Search the Community

@Yamazaki Good work! Some heavy lifting done there. All very positive stuff. Your future trips can now go deeper into Truth. This was you getting your cup emptied of bullshit. You've felt a tinge of ego-death, but it gets way deeper. After you work through some of your worst fears, the immense beauty of nonduality will shine through. Take some time off and your mind will be back to normal in no time. 5g is a pretty strong dose, and mushrooms are pretty twisted. You might want to consider future trips on small doses of LSD or AL-LAD or the like, which give you more opportunity to contemplate and make sense of nonduality without getting your whole world flipped inside out.

@SOUL You make a good point with the dog exercise. We do and don't control our thoughts. We do and don't have free will. We are all one, yet we are separate. I completely buy into the concept of nonduality, yet all of our experience is set up on these fundamental examples of duality. The universe is obviously nondual, yet duality is the essence of our experience.

Hi there, Short introduction about myself : I have been on the spiritual path for about 2 years. My path is mostly focused on yoga, awareness and meditation. Leo's videos has indeed changed my life perspective. I have had many nonduality experiences, some short and some that lasted months. Recently I had my very first out of body experience. I have felt completely oneness before, which was very different of an OBE. So there I was.. lying down with headphones listening to binaural beats, my body just started moving accordinly to the wave of the beat - starting at 285hz. Slowly I realized I wasn't feeling my body, but the energy only. After about 40 minutes I thought I was feeling pain on my arm but then when I looked to it my arm wasnt there, not at the same level where I was... it was just a strong heavy wave of energy. Eventually I came back and with difficulty I puy my arms safely down behind my ears. I started leaving again, and felt a strong heavy wave of energy on what would be my face and it was similar to what I had experiencied earlier, but more on my face. I stayed on this higher level for about 40 minutes. When I came down I started doing yoga to keep moving the energy I had just experiencied and any time I would stay a few seconds without moving and focusing on my breath I would feel way beyond my body. Seems like I was experiencing a very strong energy field, perhaps much more than what my body can handle. This happened around 12:30pm to 2:30pm. That night I simply coudnt sleep until 5am and kept having the feeling of leaving my body, I felt the energy still strongly moving trough me. When I woke up, I had pain all over my body like I was hit by a truck. Any thoughts? Any advices ? ---- 1. It may sound silly but I didn't know binaural beats were created specifically for this purpose when this happened. I decided to listen to it with the intention to meditate with different sounds, not specifically grasping for a certain experience. 2. This path has way too many traps as Leo often says. I read many books on Leo's book list as well as about other 20 books that I found elsewhere, yet I am still lost on what to do next. Keep working with binaural beats to perhaps open my energy field even if it may be painful ?

@unknownworld I don't say they're invalid teachings. I just make fun of the way newbies misinterpret them. Buddha was definitely seeking. He sought so hard he nearly starved himself to death. You cannot even begin to appreciate that kind of seeking. Seeking is the whole path! You seek until you can seek no more. Telling people not to seek is worse than telling people to seek. The oldest Indian scriptures tell us to seek like our hair is on fire. What the Buddha called the Middle Path would make you shit your pants, it was so hardcore. Don't go romanticizing the Buddha, or Jesus, or Mahavira, as some softy Ekhart Tolle figure. They were certainly not that. The non-seeking is the organic END RESULT of seeking! You cannot skip the seeking part and go straight to non-seeking. Your logic is so silly! It's like saying, "Don't go to school to become a doctor. You already are one!" Yes, it's true, once you're a doctor, you no longer need to work hard at being a doctor. Of course! But you don't tell that to newbies. What you're doing is taking a nuanced piece of advice -- "Stop seeking" -- which was meant for highly advanced practitioners and hardcore seekers who've been seeking for years like their hair was on fire, and you're dolling it out to newbies who haven't truly seeked a day in their lives because they are so addicted to internet, TV, food, porn, shopping, success, family, work, ideologies of all kinds, etc. and expecting that to help them get enlightened. Well, it will have the opposite effect. All nonduality pointers and advice is contextual and individual. You need to match the medicine to the disease. The mind entangles itself in many ways, both to the right and to the left on the spectrum. The advice is only useful when it helps people mitigate their personal excesses. Excess of seeking is NOT most people's problem today. Complacency is the overwhelming problem. The proof is always in the results. If the Neo teachings worked as they are advertised, the whole world would be enlightened. And yet we have Trump for president. So it just doesn't pass muster. So much for Tolle's New Earth. The New Earth might turn out be nuclear winter. The problem you, and Ekhart Tolle and Rupert Spira, have to explain is why the whole world isn't enlightened, if no seeking is required. And also why the vast majority of the most-enlightened masters where such hardcore seekers that they abandoned their careers, houses, wives, and children. This whole non-seeking debate is just absurd. Just factually false and confuses newbies. The problem is not that they're trying too hard, it's that their trying too little. The 100 million Ekhart Tolle fans out there are trying too little. Which is why they aren't enlightened and don't even have a clue how serious enlightenment is. They are dabblers. And that's fine. But don't go spreading that dabbler mentality around here. You can go to Ekhart Tolle for that.

@username Organizing all this material in a comprehensive way is extremely challenging. There are so many traps and nuances and depths of understanding, all of which need to grounded in direct experience. It's really a life's work. I am trying to do it, but it will take a good 10-20 years. If you notice, very few teachings or teachers give you a comprehensive, big-picture view of anything, not even their one specialized domain, let alone all the important domains of life. They just give you tidbits. Because organizing it all in the right way takes 100x more work. For example, before one can talk about psychedelics properly, one has to try at least a dozen different ones in different ways. Almost nobody does that. They just speculate and give excuses. Show me a guru or teacher who has dozen 12 different psychedelics and understands nonduality. They don't exist.

What's happening is a reasoning from the ideological position of nonduality based on the concept that duality is a construct of the mind in which good/evil and right/wrong are just imaginary and symbolic but not 'real'. Although, to believe that someone who is "enlightened" would rape is to disregard many of the attributes expressed in enlightenment.

Lol, you ain't gonna master shit in 1 year. Least of all nonduality.

@username And how to I work towards being able to handle consciousness work? Yes, the thoughts feel like reality when they happen. Is meditation the ONLY way to overcome it? I meditated today for a first time after a long layoff and it felt great. Also, worthy of mentioning is that I'm not pursuing enlightenment right now. All the questions I'm asking and researching are just for schoolwork for my degree. And for me it's much easier to include nonduality in the schoolwork because none of my peers do that and I can get high grades easily with it. Though -> it leads to unconscious self inquiry and emotional labour. So what is actually happening is that I do advanced level stuff for school, stuff that I don't think I'm ready to integrate in my life yet at this level. I don't let myself go at my own pace. I remember Sadhguru saying the following as a metaphor for enlightenment: ”When you are not physically fit, climbing a mountain is extremely hard, but when you ARE physically fit, it's a pleasure to climb it.” Maybe I just haven't done enough meditation to be able to relate to my thoughts from a 3rd point of view, thus creating unnecessary suffering for myself, cutting myself with my own mind.

less than 1 year. in the beginning i would practice mindfulness intentionally 24/7. it required a lot of effort to stay present. but after a few months, the practice started to live in me and i wasn't doing it anymore. it was doing me. and it became completely effortless until this very moment. be careful not to fool yourself for an enlightened one works happily for his own living. i am a mathematician and i could be anything else. chop wood, carry water. be more sincere towards what you want. and by being sincere i mean go for it. if you want to live like a monk then do it. if you want to program then do it. as long as you don't practice any kind of violence, mastering nonduality has nothing to do with the role you play. it's exactly the opposite: knowing that you're not the role you play. when a man embodies truth, the result is the practice of all virtues. ask yourself if you're not letting yourself be filled with laziness.

One does not need a theoretical background at all. When I woke up, it was unlike anything I had ever read or studied before. (I had never read or studied about awakening/enlightenment or nonduality prior to waking up and realizing nonduality directly). So there was no theoretical background for me and yet it happened. I do not blog to provide a theoretical background. I just like talking about the subject. And there happens to be many who like reading about the subject. There are many questions and I answer them so I can talk about it. Also, there are misunderstandings and ongoing myths that I like pointing out. I know that for every question answered multiple more questions will arise...and I know that the thinking mind (of the questioner) will never get it. Enlightenment can not be figured out. Enlightenment does not come from acquiring the right knowledge. In fact, the accumulated knowledge may become an obstacle to enlightenment...because if that knowledge is wrong or misunderstood, you could wake up and then deny it because it does not conform the the prior knowledge you gained. And so this allows the ego to stay in power (this isn't it...so I need to do more)...instead of simply seeing through the ego and recognizing it for the mirage it is. The concepts won't liberate...they are just more chains. So when I am asked, how to wake up...I recommend to just be still, be quiet, be present...cease thinking and be 100% devoted to the experience of the moment. Then perhaps ask yourself but once, "who am I?" Then don't make any efforts to answer it, don't think, don't refer to past or future. Just be still, be silent, be present. Or variations...like what I posted to Afonso.

@ajasatya How long did it take for you to master nonduality? At what point did you feel like you've mastered nonduality? Has mastering nonduality negatively affected your relationship to mathematics in any way? As one masters nonduality, I would assume that one would become averse to mathematics because mathematics is "just" comprised of arbitrary concepts (incredibly useful concepts, though). I sometimes have a hard time engaging in learning programming because I know that everything I'm learning has no significance outside of programming. To me, it's again just layers of arbitrary concepts. After discovering the idea of enlightenment, the whole field of knowledge, to me, appears tainted with an aura of fakeness and illusion. @spinc A domain of mastery is what you're choosing to spend 10,000 hours on. You can master anything given enough time, regardless of how comfortable you feel with the domain right now. I don't run my own business (yet), but I'm involved in a startup. I will go to university to study mathematics and computer science, but will also be quick to drop out if I can't align the course with my goals. Being an autodidact, learning from books, mentors and doing seems a lot faster. But no university makes 60k/yr per student telling them to learn on their own, so of course most people don't go the autodidact route straight out of high school. @Leo Gura The work that he and you are doing is incredible no doubt. Many people would be enlightened if they were open minded enough and applied the advice you both teach. But most people hardly let themselves hear the advice, let alone start meditating for 10,000 hours. As @spinc worded it well, I'm asking if there's anything you've learned that would make the idea of facilitating the access to spirituality via biotechnology impossible. From what I understand, 5-MeO-DMT forces the ego to shut down. That leads me to believe that there are other biological "tricks" that could be developed.

mastering nonduality leaded me to true peace of mind. everything i do in my life comes from that state. every thought, word and action. every decision, including not to think. my mind is steady and everything in my life have flourished. i'm WAY more tender. all my relationships have improved. my sexual life has tremendous quality and i'm being able to heal my parents (slowly). i can focus on my professional tasks (mathematics) and inspiration comes naturally and with ease. nobody can be led to enlightenment. one has to follow his very own intuition by using his suffering as his fuel. there's no other way.

Leo, your life purpose course is excellent! A couple months after implementing your advice I'm already making more money doing what I enjoy (programming) than I'd have ever expected. 100% worth it. I have some questions though: Can nonduality be a domain of mastery? If so, what kind of life purpose can mastery over nonduality lead to (meditation teacher, for example)? What fields can one create big breakthroughs and innovate by mastering nonduality? When you interviewed Peter Ralston, he mentioned that more people would be enlightened if they were more open minded and contemplated. Is there any fundamental reason why one couldn't create a technology that would modify humans to have more of those qualities (through gene editing for example) so that we could get almost everyone enlightened? If there are ways, what fields would be best to investigate to create these technologies? The quickedt catalyst for this path seems to be psychedelics, and very few do them let alone for spirituality. @Leo Gura

@Leo Gura Morality is not relative. How can morality be relative when it is based in empathy. This is where the the golden rule comes from. Basically instead of changing our actions to line up with our morals, we change our perspective to nonduality so we can justify them. Seems too self-centered and egotistical. Also i didnt see Jesus kill and then justify his actions with this nihilistic view. If something goes against self agenda it is the mere idea of action. What is more threatening to the individual, to bone up and line up his actions to his values and morals or to adopt a nihilistic paradigm that allows him to do whatever he wants? If non duality is so perfect, the enlightened ones wouldn't mind if someone tried to kill them. At the end of the day it would save some children from unessecary rape

@Pierre No. That cannot help at all. Value doesn't exist. Neither does hierarchy. Nonduality means: No values No heirarchies No parts No meanings No good/evil No stories No levels of importance No immorality It's utterly groundless. To infinity.

@Alii How many times do we have to say that you can be an enlightened rapist? Enlightenment changes nothing. You can think of it this way: everyone is already enlightened, including Hitler. EVERYTHING is GOOD. There are no restrictions upon reality. It can do whatever the hell it wants. To be at peace with that, is to be enlightened. To not be at peace with that, is also to be enlightened. If you imagine yourself becoming the most morally perfect human being of all time, more moral than Jesus, you will be not one ounce better than Hitler. That is nonduality. So all your ideas about how enlightened people "ought" to be behave are just that -- your ideas, not the Truth. People are free to behave in all the ways the human body/mind is able to behave. How do you know it's Good? Because it's happening. Don't be questioning God's creation with that little mind of yours You will always be wrong. Which of course, is just how it's supposed to be. Not only did he eat a cheeseburger, we went to the best strip club in town and I bought him a lap dance so this stripper with perfect, melon-sized boobs smeared him across his face. And he enjoyed it. Fun was had by all. That's life. So throw all your moralizing in the trash. It has nothing to do with enlightenment. If you're thinking enlightenment will make you a good person, think again. If you were an asshole before enlightenment, you'll likely be an asshole long after enlightenment. God creates assholes, after all. Assholes are an integral part of creation. Just look at Trump

@alyra In relation to words, yes, there is not nonduality without duality but in reality wholeness exists without duality existing. Even if we would divide the wholeness in half to create a perceived duality it still isn't really a duality because it consists of three parts, the two contrasting parts and the whole. So our mind will fixate on the perceived two contrasting halves it thinks it sees in duality while not realizing the whole, which is something that either of the two halves are not and cannot be in of themselves.

I don't even really like to use the term nonduality because it implies that duality exists as some basis to contrast which forms another duality in mistaken perception through the premise.

what duality duality is nonduality. this is the meaning of nonduality. yes, transcend the belief. but, before enlightenment... chop wood carry water.. after enlightenment.. chop wood, carry water. edit: you see the yin and the yang. they are a duality. but the yin and yang represents nonduality.. do you see? you cannot have nonduality without duality. you cannot have transcension without beliefs. transcending beliefs is not removing beliefs - just as removing the yang from yin-yang will leave yang behind in its place.

@Martin123 Ooooh thank god. I just get really tired. I see a trend where everybody that starts getting into no-self, spirituality and nonduality suddenly start twisting all common language around and just see ”ego here”, ”ego there” like a sniper when you're just trying to use common goddamn language. Like, to some people, I just tell them that ”I ate a chocolate” and they just start blabbering : ”There's no you to eat a chocolate. It's an illusion” and stuff like that. It gets really obnoxious. You might have experienced it, haha.

The realization of nonduality comes after the fact of experiencing duality. You cannot experience non-duality (to 'experience' is dualistic), you can only know of it, so the only way to experience the truth is through realization. Breaking the belief, as with other beliefs, is a matter of habit. Find ways to remind yourself of the truth regularly, via meditation, reading insightful spiritual works, etc.

so consciousness work and nondual spirituality/philosophy and self actualization... they ultimately lead to this declaration that - there is no self, physical existence is illusory, all that is real is awareness and that is a tricky devil. nonduality, idk how to capture it well in words but basically the idea that the best life is the monk's life working full time to reach the highest stages of consciousness possible. But I say, that in and of itself is identity, duality, moralization of right and wrong, and inherently that decision (like any decision) is dogmatic. Yes, so is what I am saying here, also dogmatic. but the argument then is to say that sure of course consciousness work sounds like dogma because you can only discuss it in words, and that is where the dogma lies. but I counter with the point that even awareness itself is illusory, is no different from sensation or thought, and as thought is a tricky thing which pretends to not be thought! Leo and some others have hinted at how there is real direct experience from consciousness work that is definitely not thought and is definitely infinite and nothingness and god and enlightenment. and IDK I feel as if I have had tastes of this what they speak of so I'm not saying this from ignorance please but - inherently experience itself is illusory. In fact I say, as long as we are conscious at all, we prove that we are not nondual. well, yes nonduality is the true existence - but we as a "local experience" of existence are inherently dual, only dual, and cannot Truly be nondual in our consciousness. Naturally - the monk dedicating their life to experience as close to nondual infinity, to god as they can possibly get - that is valid and honorable and kudos to any who dedicate their life to it. But There is no such thing as inauthenticity, as low consciousness, or anything similar. If this local experience I call me acts in a "low consciousness" way, that IS authentic. And mindfulness work is only at its basic form - focusing on increasing our internal experience to be more present, and on transcending illusions. Farming the field before, farming the field after. If I understand the goals of nonduality, consiousness, and ETC and work to encorporate the teachings as they apply to my local illusory life, Then I am self-actualizing just as much as the sage in the monastery. If I go it my path, I inherently am doing it authentically. to be "more authentic" is an illusion itself. Is there any counter argument to this?

@electroBeam, motivation and drive are something the ego wants. That is what is needed for work - things you don't want to do. Ask a child "what is your motivation or drive to play?"...and you will have a very confused child. Or you might get the reply...because it is fun. But what is play...but fun. So it is having fun for the sake of having fun. This is play...no motivation needed. Life can be like this too. You can do it just for the fun of it. You might think it would be fun to be a doctor (children play doctor and you can play doctor for real). But to play doctor in a hospital, you have to go to school...you have to get good grades...and so there is the pre-qualifying game of school that must be passed in order to play doctor in a hospital. And so you have fun in school, doing the "school work", because that is part of the game. This would be playing at becoming a doctor...as a pre-qualifier to playing a doctor in a hospital. Like all games...you sometimes lose. And so, while playing to becoming a doctor...you may run out of money and not be able to finish school..and thus not be able to play at being a doctor. That is OK...now play the game of finding financing for school or you could find an entirely new game to play. You can do whatever you want in this life. But do not put conditions on your happiness or enjoyment on only winning. The game - win or lose - is just for fun. It is not about future seeking...but present seeking. As for me, I am playing a mid-aged man who plays at being the husband to a wife and plays at being a father to a daughter. I play the game of corporate recruiting (playing as a recruiter) during the day...which funds (not unlike playing monopoly, life, cash flow, etc.) my house, cars, vacations, etc. I play at playing the drums at kirtans or drum jams whenever I see them available. I play poker in the bar league most Thursdays. I play at being a blog writer about nonduality and awakening. And more. I am having a blast and am enjoying myself immensely. Why do I do it? Because it's fun.

sorry to post here again but in reflection of the question as well as what I said I've recalled two more things that are frequently on my mind but in not knowing how to handle them as well as in the lack of direct issue in them, I put off tackling them. one is regarding meditation. often people speak of the importance of it because there's something to find, revelation to have, enlightenment. but since I've first been made aware of this journey, I've certainly grown in regards to the self, awareness, consciousness, and nonduality. but not once did I find some exciting, necessary, euphoric sense of sudden knowing, not do I see any reason to expect this - perhaps because I'm more predisposed for these discoveries than most, idk. but I just don't find any reason to prioritize self-inquiry not to look for or expect or even describe the journey as enlightenment. I don't see merit in focusing on nonduality or dismantling the illusion of reality much more than I already have - not because I'm fooled into thinking I've already got these all, no, lol. I can see many ways in which I certainly don't got 'em. but my growth in these engravers advance slightly as my mindfulness work often involves my mind wandering in their direction; I grow naturally in their regard and am more driven to focus on more pragmatic assets to the shortness of my human life such as strategy and focus and motivation, or social skills of various kinds, or etc. I do recognize how the nondual/"enlightenment" stuff applies to all of those endeavours as well, and as I've mentioned I do advanced them as they come to mind in my mindfulness work, but I've no interest in sedimentary meditation and am not sure if that is a problem or if it is a fair call to make. naturally this is hard to wrap my head around it because of the inherent moralization of a decision. but that could just be a silly comment over broadening the term moralization to the point where the way illusion itself manifests is moralization the second thing I'm reminded of is general. it comes up in all endeavours. not knowing how to act because of the discussion regarding moralization, self, nonduality, and moreover the social implications of emotional awareness, skepticism, illusion, and overall holding lines of thought to decide action in the moments and shirt run, but letting go of it outside of application of action. and I'm not sure if these are problems per se as much as a lack of decision-making and focus. and I don't know how I could contemplate the concerns to resolve them, nor if that extent really is necessary. (oh and physical and dietary health) I am sure you'd tell me to just start a meditation practice but that is part of the issue - if I'd meditate it'd be contemplation over strategy, focus and life purpose, not over these, and I honestly don't feel that's a mistake. I'm not convinced these concerns I've mentioned in this post aren't going to naturally be resolved over time with the methods I'm currently taking. I'm not convinced they're a problem so much as a facet of growth. so the true concern is worrying whether that sense of comfort with the discomfort is a trap or an accurate assessment of patience. (naturally I'm not going to debate any response I receive from these two posts, as simply voicing my concerns is the topic of the thread, not convincing you my practical beliefs are anything more than arbitrary choice. and, the act of typing out my thoughts itself helps me handle approaching them, as my mindfulness practice - tho weak during discourse - is present in discourse)

From point of view of story/ego there is past, now and future From point of view of observing awareness, future is seen as unmanifested pure potential, the past is seen as the manifested storyline/movie/dream. The now is seen as a bunch of sights, thoughts, sensations, feelings, stuffness that is known. Looking at he storyline and the potential are seen as things that create duality, because of the simple truth that there is only now. Why base our sense of self from something we clearly know don't exist? The now moment is like an intersection point and the gate from egoic mind of past future and now to awareness of the content of now and awareness of awareness itself, whichis you, now - things could not be simpler. You can switch between the two even. Ego death is instant when you see you are the awareness. You can identify with what awareness points to and it is not egoic identification, because it is actually truth. It can never ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever be taken from you, because whatever is taken from you, you remain. If you identify with awareness, it is the mind, recognising it's own true nature. The mind itself is made of awareness, so it would not be false for any mind to say they are awareness, unless they dont see what the word awareness points to, and it points to you, the you that cannot be outside the now Ever, unless it's dreaming. Let's wake the fuck up, as Mooji says, nonduality teachings are giving us the most important thing as Baby food!!!! This is the easy and most direct path. Dont expect that you need to suffer or experience feelings of dread. Your ego will not die if it is truth, in which case it is not ego at all. Because ego is the illusion. So take your place as awareness now and you will never have to die.