Search the Community

@David Hammond Hi Friend Note to Mods: this is a friendly discussion - not an argument. "Enlightenment is also a process if you look at it from a different way. It's called the noble path. I speak of that a lot. But as far as being nothingness having an ego as opposed to being an ego with a memorable non dual experience, the difference is permanent enlightenment and intellectual understanding. Bodhi is intellect, and in a Buddah the bodhi is also awakened. That's because intellect is needed in being able to see through what causes separation. Without the development of bodhi you are basically pissing in the wind with your practice because you cannot get to permanent realization without understanding the steps. And that requires practice. " Basically our views are the same here - we're just speaking it in different words. You are referencing Buddhism, and I am not referencing a particular religion. Bodhi is consciousness. With Spiritual practice, time, experience, you gain Wisdom. Wisdom comes with an increase in consciousness. The buddhist's concept of permanent enlightenment is the same as mine. After a mystical experience, you become much more conscious, because you have tapped into the consciousness of the Universe, which is your true self. I believe Buddhism speaks of the no self in certain sects and this basically means that small self is an illusion, and in truth there is only the large self, consciousness. After a mystical experience in which you become conscious of the Truth, and in my case I became conscious of all facets, your intellect is awoken. The Bodhi is awakened, in other words..it's the same thing. I have tapped into Infinite Intelligence. So at this point you are permanently awake, as you are viewing the world thru a non-dual lens. You're back as the small self, but forever changed, and Awoke - conscious. (we can drop the whole word Ego if it makes you uncomfortable). Buddhism is very aligned with the Idealist Paradigm - which I subscribe to after my Awakening. It means that consciousness is not happening inside a brain, but the brain, and the "ego" as people call it, is happening within consciousness. Consciousness is equal to Absolute Infinity. This is formless, and contains absolutely everything, which has to include nothing. Therefore it is groundless. So you can think of reality as a Giant mind, and within that mind is the idea of you and me. So we agree that the ego is an idea. The term Enlightenment is relative - it has to be - because reality is an Absolute Relativity. There is no objective world out there. Where I believe someone is Enlightened after they have a non-dual experience - or in Buddhism the NO self. Becoming pure consciousness and becoming conscious of what is really going here. That's what happened to me. I think what you are trying to say is that you do not need a mystical experience to become enlightened according to your definition of enlightenment - which is Awakening of the Intellect. If that's the case yes you can raise consciousness without a mystical experience, but it's not quite the same thing. I believe you need to incorporate both in order to be fully Awake. Also notice the memory of the becoming the Absolute is not the same as Becoming the Absolute. It's a memory, something completely different. So don't confuse the map with the territory. But then once permanently enlightened as you like to say, you can embody Truth in your everyday life, and everything including suffering, which is the topic of this post, becomes effortless because you have complete and full acceptance and understanding of it.

@Inliytened1Hi my friend. @cetus56 please let me address this because I think it will be useful? You say your ego has to die for you to wake up to yourself, right? That is the case for either drug experiences or not having enough training in states - which you can earn from a recognized dzogchen lineage holder, or someone respectable in adwiata or a real enlightened one man band (very very hard to find, you won't find it on youtube). State training which I am talking about is how the Buddah became enlightened. That's a story given to us from the Buddhist science of enlightenment and the Buddahs realization is a science that can be practiced and eventually nirvana can be attained. Permanent enlightenment. Enlightenment is also a process if you look at it from a different way. It's called the noble path. I speak of that a lot. But as far as being nothingness having an ego as opposed to being an ego with a memorable non dual experience, the difference is permanent enlightenment and intellectual understanding. Bodhi is intellect, and in a Buddah the bodhi is also awakened. That's because intellect is needed in being able to see through what causes separation. Without the development of bodhi you are basically pissing in the wind with your practice because you cannot get to permanent realization without understanding the steps. And that requires practice. Nothingness or God is reality, but experience tells us that you and I as nothingness is an ego inside a body and the evidence of this is sensation tied to belief. That belief and sensation never goes away. And you don't want it to go away either. Because being nothingness is not what you want because you will just be a mess. I had a discussion on here about ramana maharshi and i said that ramana was a mess. He wasn't trained by a swami, he just woke up and let his body be eaten by rodents and didn't care. That's why he got arthritis in his hips? Who knows? But there are certain consequences you pay for ignoring samsara. But the belief and sensation can be seen directly for what they are if you are already disidsntifed from the body and mind as the witness. Once you are the witness all you need to do is put attention on the sensation of boundary between body and world and eventually the boundary will collapse and you will wake up from the dream as the universe. But for the witness already not identified with body and mind it's a very small step from being formless witnessing presence realizing that this presence is not local. It's everything. So no ego death required. Just skill and understanding. That's what this meditation practice will do for you. If you feel you are dying then you are still the body or mind. When you say you're enlightened I know you are not because you have not done the work to understand all of these stages of meditation states. No hard feelings and I'm not saying you didn't have a bona fide experience either. I don't know. But what i do know is that you speak from ego as if it is real. When you speak as nothiness having an ego then you can be called a master of the work.

Mooji is a Japanease name for nothingness And this name was given to him by papaji (I think)

@Ponder Are you nothingness or formlessness in deep sleep ?

Yes Buddha realized himself as "Nothingness".Once you become really enlightened you Will know what "emptiness" really is.

You would (possibly) be nothingness aka formlessness. However, form is inseparable from formlessness, therefore it’s impossible for you to exist. It’s impossible for reality to be any other way than it is since God using his infinite intellect and infinite love, created the only possible configuration of existence. Tl;dr No

Weed by itself in high amounts has made me more in the present moment. Some of the body sensations become very alive and it gets trippy when you have no tolerance and do some dabs. Otherwise it serves as a nice sleep aid. Or when I am drunk. In terms of spirituality I think its value comes when mixing it. I smoked some weed the day after doing DXM and some was still in my system. I was getting heavy visuals and its an experience where I experienced nothingness to a degree and so "I" and "nothing" merged. LSD + MDMA + Weed also has given me great insights. I think weed is more complicated than 'it kills your life energy its bad never do it' It largely depends on you and how you use it. There is no clear guide on this because of how variable people can be in development.

@Ponder I read a few of your posts and I can tell. One that has aligned with Truth can also recognize Truth. @zeroISinfinity And I think in reference to Ponder's comment about nothingness, he just meant it is formless. Language breaks down so easily because it's so easy for us to misinterpret someone else's words, or we use words in different ways. That's why this stuff is so hard to communicate. All we can do is the best we can with what we have with words. The finite cannot reach outside and grasp the infinite.

Absolute is not nothingness it is pure Love.

I wouldn't consider it a teaching, no more than I would consider bird chirps as a teaching. It just appears. Yet within the construct of a timeline, one could imagine causation. What "caused" these appearances to arise? This would get quite tricky indeed as there are an infinite number of causative inputs. Yet it certainly appears that my mind-body has been shaped by many occurrences within it's lifetime - including a wide variety of "spiritual" beings - both human and non-human. What has resonated with my mind-body has changed over time. If your question is in regards to "learning" about this through a teacher, book, video, philosophy, experience etc. - then there is no source in that regard. There is no one source. There have been many many that have influenced me. My mind is is not beholden to any teaching or idea. Each sources as a separate entity is very limiting. For me, a deeper level became "no teachers" and "all teachers". In terms of models of consciousness expansion, that is a major expansion. One of the keys of "liberation" at the human level is no attachment/identification to any idea. For example, a test for me at the human level is. . . can I let go of those ideas I just wrote about as I let go of bird chirps? Or do they mean a little bit more to me than bird chirps? Can I wake up totally fresh in this moment completely free of all these ideas? Or will my mind-body carry them around in a backpack? Are these ideas simply bird chirps floating by, or are they attached to my mind-body? Do I actually believe these ideas are true? Will I wake up tomorrow speaking of these ideas as if I believe them. If so, there is some attachment within the mind-body. . . "But wait. . . what I wrote is so profound and insightful. I invested many years for those wonderful insights. . . And I had that amazing Mu experience of nothingness. . . That's gotta count for something!! ". Such thoughts simply arise in the mind-body - it's part of the personal human story.

I'm not going to go into it in a very complicated way like you are saying. If you want a Satori (enlightenment) to happen to you to see and become nothingness/No-self/there is no you, you still have an ego to deal with in this life afterwards. If you don't want to talk about this life, then don't. I was only answering the topic question. It's your responsibility to research and prove it to yourself. I'm not here to prove anything to anyone.

@Shaun You understand very well, that is our true nature We put on the clothes of a body, and a mind later on; and we misidentify ourselves as being them. We are actually nobody. The person who is reading this now is this endless space of nothingness. That is what we all are, in every moment, yet since we identify ourselves as the passing thoughts, we therefore believe we are the sum total of our past experiences when we are so much more.

How I treat others is an reflection of how I treat myself. I don't need to develop the skills to live life authentically because I already have it all inside of me now as my authentic self. The thing that holds me back is me attacking myself (which manifests as symptoms of low self worth, nervousness, anxiety, anger, sadness, regret, and unhelpful behaviour). If I become aware of an attack thought towards an outside source, there will be a corresponding attack inward on the same trait. Become aware of the quality of the trait being attacked and consciously make peace with it. Dislike of myself manifests in an obsession with external approval from others. The approval seeking self is the symptom, the attacking of myself is the root cause. Beware of blindly accepting the needy self expression - don't accept it as self, look to the deeper cause and work with that. (There is a notable shift in energy as a write this- my experience expanded, I became more present, I feel lighter, my breathing has slowed down, there is an increase in personal power, increase in contentment, less seeking, less avoidance, less turmoil- inner stillness and less emotion). I have tried to cease thoughts before but it never worked. This method seems to stop the thoughts much better so that I can enter Samadhi experience. I have just done a quick pranayama breath and opened myself upto the present moment. Deep peace, no emotion, no thought, just panoramic presence of sitting in this park on this warm spring afternoon with the sun gently warming my back. No shame, but still inhibited. Low self worth, fear, anxiety, emotional labour is not my true identity. When I say identity I mean my true nature. Fear and contraction is not my true nature. I wonder if states of bliss and peace heal and rejuvenate the body and mind? It feels as if I need a well earned break from my mind attacking me 24/7 The sadness came back. But this time I noticed that I am already present to this. That I don't need to create a watcher, that the watcher is always present and that any knowing of the watcher can only be the thought of the watcher in my mind. As thought recognizes the ever present watcher the feeling becomes more raw, more physical, more pronounced. I thought is not the watcher. I thought appears in front of the watcher and tries to identify as the watcher. But it can never identify as the watcher. The watcher is always free of what is seen. Forever free. What is the nature of the watcher? Thought is attending to investigate the nature of the ever present watcher. Ever present Untouched Still Permanent Vast Open Unlimited Unbound Unwavering Awake The light Unshakable Untouchable Unmanifest Free Absolute Reliable Consistent Unperturbed and unpreturbable Innocent Stillness itself (non conceptual stillness) Infinate depth There is a sense of peace and freedom and a shifting of the sadness as mind talks about the ever present watcher. Heart feels open, raw, sensitive, raw pain unprocessed. Body is mega relaxed but alert, sensisitive, like a big cat eyeing up it's prey. Alert but still. The watcher is manifest in the body now, permeating the body with nothingness. 3 more pranayama breaths and I'm at the end of today's journal - what I'm witnessing is indescribable.

I recently had an odd...but rather interesting insight on mushrooms. This came right after a nondual state of conciousness that I had with my friend who is into crystals. I was working a lot on unifying dualities and I realized that I was God (I feel like I could've went much deeper but anyways). First of all, a distinction must be made between the masculine and the feminine. The masculine is unchanging conciousness, Nothingness, that which sits "behind" and "allows" for the forms to exist. The feminine is the constantly changing dance of forms. Although the masculine and the feminine are identical, they need each other to exist... The feminine is the world of dualities (differences). The masculine is the unification of dualities (sameness). My friend was saying that crystals are important because each of them has their own specific energy. Later I realized why this is important. A Crystal's vibe or structure or energy is always a certain type of way and not another type of way. Just like all forms. But...crystals are important because their structure is very dense and fixed. Meaning that crystals "hold differences." In this way, crystals are an important factor in Creation. This also explains why feminines are generally drawn towards types of spirituality that is very "surface" because it is all about attracting certain desirable forms and getting rid of negative ones. While masculines are interested in being liberated from the attachment to all forms as the Ultimate Death. I'm not really sure what my "point" is but crystals definitely play a bigger role in the structure of reality than any old types of rocks. For the reason that they "hold differences". My reasoning isnt super flushed out and I would take what I'm saying here with a grain of salt but it is definitely interesting.

1. If the purpose of life is to become more consciouss and realize yourself as it is often said then: - Why did god delude himself into duality in the first place? Why didnt he just reside in godhead-nothingness forever. 2. Or, If the purpose of life is to for god to experience himself as a limited creatue, which you also hear a lot. - Why did god allow a mechanism to realize himself, why did he allow a majority of people on earth doing nothing else but trying to remember they are god (religion). Doesnt that contradict the purpose if god wants to know what its like to truly be a human and then these humans say fuck it and all they do is try to be god again.

@Anirban657 @Anirban657 Preetom asked you very important questions.He is practicing self enquiry. Are you able to locate the I am Ness or I feeling ? Is it fixed or located in chest or head ? Or really can't grasp it ? Answer them. Robin steel is equating awareness to experience which is not the case. I asked winter knight about your question and my reply.He said it is inexpressible but the KNOWLEDGE self is aware of itself is realized. In other words awareness is continuously experiencing something other than itself Only in Nothingness the Truth will be realized. Regarding self enquiry Hold on to the I feeling or I ness continuously till it vanishes.It this I am Ness which is preventing us from realizing the truth.

I realised all this spiritual work i'm doing is just for my ego. I'm just wanting to be a better person but within that there is separation between me and other. I want to be better than others which is just more ego. The ego is incredibly sneaky and it always wants to be in control. Last night I had a balloon with nitrous oxide and after inhaling the whole thing got a 20 second ego death. It really freaked me out and makes me think whether or not nothingness is synonymous with love as my ego was terrified when regaining control and the nothingness just seemed scary. However I have had much better experiences on mushrooms. Maybe i should just stay away from nitrous oxide.

The question by @Anirban657 is how to be aware of awareness. Below is my reply to Anirban of my understanding of Nisargadatta Maharaja words. ----_-----------------+------------------------------- I am not self realized and never had the nothingness exp. But the words awareness is aware of itself is not used by all.It is confusing the seekers. First of all Awareness is not an object or thing or feeling or emotion. The word try to be aware of awareness makes you think you can experience awareness as an object that is impossible. The eyes cannot see itself.This is just a pointer. Awareness or Infinity or Self or God is beyond everything. Awareness is beyond the waking state,dream state,deep sleep state. In deep sleep awareness is aware of unconsciousness. In dream it is aware of the dreams. In waking state you know what. But in the waking state when the sense of me,body experience,thoughts everything is gone what will remain ? Pure empty waking conciousness or no-thingness with out any objects.So awareness is aware of this. So finally Awareness is beyond everything being,non being,sleep,waking,dream any exp non experience,Nothingness,Emptiness what ever you call it name it. So you can never expirience awareness or in short drop the words awareness is aware of itself.How to be aware of awareness. What ever perceived cannot be the perceiver. You cannot experience yourself you can only know what you are not. By knowing what you are not you know what you are.-Nisargadatta Maharaj Hope this is clear. _------------------------------------------------------ Is my understanding correct ?

@Anirban657 @Anirban657 I am not self realized and never had the nothingness exp. But the words awareness is aware of itself is not used by all.It is confusing the seekers. First of all Awareness is not an object or thing or feeling or emotion. The word try to be aware of awareness makes you think you can experience awareness as an object that is impossible. The eyes cannot see itself.This is just a pointer. Awareness or Infinity or Self or God is beyond everything. Awareness is beyond the waking state,dream state,deep sleep state. In deep sleep awareness is aware of unconsciousness. In dream it is aware of the dreams. In waking state you know what. But in the waking state when the sense of me,body experience,thoughts everything is gone what will remain ? Pure empty waking conciousness or no-thingness with out any objects.So awareness is aware of this. So finally Awareness is beyond everything being,non being,sleep,waking,dream any exp non experience,Nothingness,Emptiness what ever you call it name it. So you can never expirience awareness or in short drop the words awareness is aware of itself.How to be aware of awareness. What ever perceived cannot be the perceiver. You cannot experience yourself you can only know what you are not. By knowing what you are not you know what you are.-Nisargadatta Maharaj Hope this is clear.

The difficulty results from the fact that awareness is nothing. The mind cannot grasp it in the same way it can grasp a wall or tree or a thought. So by trying to become aware of awareness you are really trying to realize Nothingness/Emptiness. Yes, it's frusrating. There is no way around that. You are being asked to grasp the ungraspable. Through lots of practice the mind must become very still. That stillness of mind itself becomes the empty awareness of awareness. You. Are. It. Try focusing your mind on nothing in particular and just let it sit there. The more it sits there, the more Emptiness will dawn on you. Don't try to grasp it. Let it wash over you.

@flowboy Impartial or unbiased self observation without self criticism is a huge win. Even with a small bit of self criticism,,,still a win! Maybe you'll get an unexpected surprise and feel your own nothingness from the hot cooking. It seems weird writing those words. Regardless, you are still observing.??

I will express my truth and if it is of no use to you, by all means, please disregard it. I am not the body. Nor am I the thoughts and feelings which comprise the personality/ego. I am the silent witness who has no opinions. Quote from Maurice Nicoll - THE FEELING OF NOTHINGNESS “When the Work says that a man must come to realize his own nothingness before he can be re-born, it does not mean that he must humble himself and so on, but that he must by long self-observation actually begin to realize that he is nothing and that there is no such person as himself. The object of this is to get into a position, psycho- logically speaking, between the opposites...Why is it so important to get somewhere into the centre of the pendulum and not swing to and fro? Because here, between the opposites, lie all the possibilities of growth. Here influences from higher levels can reach us. Here, in this place where one can feel one’s own nothingness (and where one is therefore free from contradictions), influences and meanings coming from higher centres, which have no contradictions, can be felt. Not regarding yourself as good or bad, not priding yourself on being just or otherwise, not thinking you are well-treated or badly-treated, not being caught by either movement through identifying, you come into this mid-position. This is not easy! With personality active, it is impossible.

duality is supposed to be fully embraced with responsibility. life can't get any juicier than that. beneath duality there's nothingness (infinite potential) and duality is the result of pure magic. the fact that the universe can experience a human being, say "i", write poetry and appreciate music is just a infinitesimal display of the supreme power of existence. fight no i find what i points to for i is yet another finger

@Leo Gura and so it must be! @andyjohnsonman remember relative to your ego whose sole focus is on your survival..nothingness is gonna seem the oppositie of everything that it actually is! Keep in mind that You with a capital Y made it that way so that the small you can even exist!

For the past few weeks, I've noticed a few spiritual teachers talking about this idea that you essentially have no real choice or free will in what happens to you or what happens in regards to your life. And that everything that happens is determined by the God head as destiny. That God already pre-planned everything according to God's plan. I'm someone who has extreme anxiety about the prospect that I could be destined for failure as in, not being able to get into the college I want for Animation. Or being able to get that dream job I've always been wanting for a while in animation and story telling. Never being able to find a love partner, never losing my virginity, not being able to be hired for the most part and screwing it up when I do get the job. That ultimately my family may give up on me and kick me to the curb as a lazy good for nothing loser and me eventually losing all the friends that I have. My parents have been arguing since I was a kid, I think I was scarred as a result, I've been compared to my hot tempted aggressive and sometimes vulgar and disrespectful dad sometimes as though it's just me as well. And there's nothing I can do about it. Even though I'm mostly never like him. The only thing is that sometimes I have some anger issues and a big mouth. But I've been working on it and getting much better in that regard. Trying to own my mistakes. And I'm much better now. I've been bullied and rejected alot as a kid and in high school. I've never felt like I felt in because of different personalities. Sometimes I'm just shy and introverted and I feel very insecure about my self. I'm insecure about my looks since I'm a bit skinnier for my age, I've been called ugly alot growing up and even though I do groom pretty well and made progress in improving my style, I still feel subpar next to most other guys. I just feel like girls will reject me, end up leaving me or find a better looking guy than me. And I may end up dying a Virgin. I've been having horrible struggles trying to secure a job and have alot of confidence issues in myself and my abilities since without getting job experience now it might make it next to impossible for me to get hired anywhere down the line. Also I feel insecure about my art since I feel like I'll never be good enough for a collage and that I'll always be skipped over for better artists. And add this anxiety that God fixed it like this, or if you want to say I'm (not ego self) God, somehow decides to be cruel to this life experiencing form and curse it from birth, made it like a futile loser perpetual failure unloved, unworthy for love in the eyes of others basically complete futility. And that my only choices is try to counter act this and fail, or well, commit suicide. Me committing suicide would be surrender and well the only true relief from this. My one true act of rebellion and the one thing that could bring some pleasure, no matter how scarred I am to die. Or what lies beyond. Though I am emsly curious to know if this awareness or concuousness that I'm experiencing continues after death, or if it's just darkness and nothingness a complete lack of concuousness forever. Though we'll never, I'll never know until and unless I die I guess. And I'm teetering slowly on the side of suicide, trying to find some excuses to try to stave actually offing myself. Like, finishing game of thrones, hoping to get lucky or proven wrong or something like that. Help.