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You forget this is not the nonduality godhead section of the forum
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You mean the kind of people who think that nonduality is somehow better than duality and can be experienced without it?
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Leo Gura replied to r0ckyreed's topic in Spirituality, Consciousness, Awakening, Mysticism, Meditation, God
You will not understand God by realizing that water is wet. That is not serious God-Realization. That's just ratty nonduality. -
Yimpa replied to CoolDreamThanks's topic in Spirituality, Consciousness, Awakening, Mysticism, Meditation, God
And then there’s nonduality…. ”Who am I?” -
Guest replied to BlackPhil's topic in Spirituality, Consciousness, Awakening, Mysticism, Meditation, God
Recognize the trap for what it is. A figment of your imagination. The bottomless hole is always there. The relative content is nothing but its very own expression. Nonduality and Duality are two sides of the exact same coin! To recognize the formlessness that expresses itself through form is entering the kingdom of God. No need to get rid of anything, brother. -
And just a symbol.
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Yimpa replied to Inliytened1's topic in Spirituality, Consciousness, Awakening, Mysticism, Meditation, God
Everyone learns at their own pace. If you would have asked me just a year ago if nonduality and enlightenment is the highest teaching, I would have said yes. I’m also not claiming that I am perfect. There’s plenty of stuff in the human domain that I lack experience with! -
Around Nov/Dec last year, I had read, watched (including Leo's excellent videos, which have impacted my metaphysics deeply) and contemplated Nonduality long enough for it to start breaking down old structures apart. There was an earth shattering realization about my work in science: science isn't probably going to answer the questions I wanted answered. To make matter worse, something inside me had realized this well in advance and I found that I had hit a huge wall of procrastination (though I didn't understand it at the time). My work life was suffering and at the same time, though I had zeroed in on self-inquiry in my Nondual exploration, I had no idea how to actually do it. There were multiple points of confusion: 1) How to exactly self inquire? 2) How to integrate it with the rest of my life 3) What is the guiding principle to orient my actions in the relative world, and what relation it has to Nonduality? Around that time, I came across this megathread started by Akilesh/@winterknight: I was quite impressed with his answers and, like many of you, I had a sense that they were coming from an authentic place. I started talking to him one on one and finally I opted for weekly phone conversations for a guidance fee. I also read his book, How to find what isnt lost, in the process. As our personal interaction started, things started to unravel and settle down in coming weeks and months. First and foremost, he helped my understand my own procrastination. He guided me through multiple 'hitting the wall' moments of self-inquiry, resolved many existential doubts, and helped me avoid many of the subtle traps of a spiritual path. He explained my many doubts about Advaitan metaphysics and how exactly it related to self-inquiry. I finally reached a point where things were integrated enough for life and self-inquiry to be self-sustainable. There is a harmonious life now, well integrated with a background spiritual inquiry, that comes to foreground multiple times on a given day. There is content and peace and, equally importantly, a healthy engagement with the relative world. I can honestly say that this transition wouldn't have been possible, or at least would have taken much longer, it it weren't for Akilesh's personalized help. My orientation to nonduality is Truth, so I really appreciated that he did not sugarcoat his statements. He was brutally honest at times, and he did what many teachers don't do: accepted at points that enlightenment doesn't mean you know answer to every question. In fact there are many important questions on which there are speculations, but no definite answer. No one knows. This really helped my mind settle down into unknowingness. How to find what isn't lost was an excellent concise instructional book on modern perspective on Advaita and, more importantly, how to actually practice self inquiry. Most books on self inquiry are those claiming to be by Ramana Maharshi; but they are actually not written by him. It's always compiled and translated by someone else and is in Q&A format, and it is very hard to extract the exact instructions of the practice, especially for a beginner. So if you are interested in self-inquiry, you must give it a try. I am writing it here so in case you relate to the place I was at, you can give what worked for me a try as well.
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Long story short: The ultimate nature is playful I am eternal I am timeless I delight in my own creation Short story long: Hello friends It has been a while Nine months have passed since I fried my ass off with 200µg of LSD last Septemeber. After a lot of integration and working on myself in everyday life I found myself in a good spot to drop some acid again. Once more tripping all alone; no tripsitter, no safety nets. This time at an isolated place in a nature reserve where I am currently working but with half the dose – 100µg of LSD. I was worried the acid might have lost some of it’s potency due to being stored at room temperature for over a year now, but these worries were unjustified In comparison to my last trip: Less visuals, less sacred geometry. No Kechari Mudra this time ;-) Deeper, more raw energetic kundalini stuff + some surprises More Death | more Non-Dual | more Love ! So here’s what happened: 18:00pm : I drop the tab, read “The teachings of Don Juan” and listened to the fabulous “Leylines” Album by Aes Dana. ~18:45pm: Can't read anymore, I start dancing. Dancing is great way in & out of the trip. Strong desire to be more aware of my body. Exploring energy moving through the shoulders and neck – I should straighten up my posture! Only slight patterns and visuals at this point, but my mind is already going places.. After some dancing I come to a dead end, gently drop to the floor, arms out to the sides, and watch myself die. I seem to somehow have skipped the comeup and directly went from "barely any effect" to "full blow trip"! Tingling at the base of the spine, light in my head. Here the unspeakable territory of yogic states begins. This is what I saw Dry analysis is ego, Light shines through in emotions This life is my offering to you, Shiva Angels and demons guard the same door Ravenous energies moving up the spine With pleasure I kiss shut deaths eye How does a self self-terminate? In the end there is nothing you do, you just give in to what was your deepest desire all along – you surrender and explode in ecstasy! There was no-Self to begin with! Oh dear Lord! Self-awareness kicks back in, but the meditator within me doesn’t want the endless orgasm to end – “I can last longer!” – so he keeps the body unmoving and goes for some more rounds on the strange-loop of (non)existence. I arise from my ecstatic slumber. I get up and go the bathroom, pulled by strings beyond my control, and face myself in the mirror. Hard to explain what happened there. I see myself as I am, with all my tensions and imperfections. My face morphs through various beings, from angelic benevolent rabbits to demonic shapeshifting lizards. From time to time my reflection disappears comepletely, leaving just the empty bathroom. I take off my clothes, look at my body. Imperfect by flawless design. Divine, tempting! I watch myself transform into a woman – androgynous mastermind Goddamn shapeshifters! ;-) I walk back to the living room and sit down on the floor, meditation posture. I vividly experience “energetic blockages” in the right side of my body, specifically in the right abdomen slightly above the navel. Left is conscious, right is unconscious. I had been increasingly aware of several “dysfunctions” on the right side of my body over the last months, now it all was very clear. The root of the energetic distortion lies deep within the right side of the pelvis, hard to explain. This is my karma, this is the work I have to do! For the first time I connect this to the appendectomy I had 10 years ago. I repressed the entire procedure! I let the memories surface with as much love and awareness as possible. Funny to look at it from the nondual perspective; I cut out a party of myself Because it would have killed me Interesting That was the first part of the trip, the peak; Surrendering, experiencing some esoteric/mystic/ occult/ecstatic far far out stuff you can’t talk about without being tackled from left and right, merging with the Absolute, reentering into karmic existence and clearing out some baggage on the way. Lovely. The second part of the trip was all about embodiment of nondual consciousness and how I fail at doing that. Huge lesson. Here's what happened: I stand up as God, as Myself. I look out of the window; flawless nature, the sun is setting. I gaze into the sun. Aligning the small ego self with the big Godself. Merging with love, drowning in love Infinite Pleasure, Infinite Love, Infinite Death, Infinite Anything Hey, babe… I’m the sun I love it all so much; I want to go outside, I want to be with my creation! Egoic fear starts surfacing. I know I am all alone out here in nature, but it could be possible for some coworkers to come by. They can’t see me like this, walking through the garden, all ego-less!? Inner conflict. The same resistance you feel when for the first time engaging someone you truly love; fear of how it will turn out, fear of the unknown. But an irresistible urge to do so anyways. You have to trust, and step forward with love! I put on some shorts (huge mistake! :D) and made my way outside. Why did I even lock the door? Was I afraid someone would come by, rob, rape and murder me? I just kicked in my own front door and shot myself in the head! (with Love) Nothing to be afraid of now, hahaha It feels good to be outside But there are still old patterns, memories… God would have just walked off into the wilderness I turned right and slowly, consciously, step by step approached the garden and with it my synchronicity moment of the year, a funny little allegory about psychedelics and God-Consciousness; God-Me walks into his garden and sees a rabbit, feasting and nibbling on the tasty, fresh and young strawberries God-Me had planet just a week ago. Gotcha! God-Me stands still and intensely focuses his piercing gaze on the God-Rabbit. The rabbit abruptly stops eating, crouches and contracts in fear. God-Me loosens his tight gaze, squats down, extends his hand and mentally says “It’s okay you little rascal, come here, I want to love you!” The rabbit runs away. What a shame, I just wanted to love it. I sit down and reflect. If I really am myself, the rabbit, the strawberries and the garden, what does this mean? No time to reflect. I hear the sound of an approaching car - coworkers incoming!! They can’t see me like this, sitting in the garden all ego-less! With fear I contract and run back into the house. I am the rabbit! I want it to happen without drugs, that’s the only excuse I have Fear is the basic mechanism of separation; fear of Death, fear of Love, fear of Self Back inside, back inside my egoic safe space. I realize there was no car approaching at all. I just imagined it. What a shame, I could have just loved it. Too much of this love kills me Inside I sit in meditation and contemplate what just happened. I realize I have to give it another try, I have to come out of hiding. In addition to the shorts I put on a shirt and again venture outside. Now I feel more comfortable about being outside. I have to slowly adjust myself to these new levels of consciousness. So much energy in the system. I sit in meditation. Again I hear the sound of a car approaching. Same old fear, wanting to run inside. But NO! I am creating this! And I choose to create out of Love, not out of fear! I sit still. No coworkers. So much energy!! I get up and spontaneously do some impromptu Tai-Chi / Kung-Fu / Martial Arts. So that’s what that stuff is all about! Most of it must have looked uncoordinated and weird – my first real training session! Some of those movements however… If you really focus, intensely zone in… Mind&Matter moving together This is how God creates! Directly – effortless will I TaiChi-myself into a fascinating realization: Who cares about a few mosquito bites… I am a motherucking MACHINE ELF! The intelligence that guides the separation, the code that runs the divine operating system! Eternally recreating myself… My heart bursts open, it feels so good to be back, I missed myself so much! Like a father, like a mother, like a son, like a daughter, like a brother, like a sister, like a teacher, like a friend, like a lover “I love you!” Is that really true? “Sure babe, I’d tell you anything. I AM you!” Not much happened after that, I was just awake for 6 more hours. I meditated in the house, again naked but wrapped in a blanket, exploring visions of myself as a Sage, bathing in this new awareness. Dealing with the aftermath of chemically induced kundalini, trying to get the energy out of the system… Then I fell asleep at around 6:00am Takeaways from the trip: Love! A call to authenticity and spontaneity! I already am on that path, just gotta keep on walking… The destination is radical but it is worth it! (+there is no other option lol) Getting more grounded in the body! More Yoga, maybe start doing TaiChi. There were two more paragraphs I wanted to write. One about how I failed my own Zen Koan challenge (realized the answer but didn’t act it out). The other about Love only being perceived when there is something to be loved. But I don’t know how to express that without starting nonduality-wars ;-) So I’ll just leave it at that. Here’s a goodie for you to chew on: I am that I (1) create the Two (and remain in between) Did you get it? Love you all!
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Exystem replied to PurpleTree's topic in Spirituality, Consciousness, Awakening, Mysticism, Meditation, God
Who or what would be the knower? Is the knower known or unknown? If the knower is known, who or what is its knower? Nothing is everything. Nothing is absolute and everything is relative. Nothing is unknown and everything is known. Just play of words. Everything is as known as the birds chirping. No meaning, no purpose, just birds chirping - not even that - whats a bird, whats chirping aside from words, thoughts? What is a word/thought made of? Other words/thoughts. What is a word/thought? Nobody knows. So nothing is known in that sense. But birds chirping appears! So its 100% known, isnt it? So everything is known like that, since it appears. But not in words, words cloud the clear seeing of what is, apparently. Which is another story, bunch of words. Go listen to emerson nonduality on youtube like you would listen to birds chirping. Hes got a lot of videos about the unknowing/unknown -
Spiritual Warrior replied to De Sade's topic in Spirituality, Consciousness, Awakening, Mysticism, Meditation, God
Stages purple, blue, and green are more spiritual than the rest of the stages in tier one of the spiral imo, take a look at those and see what you resonate with. You probably won't resonate with purple but you may want to get into stage blue or green; stage blue is organized religion based spirituality and green is love based, heart-centered spirituality. But I don't think true non-duality can be discovered until you reach tier two thinking (yellow and beyond), this is when you start to take your ego out of the equation and start looking at the world from a lens of "what is true?" If you're serious about nonduality, then study yellow and turquoise and see if you can start to engage in activities that will get you into truth work where you can have some insights into nonduality. -
Greetings, fellow seekers of truth, Due to a lengthy discussion that I've had recently with an esteemed forum member about the topic of duality / nonduality, I thought it might be good to provide some further clarification and present what I'd like to call "the axis of reality". Keep in mind that the following is of course only an abstract symbolic representation of reality, NOT reality itself. So, without further ado... here it is: Duality = Form = Experience = REALITY = Consciousness = Formlessness = Nonduality Note that these seven words are all ultimately referring to the exact same thing; they are simply seven aspects of the One Thing in existence. There is no question that the overwhelming majority of people who are living on this planet are completely absorbed in the left side of this axis (Duality = Form = Experience); it's not so much that they don't see reality as it is, but rather they only see one specific part of it. Now, most so-called spiritual teachings are generally geared towards making people who are "lost" on the left side become aware of the right side. This is not about leading them from the wrong side to the right one; this is about making them see the whole glorious picture, for reality would be incomplete without either one of these two flanks. So when we say things like "duality is just an appearance", "form is illusion" or "there are no human beings inside human bodies", these are not expressions of truth; such phrases are nothing but pointers that are supposed to show you the pathway that leads from left to right. You can think of them as signposts that those who have managed to grasp the entirety of the axis leave for the other folks so that they know where to look for the missing piece of the puzzle. (Psychedelics too are vehicles, if you will, that take you on a journey from left to right and back again. It is however up to you to put the pieces together afterwards and develop an unfragmented awareness of the complete picture; that's why allowing for enough integration time in between your "peeks" is of vital importance. I cannot stress this last part enough!) Again: The right part of the axis is NOT more real than the left part. The mistake that many spiritual seekers make is that once they have become aware of the Consciousness = Formlessness = Nonduality side of the equation, they all of a sudden think that this part is literally all that there is to reality.. which it isn't. Instead of seeing the whole picture, they have just traded one kind of narrow tunnel vision for another. Being completely absorbed in the right side of the axis is every bit as delusional as being absorbed in the left side. So if your pendulum has swung all the way from one extreme to the other and now is stuck there, your awareness is just as lopsided as the awareness of those who have never made that transition in the first place... which can wreak all kinds of dysfunctional havoc in your life. What is the solution? Very simple: Just allow the pendulum to swing back to the center and rest in REALITY; and from there, let your awareness expand in both directions simultaneously, into infinity. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is what we call "awakening". Hope this helps.
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Spiritual Warrior replied to Spiritual Warrior's topic in Spirituality, Consciousness, Awakening, Mysticism, Meditation, God
I appreciate the responses. For those that are interested, here's a list of the facets taken from Leos video: Facet of the Non-dual State: To enter a non dual state, to experience a mystical experience Facet of No-self: Realizing that the identity as a human self is an illusion Facet of I-am - Realizing that you are pure I-am ness, this is what the true Self is Facet of the Universe: You experience the entire universe Facet of Omni Presence: Realizing that the I-am-ness is not located anywhere - it's located simultaneously everywhere and no where Facet of Consciousness: You realize what consciousness is and that consciousness is all that there is Facet of Awakening: You realize what it truly means to awaken - you realize that you're entire life is a dream, you literally wake up from your dream state Facet of Oneness or Nonduality: You fully realize that you are one with everything, all boundaries are connected in a unified field of consciousness Facet of Truth: You realize that truth is absolutely everything, you realize what Truth really means Facet of the Absolute: You realize what it means for something to be absolute and not relative, absolute is something that is true under all conditions Facet of Absolute Infinity: You realize that consciousness is infinite, and you experience what infinity is Facet of Absolute Nothingness: You realize that everything is made out of absolutely nothingness, that's what reality is, absolute nothingness, infinity is synonymous with nothingness Facet of Why is There Something Rather than Nothing: You realize that something is the exact same thing as nothing - there is no difference between the two Facet of God: You have a direct encounter with God, you become conscious of what God is Facet of I am God: You realize that you are God Facet of Self Equals Other: The collapse of the boundary between you and other, all other entities are an illusion, you realize that you are all one, therefore you are totally alone Facet of Love: Becoming conscious of what infinite, absolute love is, and that love and truth are identical Facet of Infinite Mind: You realize that everything is Infinite Mind, everything is being imagined in this cosmic, universal mind, God's mind Facet of Self Design: You realize that you are creating and designing yourself, as well as the entire universe Facet of Birth: you realize that you were not born at all, that story is imaginary, you were born by imagining that you were born, you've been alive forever, you've always existed Facet of the Absolute Now: You realize that there is no past and future, everything that has ever happened is happening right now, this moment is completely eternal, you realize that time is an illusion Facet of Death: You realize that death is imaginary, death is impossible, you are totally immortal and eternal because God cannot die Facet of Heaven: you realize that reality is absolute perfection - you have no more fear of death because you realize that death is not real- when you realize that you are immortal, you are in heaven Facet of Bliss: Once you realize that you are living in heaven and that all there is is infinite love, you experience a state of eternal bliss Facet of Infinite Intelligence: You realize that consciousness is infinitely intelligent, you realize that the intelligence of human beings is a tiny little infinitesimal part of infinite intelligence, everything is intelligence Facet of Absolute Goodness: You realize that everything in the universe is absolutely Good, there is no evil Facet of Infinite Will: You realize that everything that is happening right now is happening through the will of God Facet of Infinite Power: God and Will is totally unlimited, you realize that God can do anything and everything because there is nothing outside of God that can limit it, God can limit a human but nothing can limit God Facet of Omniscience: The state of knowing everything Facet of Divinity: You realize what divinity is, what magic is, there's a profound mystery to everything, you realize that you don't know anything about being Facet of Being: You realize what being is, you realize what the substance of reality is Facet of Infinite Fractal: You realize that the universe is an infinite fractal Facet of Perception: You realize what is perception Facet of Life: You realize what it means to be alive and that everything within the universe is alive, the whole system is alive Facet of Purpose: You realize what the purpose of anything and everything that occurs within the universe is, and it is love, your love as God is the purpose of everything -
Guest replied to Princess Arabia's topic in Spirituality, Consciousness, Awakening, Mysticism, Meditation, God
Hey, how was breakfast? Look, I just came up with another illustration that might help to get my point across... and of course, it involves my beloved Yin & Yang symbol. As you might have heard me say before, this symbols represents the experienceability of unity (nonduality) through form (duality). Or to put it in slightly less fancy terms: The whole thing is God, and the white and black shapes that it is made of is all of the stuff through which God expresses and experiences itself. Now imagine the white part of the symbol waking up one day and saying "hooooly cow, I think I just realized something... I AM EVERYTHING!! White is all there is, there is no black! Black is just white's imagination!! WHITE AND GOD ARE LITERALLY ONE AND THE SAME THING!!!" Do you see how utterly absurd that would be? And yet this is exactly what Solipsists are saying. They claim that the part of the whole is the whole itself... which is obviously (?) preposterous. Amirite? -
Water by the River replied to BlessedLion's topic in Spirituality, Consciousness, Awakening, Mysticism, Meditation, God
The "people" have the exact same Pure Impersonal Consciousnes/Awareness as their essence as "you" and "I". That is an obvious fact once you realize your own True Being. There is only That Infinite Reality/Consciousness. You see and realize your own Impersonal Pure Being in them also. That is the meaning of True Nonduality. That is the source of love. For the other "people": Notice the non-euclidian (infinite) space in the vision below. And now just forget all the other perspectives (forgetting not in time, but in space so to say). That is how you splice up Infinite Consciousness, and forget that YOU are all other beings/persepctives. The people/beings are just perspectives in Indras Great Net, reflecting each other, and that Impersonal Pure Infinite Consciousness/Awareness is the True You. Every "other" appeance (of the world, such as a tree) you see as as its essence THAT Infinite Pure Impersonal Consciousness in a nondual way. That is what becomes totally obvious with Full Enlightenment. There is only That/You. "You do agree that people have no POV just like in your dreams right ?" That is exactly the pretty nuts wrong interpretation of Solipsism. Why do you even talk to "others" if you hold that as true? Pretty unnecessary, isn't it? And space and time are of course imaginary. But one more thing: If all is imaginary, everything is just as real as anything else. Because if there is only imagination, there are no degrees of "real". Including that sentence and this insight. -
SeaMonster replied to TheEnigma's topic in Spirituality, Consciousness, Awakening, Mysticism, Meditation, God
She's partly awakened and somewhat based when it comes to intersexual dynamics, so I guess that raises her above a vast majority of content providers. Being quite above "normal people" is not a high bar to clear these days, which is kind of sad. A "normal person" isn't remotely close to being stabilized in nonduality Stage 1, e.g., so that automatically puts you in the 1%, and probably even the 0.1%. -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-QCCz4mtd0E I'm not sure if the artist was going for this, I read briefly the song was written about someone with addiction. But doesn't it sound like he's talking nonduality?
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Leo Gura replied to BlessedLion's topic in Spirituality, Consciousness, Awakening, Mysticism, Meditation, God
How many psychotic gurus have you seen? Why are you so biased against psychotic breaks? It's too hard to explain. I don't know how to explain it. I have given plenty of explanation of problems with Buddhism. But the really deep problem cannot be explained so simply. I'm in the process of articulating it to myself. And it's hard to do that when I'm being gaslit by them on the regular. A certain orbital escape velocity much be reached to transcend Buddhism + Nonduality + enlightenment. Which is why you don't see many people escaping it. -
So I was that excellent A grader back in primary and secondary school. I was polite, I was nice and I had poor social skills. And I had this complex that my head is too big. I mean it was huge but nothing to be shy about. But back then it was a real deal. And everyone was laughing at me. They called me the TV-guy, Square-guy, Huge-Head and so on. In high school this complex gone away as I healed myself a little bit. But it was still a present to certain extent and some people still made laugh at me. And the moment it stopped bothering me, people stopped making laugh of me. That's such an example of nonduality it shocks and terrifies me. Wow. It was all in me. My head haven't suddenly shrink. It was the same for years, since secondary school. Crazy. Do you have some other proofs?
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Oppositionless replied to davecraw's topic in Spirituality, Consciousness, Awakening, Mysticism, Meditation, God
because everything isn’t one, everything YOU experience is YOUR dream but there are infinite dreams. nonduality is a gross oversimplification. -
Water by the River replied to BlessedLion's topic in Spirituality, Consciousness, Awakening, Mysticism, Meditation, God
Pretty much every meditation traditions differentiates between the preliminary awakenings/enlightenments (both words used) and the final big shift. The former ones prepare the mindstream for finally understanding what lies "beyond" (called Final Enlightenment or Great Enlightenment in some traditions). To grasp what is beyond the boundless nondual field, one first needs to have experiences of that boundless nondual field (called Enlightenments or Awakenings). The totality can not be grasped from a partialized/dual perspective. These initial nondual unity experiences are the unity of a still existing separate self (however refined/empty that is) with the boundless nondual field. That ripens then towards True Nonduality with no separate-self remnants. And in these awakened nondual states the big shift can happen. -
This is my first topic. I did a book review already but am not counting that really. This is the first time I've taken the plunge and worked up the courage to ask a question "in front of the class". I'm not expecting long answers from people. In the context of this ramble, how would you describe the possible benefits of nonduality philosophy to me Is it correct to call it a philosophy? I'm not looking for people to do my work for me. I'm not being lazy. I'm just stuck in my current level of understanding. I'm not sure if I should try and understand nonduality or just let that sleeping dog lie for now. I can't work out whether it's something I should have as a foundation (such as deciding if I buy into it or not), or whether it's something that I should consider later on. I really didn't want to ask this. I honestly have tried to read around and use the search function on here. I've read what Nahm has written (via his signature) but I do need to watch the video's in his link. However, from everything I've read online and listened to via YouTube I still can't ascertain what's the benefit to me of (a) understanding nonduality and then possibly (b) buying into it. I get like this with self-development. I can obsess a bit too much on things that might be small detail or not relevant to my needs. I fear if I don't try and understand something I am missing out somehow. Not sure if you need to know some basics about me, or whether it's irrelevant what my little plans and dreams are..... For the last few months I've been getting my feet wet with basic Buddhist teachings. I'm also finding parts of the Bible incredibly uplifting, and much more practical than I thought the Bible would be. I don't know what I think about God. I'm not sure who God is or how God works. I (think) I believe at the minimum there is some Higher Power relevant and active in my life. I feel like I am looked after and that I am supposed to follow a path. With the thoughts I am conscious of, my immediate and primary goal is to manage my general fear, insecurities, to be able to better handle uncertainty, to better manage resentments I hold against people, and to move away from my ego (as I understand my ego to be). To move away from animal instinct behaviour. I want to be cool, calm, and collected. Kind to others. Forget myself. Get outside my own head. My most cherished values at the moment seem to be around openmindedness and humility. If I can get these right I think other good stuff can manifest, such as compassion, forgiveness, gratitude and resilience. I have all these qualities to a degree, but I want more, and better still, I want these values to be better reflected in my behaviour.
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Here is my attempt to integrate nonduality and evolution. I came to think that nonduality means that reality is changeless. Because if there is some process or entity being able to change reality then that is something changing something else and therefore duality. And if reality changes itself then "what is" turns into "what is not" which again is duality. Leo said in some video that reality is not all possibilities. Reality is all the BEST possibilities, he said. And that I think explains both nonduality and evolution. The process of evolution is necessary as a part of the best possibilities in order to produce beings such as us humans growing and learning and becoming unique creators with more and more power. So the suffering and evil we experience in our little world at the moment is just a temporary learning, development and growth "tool". The content of reality can be modeled as an infinite string of information containing all the best possibilities including the process of evolution. That string of information is changeless! And timeless! And time appears as a result of experiencing the entire string of information in a single instant, which is this present moment we live in. This experience will go on forever since the string of information is infinite. What is nondual is the whole infinite string of information as a whole. The string just is, and it's simply one out of all possible strings of information. For example a binary string like 01010101010101010... wouldn't produce any universe or evolution, but out of the set of all possible infinite strings at least one is able to produce the universe we live in.
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@MsNobody I don’t hear McKenna speaking about nonduality or Awakening that much. I think we can judge his level of enlightenment by how he describes Truth and Consciousness.