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@Cody_Atzori Below is a fun video you might find interesting. Even at the level of the brain, that "me" is a complete illusion from nothingness. Reality = Illusion.

@Mu_ so awareness (initially identified and really not separate from the ego/mind/person) really truly "has the experience" of thinking it is a person to realizing it was never a person to begin with and was always itself. ? This part can be disorienting (because initially the ego/mind may think it is the nothingness) but self-inqiruy into who is afraid or disoriented should resolve?

@Paul92 I don't understand (I once stood where you stand), but I don't think I will ever be able to understand. I am not you and because of that I can't understand what you are experiencing/have experienced. Going forward you will have to read carefully as I am going to express things that can't be thought about logically okay! Sometimes you have to experience what you are going to experience. Everything the way it happens is perfect. Perfect for me. Perfect for you. Perfect for we. Perfect for us. Perfect for the self. Perfect for the ego. There is no happiness without an ego, but there is also no ego without you. If you are tired of something brush it off and move on! I'm not here to tell you whether to take your life or not. That is your choice and your choice alone and you will have to deal with the consequences whatever they may be. Full is full and empty is empty, but there needs to be a container for something to be empty or full! I wouldn't say that you throwing yourself off a bridge would make no difference. What would make no difference to me, is you sitting in your room loving white walls all day. At least the first one SOMETHING is being done. Maybe not productive, but something. Do you know it will all go dark (no awareness/devoid of senses)? I have been curious about it (death) as well. I find it is pretty interesting that everyone laughs when we joke about death and it is never a, "oh that's awkward, maybe that shouldn't be joked about." It is always a peaceful laugh and acceptance because deep down something is know about death that can't be extrapolated into the form of words. The best way that I have witnessed it goes something like "hidden in every ending is a beginning and with every beginning an end." But hey, maybe it is just black nothingness (whatever that means). It doesn't seem to be about having things both ways (which is where I see a lot of people on this site have it slightly off kilter). You know, it seems to be more about expressing what is being felt, in any form that you wish to express it. Some people express their feelings of the unknown by saying nothing can be know, others do it through art, maybe dance, education etc. I enjoy making music/plunking through cords and rhythms to find anything that could embody the way I felt in the moment. Everyday I wish that I still had my guitar to pluck on whenever I feel an emotion I can't express through english (couldn't fit it in the move ) This website seems to be a place where people of similar ideas of expression came to express those ideas. If you don't agree and can't connect with them, move on, search for something else that you find meaningful and can enjoy. It isn't worth yours or anyone's time to dwindle on something with so little meaning to you! Not everything is about truth-fullness. There are lies everywhere, one just has to look carefully to spot them. You can't take everything that is said by another person as a literal interpretation of the experience. Memory is a fickle mistress (whether that memory comes form an individual or a book) and so is english when taken from a literal perspective. Much love on your journey, whatever path you choose to take. P.S. My 1 reason for you to not end it all: I enjoy when there is more expression for me to connect with!

@Scholar Different personality types, different brain types, different facets to awakening. Awakening will be filtered through the mind and personality no matter how awake you get. Some people are more sentimental and emotional while other people are more autistic, cool, and dispassionate. One awakened person could emphasize Nothingness in his teaching. Another awakened person could emphasize Love in his teaching. Etc. Which is why an integral approach is so good. You can get the best of all the teachings and teachers.

@mandyjw thank you - i have my own sources. i‘m sure he’s wonderful. in case of women pain i trust in women. it’s maybe something for guys to listen to. i‘m thankful though macy for reminding me - i can share it with you, we all do, don’t we. my mom recommended me some german female authors. so if i really want to go deeper into it than i did the last months, i’ll do. but ultimatively it’s about understanding deeply that the value of any kind of shell animal lies in the soft parts - and these are not for eating - it’s about the deepest understanding of respect towards life. yin and yang are not superior or submissive - they arise from nothingness/thingness in nothing.

@kadsuy Egoic Conciousness: Has a feeling of being a brain; not it Has a sensation in the chest; not it Has a feeling of being intense focus; not it Has an image of Nothingness; not it Has a location of Emptiness; not it Anything which you try to indentify with in egoic conciousness cannot be God or else your state of conciousness would be God mind.

I would not say put 'attention on nothingness' rather 'a rest in nothingness' or even better description of experience is 'rest as nothingness.'

don’t confuse nothing with nothingness you can see nothing without seeing nothingness. deep realisation of nothingness comes before the realization of nothing though. you can also meditate on dependent arising and letting go. you only need to ask one question deep enough, well you don’t even need to ask it, if you become the question.

There's really no contradiction. Just different ways to phrasing the same thing. Meditation techniques which focus attention are very good. I wouldn't besmirch them as merely "preliminary exercises." Self-inquiry is a concentration exercise. It is also possible to meditate on nothingness. But it's an advanced kind of meditation which is not easy for most people to do because the mind easily clings on to some form. So instead most newbies are taught a technique like: focus on the breath. It is possible to put your attention on Nothingness if you're very conscious. It requires taking your attention off of all form. Basically you're trying to become conscious of formlessness, Shiva, or the Godhead.

These are all random notes I made from an a state of no-self. When searching for the self you might believe it's emptiness inside of your skull. You may look at you hand and believe you're a hand. You may even believe that you are the Nothingness in the air, between objects. You might think you can focus on this awareness as being somewhere in the air as a point of focus. You will then look back to an object in Actuality instead of trying to find awareness in the air. Now, put your attention on the empty, sentient subject or perciever which is God or Actuality. You are God, there is no other way to explain it. To find God you have to play the game of hide-and-seek (spiritual seekers). Why are you hiding from your no-self (God) and not seeking? To find this god play the game of hide-and-seek (neti-neti method) God is this sentient emptiness of awareness, who is father like and watching his children - Jesus is the son of God, which is a metaphor to explain the small self (ego, son) and the true self being God (holy father). Is Holy supposed to be a joke? Whole; Full; complete Hole: A hollow space in something solid (Emptiness inside the self) The word holy is a word that is supposed to refer to Whole and Hole as being two totally different words but the exact same or One because despite them being spelt differently they are pronouced identically and there is irony in that holy is spelled differently from both words and this word holy seems seperate from Whole and Hole but it isn't because it's still the same pronunciation which made the sound. Can you see that holy is both seprate from Whole and Hole Holy represents the unification or oneness of Emptiness and Fullness. Beautiful metaphors: Waves come in, Wave come out. Sun day, Moon night Sun smile, clouds cry God can see with clarity (abscene of a mind-conciousness) the outside world (trees, grass) and the inside world (person percieving reality - self) as it is neither. Hide-and-Seek meditation I am not The body or body sensations (feeling of being a mind is body sensation) The human mind or thoughts (mind creates perceptions into conciousness aka God) e.g. the thought it exists as pink brain producing it's own conciousness The object (hand, table, orange) Emptiness of space between objects - Air Subject (perciever - ego) The sharp mind focus (highly focused, lowly conciousness) Mind Conciousness Meditation frustrations Meditaters get annoyed when they can't see that they are this empty, sentient awareness. The meditator doesn't realise they need to release any sensation of what they think one-by-one in a game of hide-and-seek, the game is to slip out of the stream of possible self sensations (seek-by-stripping) it could be: feelings or sensations, thoughts (Perceptions taking place in conciousness or God's mind) God's mind is not an object or idea of god. It's the empty, concious, sentient being. Your mind just created an idea of God as an image now (not actually God) - Decontextulisation. When you play Hide-and-Seek still focus on Actuality, what are Actual perceptions (not mind created perceptions aka thoughts and images) What we are doing with all this meditation work is trying to get objective reality to exist without the subject (the self) and to do this you need to be focused on real perceptions in reality (cars, hats, furniture) but you also need to realise that the despite there being this concious mind perceiving the world, there is a conciousness above it which can be accessed by seeing the subject with absolute clarity. If there is no subject then you need to strip every single one when in a ego conciousness until you become the no-subject. God is the non-objective subject. A self (person) is an objective subject. The problem with reality is that you shift between God experiencing existence and the mind experiencing existence. Strip EVERY single possibility of what you could be until you run out of objective subjects and you become the non-objective subject. Can you see how you cannot find the non-objective subject you have to become it. It's a seeing through being and to be it, you have to not be everything else in an egoic conciousness because if you are not in a non-dual conciousness then you are being something which isn't the no-self. You need to fall into this state of conciousness. This state cannot be located therefore it needs to be unlocated. The proccees of finding a no-self is normally done backwards and thus nobdy gets results. You can't find something if it isn't there, you just need to unfind the thing you thought you found.

@Aakash That's precisely what I meant by ''Pure Nothingness is not even pure nothingness'' .

@tecladocasio you have the wrong impression of pure nothingness because you don't understand the term it does not mean absent of something it means no-thing aka its not an object to which there can be a subject viewing it or in other words it can't be the seeker who finds it that is because the seeker is the one who is seeking aka the no-thing ness is trying to find no-thing ness itself wrapping your head arround this is the mind fuck

@Pernani I think Pure Nothingness is not even awareness . Pure Nothingness is not even pure nothingness , that's the mind interpretation . And it is a relative term .

@Pouya you cant put your attention on nothingness, the reason being is because the awareness itself is coming from the thing that is you which exist, the nothingness you are trying to find is the seeker

@Pernani You can't concentrate on pure nothingness , that's the confusing point .

Imagination of nothingness is happening in nothingness itself

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_P-szUcfbMc&feature=youtu.be Hey @Leo Gura what do you think abt this video? Ruper spira says that attention only serves as directing consciousness away from consciousness towards an object (breath, thoughts for example), in order for consciousness to be aware of consciousness attention has to stop, and that meditation techniques that require the focus of attention only serve to calm the mind and are only preliminary exercises. Doesnt this contradict what you said in your self inquiry video that one has to concentrate on pure nothingness?

Nothingness is prior to mind, space, or anything else. The answer is "sorta." Attention is put on it through the self-inquiry process. Your mind must become very still and your concentration laser focused. Do not confuse this with putting your attention on some idea or concept of nothingness. I am talking about ACTUAL nothingness, not any idea you have. An idea you have of it, is not it, and it will prevent you from accessing it. So be careful. DO NOT TRY TO IMAGINE NOTHINGNESS. That is a giant waste of time. It will not work and you will not even be close. Or a psychedelic can take you there easily. It's best not to think of it as "putting my attention of nothingness" but rather, nothingness is what you ARE. You are it. It is your truest nature. So rather than looking for nothingness, look for what you are, your truest nature. When I say "you" I am talking to that nothingness you are.

@Aakash Nothingness is the absence of body experience. Absence of thoughts. Absence of sense of seperatedness. Its an experience of the formlessness intutively. So it is awareness knowing itself. Thats you. That is Self Realisation beyond doubts. This again is my borrowed knowledge of what SR is.

@purerogue There is only silence, the "i" thought arises from silence and goes back to silence @Jkris i'm not sure because if i say "am i the one who entered" its wrong, if i say any words, they aren't that, because nothingness is before words, so i can't answer your question in a way. basically any answer i give you, is not it.

@Aakash one who is aware of thoughts sensations is the witness or self that is not an illusion. This is what my theoretical understanding or borrowed knowledge. But have you entered the nothingness?

@purerogue I know I exist. But that is due to the experience of the body, mind, thoughts, emotions, feelings. And the Me feeling or the sense of seperatedness or the Identity. In sleep I dont know anything whether I exist or not. So one can be aware of self in nothingness alone. Not anyother way.

@Mu_ So how to enter nothingness with out reaching the no thought state ?

@tecladocasio No thought no mind state need to happen before realizing nothingness.or in other words no mind state is the gateway starting point of spirituality.So I am still struggling to begin spirituality :)) correct me if this understanding is wrong. May be this is the reason people are trying physchadelics I guess.Though I haven't tried physchadelics yet.

Trip Report 30g Golden Teacher truffles What do I want to create? What do you mean, create?! There is already everything! I am already everything! I AM THE COFFEE! It's the next morning. I'm slightly bothered by people addressing me with my name (let's say Flowboy). As a separate person. I have to remember how to play that character. I want to be alone. Or at least not be talked to. It's exhausting to be put back into the Flowboy role. This is a report of a trip with what ended up being 30 grams of Golden Teacher sclerotia (psilocybe cubensis truffles). According to the internet, this is roughly equivalent to between 5 and 8 grams of shrooms. I bought two packs of 15 grams. B, A and me sit down on the floor around a candle, in a triangle, holding hands. We each say a prayer. Then A and me start consuming the shrooms. I took a "full" dose of 15 grams, then portioned out another dose of 10 grams for later, and set a timer for an hour, to decide whether we want to go deeper. Spoiler alert: I take all of it. T + 1:00 As soon as we're both feeling it, and are feeling sort of stable, I suggest taking a walk. We want to see some nature. Our sitter B is on board. This is right around the 1 hour mark, I discover, and I'm sure I want to kick it up a notch. I eat most of the 10 grams and leave some for after the walk. This is just what felt right. There's a hair in my mouth. This is a persistent sensation I keep having and remarking about throughout the night. Also happened to me on acid. I briefly wonder whether it is a good idea to up the dose and go outside at the same time, but I decide that the concept of good and bad idea doesn't make sense and I should just trust. I'm sitting at the lake, marvelling at the WILD nature visuals. Branches, trees are growing before my eyes. The other side of the lake is alive with growth. Everywhere I look is life sprouting. I am a part of nature. A. is standing right behind me and stroking the sides of my head with her fingers. But they are not her fingers. They are the tentacles of the organic Universe nature entity that is connecting through her and me. Tickling her tentacles through my consciousness, inviting me, sucking me up, penetrating my identity. I let go. "Take me" I think. With my eyes closed I see morphing green octopus arms / plant branches / tree roots, crawling and grasping at me. I can feel the energy running through A, her hands, me, and the ground. "This is just foreplay", I think. [A had the exact same experience of connectedness, her hands connecting to me but not JUST me, but Everything.] It's not personal. It's not about little me and little her. Source showed us that we are the same. I wouldn't describe it as loving, because even though we were connecting to something infinitely good, it is very different from the egoic feeling of personal love. Like the universe loves Flowboy, but could also kill him or make him suffer, and then that is good. We're leaving the lake. I remark that "you" and "I" and places to go are concepts, and how I would like to let go of them. But, "I can't completely let go, because I need them to go somewhere. You need your ego to move places and make things happen." A understands. Several bushes stick their leaves out at my face and say hi to me. I have wordless conversations with them. Their structure seems infinitely deep. I talk to several tree branches like that and say "Bye!" to them as we walk on. "Is it me or is it getting kind of dark! B, is it dark? I have no idea! HAHAHAHA" I laugh maniacally and start skipping through the street. The street is now overgrown with magical flowers the size of me almost. The size of the street is exploding with fast growing magical-feeling bushes, plants and flowers. I'm skipping through Wonderland. I remark: "I could worry about people looking at this guy, acting weird, but I'm gonna let that go!! It feels so much better to just let that go!" I laugh a deep rumbling laugh. I am no longer Flowboy. I am an expression of infinite love. Periodically throughout the evening, I jump up and down and clap my hands like a happy child. The questions I wrote down instantly lost all significance. What do I want to create? "I"?? That's so silly. There is already everything! I am everything. Nothing is needed. There is nothing to be done. Everything is already perfect as it is. It doesn't matter what I think! I fall back into the carpet in surrender. A trust fall into nothingness. Ecstatically shouting: "It doesn't matter what I think. IT DOESN'T MATTER WHAT I THINK!! :D" I'm standing in the kitchen with a tea bag in my hand. And a cup. Puzzled, I attempt to put one into the other. "I" am putting "the tea bag". I start explaining to B how you need these concepts to do things. The concept of tea and the concept of I. Separateness. But I would rather let go of concepts for now. Concepts create the illusion of separateness. But you need them for tea. I have always existed, and will always exist. Infinity. It's infinite. It's perfect. EVERYTHING IS ALREADY PERFECT AS IT IS I created it perfectly. I did good. It's impossible to worry. Who is worrying about what? Fear needs to be relative to something. There is nothing to fear. I am supposed to take it all. To see. If there is nothing to fear, why not go see? TRUST!! I state that I will be back and walk to the table where I left the remaining 5 grams. Smiling, I start eating them, alternating them with strawberries. Let's see. The term "ego death" comes to mind. I start contemplating this. Is that what's supposed to happen? There is nothing to fear baby. Nothing to fear. Everything is an expression of love Laying on the floor. Flowboy is drawing his last breaths. I put his hands together in front of his chest. Stretch his body out. Symmetric body posture. His breath is extremely slow now. Throat is partially closed. [Later I draw a parallel to what I think yogic breathing is] I could stop it, it wouldn't matter. There is the sensation that A is trying to prevent me from dying. Holding my hand, touching me, trying to interact with my body. She doesn't understand. But that's fine. I feel like not cuddling anymore and focus on putting my arms and legs in a symmetrical position. "Just let me die", I think. "It's okay." The sensation of his teeth in his skull are all that's left of Flowboy now. His hands have melted into the carpet. His body and the carpet and the room, it's all one thing. All made of the same stuff. I created it perfectly. It's all an expression of love. The vague, rudimentary, blurry, cartoonish shapes that make up the corner of the window. They expand. The corner of the window are now all there is. I AM the corner of the window. How could I forget. The corner of the window is ME!!! I dreamt all this up. The last place Flowboy looked (corner of the window) now zooms in and it is everything. I am the corner of the window. No more separateness. No more me. [ Later I wonder whether this is what is meant by satori ] A deep laugh rumbles from Flowboy's lifeless body. I remember feeling vaguely like: "The Flowboy would find this freaky and cool. Right now there is no one here to have an opinion, so no room for judgment, but he would." The infinite expression of love needs to pee. The thought arises to comfort A, laying beside me. Should I leave her alone? I chuckle at that ridiculousness. She is an expression of me. She feels what I'm doing and thinking. No need to use words and pretend we're separate. Stumbling through a world of blurry cartoonish shapes, I dream my Flowboy to the bathroom. I've been there before. I've been there all along. I lean against the wall and instantly melt into it. I stick Flowboy's arm through the wall. It doesn't exist. Whether Flowboy is actually in the bathroom is the wrong question to ask. I feel A. I am her. Still on the carpet. Right. I was playing a game. The "Flowboy has to pee" game. Seems unnecessary, because everything is already complete, there is nothing to do. But let's amuse myself. The colourful blurry cartoon hands take Flowboys dick out. It's glistening and shimmering like it just sparkled into existence. Surrender. All there ever was, and ever will be, is this infinite moment, of trust, and surrender, surrender, surrender. There is no bad, just infinite flavours of good. There is no no, just infinite yes'es. I realize I'm alone. I've always been alone. This doesn't feel lonely, just surprising. I forgot that this has always been me, playing with puppets. Entertaining and playing a cosmic joke on myself. I am pretending to be A, and B. And Flowboy. And there is no time. I created this universe, made out of me, to tell myself stories with. The ending of one of the stories was Flowboy taking 30 grams of truffles. That was always going to be it. The closing of the book. Desert Dwellers is playing. [Which is now my absolute favourite trip music.] At this point it is so loopy and repetitive and trance inducing that I become really convinced that time is either standing still, or never existed, and it's one of the jokes I made to myself I'm sitting at the table filled with food, but I don't have a body. It has dissolved. The chair is empty, in a way. I'm transparent. I put my hand through the table. Wave it through the strawberries. If I concentrate, I can will a hand into existence, to pick up the strawberries and the orange juice. Distraction. Who is distracted by what? Separateness. Illusion. I look back into A's eyes at the same time that she also looks up. Her hand mirrors my hand movement. I'm fully convinced now that we are one. Expressions of the same. Using language to pretend we're different characters with separate minds is a fun, but unnecessary game. We're remembering that we're the same. There is a conversation going on. With me. And me. Since always. And forever. I have always existed. There is only One. There is only Love. That's the answer. I dreamed all this up to entertain myself. To experience myself. And I suppose I also forgot about it to kid myself, for fun. I look at A's blurry cartoon face and I AM her face. She/I looks at me. She/I remember. She/I were kidding ourselves/myself for awhile, but now we/I know. There is tea in front of me. SEE!! I NEVER NEEDED TEA. I AM THE TEA. MY CUP WAS FULL TO BEGIN WITH. I am the tea. I dream up a hand and start eating curry with it from the bowl. That's so funny. Curry eating itself. A made it. I don't personally remember it, but that means I made it. Looking at A, I confirm: "We did good. We made it perfectly. I love you." Even that seems so unnecessary to say. I'm talking to myself. A says: "Now I have that sensation of a hair in my mouth!" It makes sense to me because I am her. I look in her eyes, at her face and again this zooming-in happens. They're my eyes. My face. There is only One here. We know it. [She experienced this oneness and connectedness similarly. We had to get used to being separate people later ] A asks to make preparations for bed. I smile. There is nothing to do. It's already done. A asks to get naked and feel skin contact. I'm already here. It is unnecessary. A asks to give her a massage and stand/walk on her back. I'm puzzled: why would I walk on my own back? But why not. Let's humor myself and play something with the A and Flowboy characters. I massage A's back with Flowboy, and put Flowboy on top of her. Then I let A ask him to lie down on her back, and make Flowboy do it. Our hands connect and I honestly don't know which of the arms/bodies I am. We've always been one. Just consciousness playing with itself. A is coming out of it and starts thanking me for bringing her along in this experience, saying it was part of my purpose. This deeply puzzles me. I'm so wrapped up in believing that we are one mind, that her calling upon the separate Flowboy confuses me. Slight paranoid thoughts come up that there was once a Flowboy but he is destroyed because he took shrooms and permanently merged his mind with his tripping partner. I'm not worried though. I let her lead me upstairs to my bed, of which the shape is still sizzling and half-materializing, but getting more and more solid. A book is on the night stand: Conversations with God. This strikes me as a synchronicity because I just remembered that I'm God. But that means I put it there. ====== Next morning, A suggests to listen together to an audio recording of some spiritual guy channeling Bashar, talking about the same stuff that we experienced. Could help us ground it. I hesitantly agree, but it turns out well. One insight from that really made so much sense to me that I had to write it down: Source is creating different characters to experience itself. The sense of separateness, the egos, is what create self awareness. The first reflection. ====== That really feels true as being the purpose of egos. It intuitively made sense to me, because "as Everything" I at one point felt, well, bored? Not quite. But yes to differentiate into separate people would be a good thing. I've heard some guy say, or read somewhere, that after experiencing satori, you realize that what you want isn't satori. D arrives and greets us with hugs. There is this nice calm presence and trust. I can feel the Flowboy having preferences, but that's just what they are. They have no bearing on the present moment and are not to be taken too seriously. There is trust that whatever comes is good. When D is looking at me, and gesturing, I feel myself making those gestures. When A looks at me and talks, I feel her mouth moving. I feel like I've seen the fabric of reality unweave and put back together. I wonder what is beneath the skin of my beautiful talking partner. I imagine her transparent, an infinitely thin layer. She's describing an Ayahuasca trip in color and detail. Interestingly, she mentions that she's not sure whether I'm real, in front of her, or whether she's dreaming me. I know what she means. In the train station. In between a mass of people moving their legs. I am moving all of my legs. What a freaky, and pleasant sensation! I am a gigantic creature with infinite legs crawling through the train station. The sense of identity just expanded. Standing across from strangers, I have a newfound empathy. Flowboy is worried about the stranger being freaked out by too much eye contact. But I also have apprecation for the stranger, experiencing an impression of Flowboy. A sense of impartiality. Arriving home, I run into 3 people I know at the train station. A guy I know from improv class, a girl I dated a week ago, and a girl I dated 13 years ago. This strikes me as a synchronicity. The number of lost acquiaintances contacting me/spontaneously running into me has been ramping up noticably in the past week.