique personality and life situation expose me to? Because you see, we're all quite different. We have different consciousnesses, different levels of development, different genetics, different personality types, different strengths and weaknesses. And that of course influences what kind of things we will be lured in by and susceptible to. So, you have to not just know about traps in general but specifically what kind of traps you're vulnerable to. Some people are much more vulnerable to alcoholism than others, genetically. You have to know that about yourself. If that's true for you, maybe some people can just go out and drink every night, and they're not vulnerable. But you're vulnerable, so you can't do that. However, you may have other advantages that those people don't have. Here are some meta-traps, very high level traps: Thinking that you're immune to a particular trap. For example, telling yourself, "Well, I would never join a cult; I could never join a cult because I'm too intelligent." Of course, that makes you more vulnerable to joining a cult if you believe that. Thinking that you've escaped a trap. Sometimes there's a trap within a trap within a trap. You might think, "Well, I've already escaped this trap, Leo, so it's not a big deal." But you don't realize that there's a deeper, more advanced version of that trap that you still haven't escaped. Watch out for that one. Especially true when you're getting into advanced spiritual stuff. You might think you've awakened to the max. But then, what you'll realize is that there's something beyond that. It's easy to overlook because you might think, "Well, I've escaped the ego; I've already awoken. So, what more could there be?" This kind of trap, in general, thinking that you're immune to self-deception, will be a trap. Criticizing, judging, and ridiculing others too much for falling into traps is a trap. Because the more you judge and criticize others, the harder it becomes for you to admit when you fall into traps yourself. Denying that you've fallen into a trap when you have is a big trap. If you can't even admit you've fallen into it, like if you can't even admit that you're doing some of the things listed above that are problematic, half the challenge is just admitting that you're doing some of these things honestly. Because you're going to be in denial about it, which is a trap. These traps can snowball and work together against you. Sometimes, you're not just dealing with one trap; you're dealing with multiple traps. For example, you're in denial that you're an addict, maybe using psychedelics but have turned it into an addiction now, and you're doing spiritual bypassing with psychedelics. If you ridicule others for falling into traps and you think they're stupid for doing that, automatically, that means you're going to think you're stupid for falling into traps. And you don't want to think you're stupid, so you're not going to want to admit that you fall into some of these traps. Sometimes, you can look like a real fool falling into one of these traps, like joining a cult. You might think you were just joining some sort of mild, good-mannered spiritual community, but it turned out to be a cult, and you were really fooled by that. But you don't want to admit that because you've been ridiculing others who joined cults. Another meta-trap is worrying about avoiding all the traps and getting paranoid about it, which will make you very risk-averse, get you stuck in your head, make you very indecisive, and then maybe you won't even take action because you are too afraid to fail and make a mistake, and you think that everything is a catastrophic trap, which isn't true. Getting paranoid about traps is itself a trap.

I would much rather Leo make a video on the traps of Buddhism/Spirituality than the traps of atheism. I see religion/spiritual new age bs as a deeper problem. So many people on here are Buddhist rats who think they are already awakened. I think atheism is rather easy to deconstruct. All you have to do is open your mind to the possibility that the source of your intelligence doesn’t come from you but from the Universe itself. Some traps of Buddhism that I think should be discussed are: 1. Meditation being over-idealized - there should be more emphasis on contemplation than meditation. Meditation will shut your mind off but contemplation will make you more intelligent and aware. 2. Too much attachment to Buddha and Buddhist teachings (isn’t it a contradiction to be attached to Buddhist teachings and the Buddha if the teachings are all about non-attachment?) 3. Group-think.

Right, it's really about strategic positioning because anyone will fall into a trap and be easily lured when they are very, very, very desperate. Like if you're broke and you have no money, yeah, you're going to be lured into all sorts of shady business deals. And if you're in this position where you haven't been socializing, you've been playing video games your whole life, living in your mother's basement, yeah, now you're in such a desperate position for sex that you're going to be tempted and lured in by all sorts of shady sexual schemes and offers. So, it is about positioning yourself strategically such that you're not in these kind of compromised positions. Then, of course, you can't avoid all of them, but you do the best you can. See, as you get trapped, you get more desperate, and as you get desperate, your options get worse, trapping you in even more. And it's sort of this negative vicious cycle. This can be sort of a cycle of addiction, like maybe you were abused as a child and you got traumatized, so that's already made you kind of desperate, emotionally vulnerable and so forth. And that makes you, of course, now, because you don't have a healthy emotional state, now that makes you susceptible now to intoxicants and drugs, and you start with a bit of alcohol, then you move on to weed, then you move on to cocaine, then you move on to heroin, you see? And this gradually makes you more and more and more desperate over time. And then, you know, when you're at the bottom of that spiral, you're so desperate that it seems like you have no way out. And in that case, what you need to do is you need to ask for help. You need to look for help from other people who are, you know, who can, who are in a good place in life such that they have abundant resources that they could help you because you're at the point where you've tapped yourself out. So, be careful about those kind of compromising situations that you can put yourself in. Traps are a mirror of our desires and fears. We fall into traps because they tap into something we crave or wish to avoid. Here's a quote that I'll read to you from an AI that I got from an AI. The Claw 3 AI says, "Traps are a mirror that reflect back to us our own psychological and emotional landscape." I thought that was a especially eloquent beautiful way of summarizing this whole thing. Here are some exercises that you can do that will help you to get a better handle on traps and to avoid traps. The first exercise is write down a list of 10 traps you've fallen into in your life in the past and then ask yourself what led you to fall into each trap. What did you learn from each trap? And importantly, in what way were these traps ultimately a gift? Don't forget that traps are not just purely negative things unless they're catastrophic, but even some of the catastrophic traps honestly can also ultimately be converted into gifts, and your ability to do that, your mental resourcefulness to do that is a very powerful skill. And maybe that deserves an episode all on its own, how to reframe this kind of negative stuff. In fact, I need to do an episode on reframing. That's powerful. And here's another exercise for you. Write down a list of five traps that other people who you know have fallen into. Friends, family members, romantic partners. And then ask yourself what led them to fall into these traps and how will you avoid falling into those traps? And then, here's an extra powerful question which is, what traps am I specifically susceptible to? What traps does my unique personality and life situation expose me to? Because you see, we're all quite different. We have different consciousnesses, different levels of development, different genetics, different personality types, different strengths and weaknesses. And that of course influences what kind of things we will be lured in by and susceptible to. So, you have to not just know about traps in general but specifically what kind of traps you're vulnerable to. Some people are much more vulnerable to alcoholism than others, genetically. You have to know that about yourself. If that's true for you, maybe some people can just go out and drink every night, and they're not vulnerable. But you're vulnerable, so you can't do that. However, you may have other advantages that those people don't have. Here are some meta-traps, very high level traps: Thinking that you're immune to a particular trap. For example, telling yourself, "Well, I would never join a cult; I could never join a cult because I'm too intelligent." Of course, that makes you more vulnerable to joining a cult if you believe that. Thinking that you've escaped a trap. Sometimes there's a trap within a trap within a trap. You might think, "Well, I've already escaped this trap, Leo, so it's not a big deal." But you don't realize that there's a deeper, more advanced version of that trap that you still haven't escaped. Watch out for that one. Especially true when you're getting into advanced spiritual stuff. You might think you've awakened to the max. But then, what you'll realize is that there's something beyond that. It's easy to overlook because you might think, "Well, I've escaped the ego; I've already awoken. So, what more could there be?" This kind of trap, in general, thinking that you're immune to self-deception, will be a trap. Criticizing, judging, and ridiculing others too much for falling into traps is a trap. Because the more you judge and criticize others, the harder it becomes for you to admit when you fall into traps yourself. Denying that you've fallen into a trap when you have is a big trap. If you can't even admit you've fallen into it, like if you can't even admit that you're doing some of the things listed above that are problematic, half the challenge is just admitting that you're doing some of these things honestly. Because you're going to be in denial about it, which is a trap. These traps can snowball and work together against you. Sometimes, you're not just dealing with one trap; you're dealing with multiple traps. For example, you're in denial that you're an addict, maybe using psychedelics but have turned it into an addiction now, and you're doing spiritual bypassing with psychedelics. If you ridicule others for falling into traps and you think they're stupid for doing that, automatically, that means you're going to think you're stupid for falling into traps. And you don't want to think you're stupid, so you're not going to want to admit that you fall into some of these traps. Sometimes, you can look like a real fool falling into one of these traps, like joining a cult. You might think you were just joining some sort of mild, good-mannered spiritual community, but it turned out to be a cult, and you were really fooled by that. But you don't want to admit that because you've been ridiculing others who joined cults. Another meta-trap is worrying about avoiding all the traps and getting paranoid about it, which will make you very risk-averse, get you stuck in your head, make you very indecisive, and then maybe you won't even take action because you are too afraid to fail and make a mistake, and you think that everything is a catastrophic trap, which isn't true. Getting paranoid about traps is itself a trap.

@gettoefl So I understand that materialism isn't true but then what would materialism feel like is what I am curious about. I agree that no self is the truth of our nature (I haven't yet awakened to it yet, but putting in the work) but then what would being a mind and body feel like?

Here Adam talks about some of the final stages he went thru, Experiencing Original Nature (Sing in Daoism) and he talks about Dissolving and then coming back to Form, he uses the analogy of becoming the Ocean and then becoming Ice, and going back and forth but the common element is Water, learning to discern that between the shifting btwn the two states you are always Water, Water meaning the Brahman, Atman, Dao, Infinite Universe of formlessness, God or whatever label you want to use..He also discusses the mistake of making the experience a Noun by announcing or thinking "I am Enlightened or I have Arrived/Awakened", since this is about Infinity and such there is no End to it and by thinking/identifying that there is, you stop the process... He also talks about how the paths differ, Shamanism path of using drugs, or Mystic path of using doing/non doing practices, and if You don't want to go all the way how just 15-50min a day of steady practice can get You stress free and full of Well Beingness...Very Wise Man and path!!

I think this guy explains it very well... I take the liberty of copy pasting this message that I think it goes well with the discussion in here... it's from Reddit from the Non Duality forum: Non Duality - There is Nothing but the ONE MIND - Drop ALL Dogma and Find Freedom! Discussion So I don't plan to make many more posts about anything like this because I finally saw it and I get it at long last. There is nothing left for me to learn, I don't mean this arrogantly. I just mean I get it! I am no longer interested in dogma or meditations or anything else. I have been in Void like states for the past week or so now. I am only writing this to help anyone who may of been lost like I was. Yes it was mind blowing too. It made me realize that the more I looked outside and the more I gained knowledge, the more lost I had become. I now get what Non duality is and what it isn't. It is not about ego deaths, awareness, observers or being observed. Even cliche terms like Enlightenment and Awakening do not touch upon it. It is none of those things and to use terms like these are to create dualities where there are none and to fall into extreme ignorance. All of these terms and concepts are the real illusions we must overcome. If I say today that I awakened. It means that tomorrow I can fall asleep again. I am now in some battle of being awakened vs being asleep. I am the One Mind that is the SOURCE OF ALL THINGS! My mind is the source of being awakened and being asleep. To say I am awakened or enlightened is to stay highly ignorant and to create a duality where there are none. There is no ego to kill, to say I have an ego is to say there is an entity that exists apart from the One Mind. Anything I call an ego, is just a concept within the One Mind. The idea of an ego is another fantasy concept made up and imagined to be some kind of obstacle to be got rid of i.e - it is Complete nonsense. If you believe an ego exists, then you believe in something having some level of independent existence. There is nothing to be achieved, attained, gained or realized. These are all dualities again. Again, you are creating obstacles where there are none. Any of these terms hint that we must seek outside of ourselves to find the One mind, there is only the One mind. We simply need to see the Nature of our own mind, which is the One Universal Mind. Non duality is the realization that everything is merely a creation of the ONE MIND and we all share that ONE Mind. There is nothing else to get your head around or understand. That is Non duality in a nutshell. There is no Real or Illusion either, to say something is real or to say something is an illusion is to create a duality. To say something exists and something does not exist is another duality. Everything is just the One Universal Mind. Remove all your concepts, dogma, rituals and belief systems and simply See this and you then you will partake in the Void. The state where you no longer feel separate or independent, you know you are everything and everything is you. The place where you see that everything is just emptiness and nothingness, all attachment having vanished into thin air. The Void is the place where you truly FEEL FREE! It is not enlightenment or awakening it is FREEDOM from all concepts and belief systems. You simply know that All is just a creation within the ONE Mind. Your mind being the ONE Mind that creates all and is the Only Reality and Original Source of all things. A quote from Huang Po to finish - 'All the Buddhas and all sentient beings are nothing but the One Mind, beside which nothing exists. This Mind, which IS without beginning, is unborn (Unborn not in the sense of eternity, for this allows contrast with its opposite; but unborn in the sense that it belongs to no categories admitting of alteration or antithesis). and indestructible. It is not green nor yellow, and has neither form nor appearance. It does not belong to the categories of things which exist or do not exist nor can it be thought of in terms of new or old. It is neither long nor short, big nor small, for it transcends all limits, measures, names, traces, and comparisons. It IS that which you see before you-- begin to reason about it and you at once fall into error. It is like the boundless void which cannot be fathomed or measured. The One Mind alone is the Buddha, and there is no distinction between the Buddha and sentient things, but that sentient beings are attached to forms and so seek externally for Buddhahood. By their very seeking they lose it, for that is using the Buddha to seek for the Buddha and using mind to grasp Mind.'

Wanna hear a funny story? So, I have been dating this super hot Russian girl for the past year and a half, right... She's not 'awake' or into spirituality, personal development or anything like that. She's super smart and highly educated, but does not see past those limitations. It could be said that she's as hardcore stage orange as it gets. So yeah, our relationship was challenging - to say the least - as I'm sure you can imagine. Point is, we've been living together in the middle of nowhere all this time. She had her circle of friends (that I could not resonate less with) and I was more or less committed to hardcore isolation, working on my life purpose, etc. I rarely ever went out with her group... And then, a few days ago, out of nowhere... she comes home with this utter disbelief on her face and says to me that she met a girl who is just like me. She said she spoke about the same concepts, used similar words and phrases, described similar experiences, etc. It's as if she was listening to one of my nondual ramblings - she said. She was excited, intimidated, and more. I was surprised too - to say the least. An awakened being, somewhere here by, in the middle of nowhere? - I thought to myself. That's fucking epic. But also... who gives a shit. Never met the girl myself. Probably won't either. Don't feel at a loss.

I used to watch Jim a while back, few years back then I stopped. No particular reason as I like to spread my wings. Tony, I've only seen one or two of his videos, but I'm not a fan. Anna yes, I love her and have been watching her for a while. I watched a lot of stuff. Now after my confusion crises seemed to happen and I accidentally stumbled across Emerson non-duality and started watching him a lot, something happened as described in my "Oh My God, this is it" thread and ever since then a lot of the contraction seems to apparently fell away from the body allowing for more clarity, even though that's still only apparent since there's no one that gains more clarity. It's more of a losing. Then i've been watching a lot of Jim lately. The funny thing is I was already familiar with Jim but it was never as clear as it seems to be happening now. A lot of the stuff he says seems so obvious now and has broken away a lot of the confusion that seemed to be happening. It's the only message that totally resonates with something inside the body and is loosening the contraction a bit. No one is doing it, it's just seeming to happen. It's not a doing but more of an undoing, if you may. Everything now is less tension and the seeking energy is dieing. There's still remnants of an individual here and I'm not claiming to be awakened or anything like that. I'm not even saying there's not a me or that there's a me, it's just what seems to arise in the talking but is not being claimed as a me doing it. Its hard to speak without saying I or me but it doesn't matter.

Oh yeah....explain it. Because I predict you will deny the existence of something. And what I am telling you, that means you have not fully awakened. Even Tony Parsons won't deny the existence of something. He will just say its an apparent something. The only thing he denies is the existence of God. And that is because he is not conscious that he is God. Or why we use the term God to begin with. Then you got James123 or whatever his name is denying the existence of God and denying creation even though evidence for all of that is all around us. You and many others are not aware of what's going on. Reality is a mind game of identity. Since everything is ONE, to maintain an identity of seperation you have to DENY some aspect of Reality. So the only way to discover ONENESS is you have to break out of your identity and that involves first denying the identity. But then to grow your awareness you have to rebuild your identity and ACCEPT everything. To ACCEPT everything is to exclude NOTHING. So what does this mean? It means you must aim to understand ALL perspectives. If you understand all perspectives....then nothing is denied. I know why you speak as you do, I know why James speaks as he does, but you do not know why I speak as I do. As such you have a particular bias you are trapped in. You deny something, but you ACT as if something exists. How do we know? Because you are on the forums typing and responding. This means you are LYING to yourself, you have created a belief system that denies your reality. This is called Gaslighting. You are gaslighting yourself which is what happens when you create a belief system. How do we know its a belief system? Because in your direct experience....you are typing, and that means there IS SOMETHING. SOMETHING IS NOTHING!!!! Depending on which conscious state you are in, it will be felt as more Something or more Nothing. It's BOTH. The moment you lean either way....you are lost. The teachings are meant to exaggerate because you are very attached in an exaggerated way. But the funny thing is, they just cause some people sometimes to just become exaggerated on Nothing out of fear of ever falling into delusion again. You need to have the courage to connect and feel for something again. You only lost motivation because you disconnected yourself from all that is. You need to go back to embracing all that is and reconnect to it as Nothing and then you will discover IT IS SOMETHING. And..that...is LOVE.

Enlightenment entails no duties or responsibilities. It is not an ideal that demands a particular kind of behavior. If you think it has turned you into a pure saint and requires you to live an austere and holy life and behave with perfect love, you have enlightenment sickness. Enlightenment cannot be equated with sainthood, because behavior depends on the nature of the instrument (body&mind) through which awareness functions, not on the self. For example, electricity flowing through a light bulb produces light. Functioning through a stereo, it produces sound. Operating through a heater, it causes heat. If only sattvic samskaras (peaceful habits) remain, saintly behavior will manifest, but rajas (egoism) and tamas (ignorance) can never be completely eliminated. If self knowledge came after a long period of diligent spiritual practice under the tutelage of a pure teacher, you will probably not catch enlightenment sickness. You would have lived in such a simple way that you were already happy before you discovered who you are, and there will be virtually no change in your inner life. You would have associated with enough truly enlightened people to understand that enlightenment is nothing special. But if you were not blessed with a sattvic disposition and excellent karma and you struggled long and hard, you will probably be so eager to make the most of your enlightenment that you will not take time to tidy up the last bits of ignorance. If you formulate your enlightenment as a grand happening and turn it into a big story, you have the enlightenment disease. In reality, you should be happy to keep your mouth shut because you did not get something you did not have all along. Awareness is your nature. By making a fuss about it, you are only calling attention to a long stay in ignorance, not to a special accomplishment. If you hear yourself telling others that you are awakened or enlightened or “cooked,” you have enlightenment sickness. Awakening is not enlightenment, because the self never slept. You are the fire that cooks, not the cooked food. Awakening means that some kind of insight or mystical experience happened, which you define as enlightenment. Enlightenment cancels the ego, so there is no one left to claim he or she is presently awakened. Or if the ego survived, it knows that the self—not it—is enlightened. At best you can say, “I am not enlightened, nor am I unenlightened,” because both enlightenment and endarkenment are simply ideas to you, awareness. Here are two examples of the specious logic of someone who has allowed the ego to co-opt his or her enlightenment: 1) “Consciousness is non-dual. This means that everything is the same as everything else. Therefore, the moral distinctions operating in the creation have no meaning. That is why I do what I want without regard for anyone or anything.” 2) “Reality is non-dual, therefore nothing ever happened. Therefore I do not exist. If I do not exist—I’m so not here!—my dualistic orientation does not exist. So if you see me acting like a self-centered jerk, it is a projection of your ignorance.” Or see what Sri Sureshvara in the 9th century said in the text Panchadasi: “One who says he is awareness yet refuses to discipline the senses is a shit-eating dog. Oh, enlightened one, before you got enlightened you suffered from the pain of your own mental imperfections, but now you suffer the censure of the world. How glorious is your knowledge? Knower of Truth, do not sink to the level of a pig in a sty! Free yourself from the defects arising from your Rajasic and Tamasic tendencies and be worshiped by the world like a god.” If you appreciate the comment of the thirteenth Zen master Dogen, the founder of Soto Zen, “Next to good manners enlightenment is the most important thing in the world,” you are a great soul. If not, not.