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Name: Arthur Bondar Age: 25 Gender: Male Location: Halifax, Canada (Lived in Ukraine and Israel) Occupation: Electronics Engineering Marital Status: In a relationship Kids: No Hobbies: meditation, books, programming, movies, this forum. I got into personal development in 2014. I found Actualized.org at a time of a big personal struggle, and from that moment, my life was never the same. I came to a cross-road and made a significant life decision. It wasn't easy, but I was rewarded with a teacher like Leo to guide me. I immediately recognized the deep wisdom of Actualized.org. It's been a very bumpy ride, but today, I'm reaping the benefits. I first started by improving my social skills, like any other young male. Here, Personal development opened my eyes to how much we care about what others think. I found what women are actually attracted too, and how the whole dynamic works. Many of my naive beliefs got crushed, and from the fire, a more mature understanding emerged. The quality of my life improved dramatically when I started Meditating. Every experience became infused with awareness. My mind is able to stay focused, sharp and clear. I'm can shift out of negative thought loops and destructive emotions. I consider Meditation to be the most important activity of all. 12 years of formal education is not as important as a meditation habit. Practicing meditation got me deeper into Spiritual work. Here, my life was changed once again by self-inquiry and psychedelics. I've experienced deep mystical states - Samadhi, ego death, and pure awareness. Today I know myself as empty consciousness that is aware of everything. All things come out of nothingness to the spotlight (me) for a brief moment, then disappear into the void. Personal challenges I've overcome: Playing video games and wasting time Moving to a new country to start a new life Problems with shyness and caring what others think Co-dependent relationships Unhealthy diet and lifestyle Attachment and ego-clinging What I'm working on now: Helping others and contributing to the world Gaining more practical skills Working on my Life Purpose Self-realization - Enlightenment

I think you should seperate this NEW NEW NEW NEW age ideas I.E imagination from the enlightenment / spirituality thread. Maybe call it nothingness or something But i think theres a clear gap in individuals understanding and its like you said the lessons aren't being toned down simply to grasp. Theres too large of a gap in my opinion. Let me know what you think? or any of you for that matter really.

But who is aware of that nothingness?

@Rilles yes very easy just nothingness

Recent experiences have led me to question whether absolute nothingness, infinity , void or other are truly the end of end. Let me state first that, if self-deception is total, which i don't hold in concept i truly experience it. Then i would concur that: Give a creator some tool and he will create bullshit give a bullshit some tool and he will spread bullshit give the bullshitted some tools and he will replicate bullshit IN OTHER WORDS, if you give absolute nothing tools he will create bullshit? "it can not be encapsulated, only in the now etc.. etc... , you have not got what is being said, you are conceptualising etc.. etc... " the human animal bullshitting machine can only bullshit as much as you feed it; so naturally the way to stop this is to feed it absolutely nothing However! We are still stringing nows together, here is where words have broken down and i can not articulate metaphysical meaning but have to do my best with analogies and metaphors to state the obvious. So i will do the counter intuitive thing and state the obvious without explanation here All maps of the territories are cycles because the nature of awareness A) 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8787878789789789789789,10,7,8,9,10 etc etc --> the 10 ox herding pictures B) All strange loops C) Rebirth cycles in hinduism Rebirths as such in our recontexctualise meaning YOU! are now the one processing infinity with limited resources and so the recontextualised bullshit now belongs in this domain of relativity with implications of absolute nothingness associated NOW! imagine! Its obvious now that you created yourself at a starting point, forgot about yourself and then self-goverened yourself, (YOU in the BIG sense) but how did you THINK of what something is You defined something through perception / not perception But what is absolute Something!! sure the perception bought it to reality in duality terms, but you bought it to reality in non duality terms You! imagined it ! and it appeared, the creation was the intricate design. It had no use or purpose. It was simply imagined for the sake of understanding what am i. IT has to know initifity of itself to know what infinity feels like itself so you imaged yourself as this inifnity void that has no conceptuality just acceptance of a bigger self again I am now the creator but i don't have the ability to create. I have the tools to create something but what is something! pure awareness and void - IS imagination - ALSO IS the term we call imagination if ou recontextualise it! it becomes creation. Imagination is creation We are creating reality itself with imagination!! So if we are being now as you, what is the purpose - to play your part but what is the purpose - non duality but what was the purpose - Image the end of the strange loop between creation and creation ~ true non duality OR ABSOLUTE SOMETHING Kind regards My human animal bullshitting machine and ME.

Recent experiences has caused me to question what the divine play is. In hinduism ... it ... is called leela. If we are all playing our role, then who is watching out for the overall role. It is a natural paradox, am i big or small. This is the duality that leads to I am small-big and this is what we call non duality. I am small , i am big , i am small-big , i am big-small as long as in your role you identify with ONE thing you are non- dual. Could it be as such, that the role of playing ONE thing has no distinct boundaries, therefore it only leaves the role and term "playing in the now" "What came first the chicken or the egg" in other words what came first Something or nothing ... The answer we know now is nothing .... they appeared at the same time , in fact they are non dual. so for all dualities to collapse you have to arrive at the point where all terms are the same between big and small and the obvious answer you arrive at is simple... the big and small are dualities, the answer can not be encapsulated by any human standards, besides absolute truth and void or another definite of complete nothingness. Okay so you arrive here and lets say you let go of everything entirely... you become non duality itself .. You become one thing! A force of nature, belonging to a bigger self ... YOU itself I agree you can become absolutely nothing, but you can't actualise absolute nothing unless you actualise absolutely something in other words, might it be that as non duality... the role we play is one role ... to create something out of nothing! The paradox turns inwards and the duality completely collapses! saying we are absolute nothingness does not raise consciousness levels fast, the fastest way is to produce something out of nothing. produce yourself out of nothing. Human is only a construct itself, pure awareness however is the only thing real ofcourse! but only as far as hallucinations go! or absolute nothingness. what are your thoughts on this matter? reality constructing itself?

@Leo Gura A question I have had for a while .. do you think Sadhguru’s inner engineering, hatha yoga, and shoonya (also a kriya designed to experience nothingness) will give the same benefits as the kriya yoga you speak of? I do want to go slower and safer (sadhguru’s way) but I also do want to experience the benefits of the hardcore kriya yoga you speak of

@cetus56 Not so easy to do in this life: The pain is the pain. A person saying, "I am the pain," without suffering is rare. There is a special kind of mole that doesn't have any nerves that could do this. That's why we use our life purpose as a vehicle to actualize with flow -- to reduce our karma and hopefully, by the end of our lives, reach nirvana and graduate from this life so we don't have to be embodied in any ego ever again. Or...we have the free will to go anywhere and become anything, anytime/anywhere after we reach nirvana. That's what it means too, right? Everythingness / Nothingness.

The day you realize you don't need shit, shit stops owning you. You are a slave if you want to think if your self as that. If you go deeper and realice that we are all nothing, one of nothingness, no limits, all. Then why even work....

@ground You are right, awareness has no objective qualities. You can't find it with your senses. You can only become aware that you are aware. Saying I found it sounds like it was lost like an object, like I lost my keys and I fond them on the floor. It's hard to name the event because nothing really happened. I was nothing before, but the nothing wrapped itself in thoughts and couldn't see itself outside of them properly. When the thoughts stopped I saw myself as I am and then I remembered I always was. Saying that nothingness is somethingness is also not wrong though since nothing ultimately takes the form of absolutely everything, but I haven't had the direct experience of that yet. I'm currently at the stage of disentangling emptiness and form.

@ground i think he is talking beyond that. of course the words are the limitations. but yes, i agree with you... "Antonius" cannot have found nothingness. Antonius/the ego/character can NEVER find nothingness. the real self currently identifying with Antonius would have come into contact with itself briefly

If you found Nothingness then Nothingness actually is Somethingness. Otherwise you couldn't have found it.

Yes, exactly! I like what you said there. You're talking about the natural deep force. I call it flow. This is definitely part of enlightenment (truth). Because in the real thing (truth), there is a flow. The ego (our human embodiment), upon initial thought, likes to think of this as a massive, grandiose, powerful, infinite light that flows back into the human body (ego) from the nothingness / everythingness, but in reality (truth), it's just a transformation from the nothingness from the truth's "perspective." No distance at all. No suffering when this happens. Only peace and love as a result. Anyway, we're blessed with different talents, interests, and abilities because of the flow -- go with the flow to create less suffering and peace in our world in our own ways as individuals. Our thoughts are flowing in coming from the nothingness telling us about this. Just let your unwanted thoughts flow away and be present since this creates suffering. This monk is practicing the effortless action. I like to call it meditative flow:

The moment I stopped using the mind to find it, I just became it. I was always it, but the mind distracted me with it's endless flow of thoughts and feelings that over time painted a vivid picture of a seperate person. Old memories are coming up of being that changeless self. It's so familiar and ordinary. The simplicity can trick you into thinking it's not it, but it is. You just need to be patient and it starts revealing it's peaceful qualities to you. The ego construct is still hardwired into the body-mind though and if I stop just being it forces it's way back to the forefront of experience. Leo's last self-inquiry video really hit the nail on the head here. You just need to spend time with the nothingness that you are and the construct will slowly dissolve. I wouldn't be surprised if I just woke up one day realizing I was enlightened for days without noticing because I always am that, I'm just obscured by endless thoughts. It's the self-reflective nature of thoughts that make it seem like someone is there. It's like looking in the mirror and saying "I see myself in the mirror so that must be myself". But seeing your body in the mirror is no different than seeing a dog. You're not a dog because you see a dog. You are the seeER without an instrument through which you see. Thoughts manage to identify with thoughts because thoughts can think about thoughts. Advaita teachings ring very true now. After becoming awareness itself I "remembered" that I was always it. Try looking at a childhood memory that feels peaceful. That peace that feels like it's in the background is you, but you ignored it because there were more important things you had to think about and so you went on and forgot who you are completely over time. But I never actually stopped pursuing until my mind went suddenly silent on it's own. Psychedelics helped here because they can really stomp your ego so hard it gets tired of thinking about itself. My best advice for people would be to just spend time in no-mind. The nothingness will reveal itself to you without effort of mind. It will seem insignificant at first, but as you stay with it and don't try to grasp it with your mind it will flourish.

Mi take on this is that everything has to come from nothingness. There must be a point where nothing was there, and matter manifested from that nothing... our mind can't not comprehend it, because we have an "idea" of what nothing is. Let's say that nothing is a state where there's all the possibilities for everything to manifest. It contradicts our logic. In that nothingness everything is manifested. The only thing that exist is nothing, or you can call it silence, the void. Our mind try to separate things to understand. It says, here there's a person, a tree, an animal, etc... but everything is made of the same substance. Awareness. Some people call it God, others the source, others nothingness, and so on... God has thousands of names. It is personal and impersonal at the same time... and I won't continue writing because everything I write is not even near of what reality is. God is the ultimate reality. Think of nothingness as the ultimate truth. Truth shall make you free!

The mind perspective is what made you write those descriptions about reallity. Reallity simply is, cannot be conceptualized. Otherwise is not Awakening. From a perspective of Awakening nothingness is something. But cannot be explained. As much as one has experiences with awakenings and dreams, and sacred geometry etc, they are just EGO based perspectives, the fellings, the tripping. Awakening and Reallity are beyond thought and feeling. Is not a middle perspective of yin and yan, is a full circle integrating everything in the unspoken.

@SoonHei Yes @Yousef Yes it is apsolutely nothing but this nothingness is alive and aware as I remember Leo saying. It's one single be-ing, one infinite singularity. There cannot be two, that is duality and separation which is an illusion. So yea, it's all One. It's all God.

@Leo Gura if you go all the way to end of illusion. then YOU is an illusion aswell. The TRUTH is an illusion. Basically everything is an illusion, nothing is real at all. its neither beautiful or unconditional love. There is no YOU either thats the TRUTH. absolute infinity, bhrama, oneness, void, nothingness , all these words are synonymous and breakdown before the TRUTH because it becomes itself. ITS just different levels of letting go along the whole way. UNTIL YOU SURRENDER EVERYTHING TO THE TRUTH. AND ONLY LIVE IN TRUTH. no life, no death , no reality. just THE TRUTH that is the one who is conscious - the highest conscious mind. (Aakash as TRUTH not truth presently)

My path of Inquiry by its nature is offensive when articulated to others. Personality is pretty much synonymous with ego. American culture in general idealizes big personalities for the most part. Realizing the nothingness of Personality is offensive to people identified with personality. Actually my path is the cafeteria model but for the most part is Fourth way Self observation and Self Remembering. Blending with Diamond Approach work. ICHING for taking clues from the Cosmos , 20 minute Centering Prayer twice a day. One thing that I'm trying to keep underneath everything is what Gurdjieff called Kundabuffer. To me it seems like it deserves that degree of significance. A formula that makes sense to me Kundalini energy = Chi = Prana + absence of discipline = motorfuel for imagination and self deception Kundalini energy / Prana + 3 centered awareness = Higher Consciousness / Objective Reason 3 Centered Awareness is Intellect and feeling working in harmony, grounded through the human body.

@Pouya vipassana is about seeing directly into impermanence. about noticing the rising and falling of phenomena from and into nothingness

Good Vid @Leo Gura ! Your true-self does not change over time or space. In fact, time or space are irrelevant to it. You can not find it, it is nowhere to be found. This is why it referred to as emptiness. It is like the sun that can not illuminate itself, or a blade that can not cut itself. Your true-self is not an object, it has no properties and this is why it referred to as nothingness. It is in which reality is manifested. Your false-self is part of the illusory Reality which changes constantly. In fact, you know your true-self intimately all your life. You had overlooked it all of those years. It is what you call the presence that is aware to all it perceives, regardless of your body or your mind. BTW: there is no you. you are an illusion 2. as 4 me? i am you...

After watching today's video, I'm worried that I'm intellectualizing the idea of awareness, emptiness, true self, etc and that I'm going to do it wrong for a decade before I realize. I'm concerned my mind is making false sensations or images of the emptiness, and I can't seem to get past the tricks of my mind. When I try to sense the emptiness inside my head, I go inside and try to see what the "perceiver" is that links at the deepest level to my senses like sight, hearing, and smell, and the general idea of being "concious". It gives me a weird feeling like there's a vacuum or negative pressure inside my head that's sucking my head and ear canals in on itself. That's a sensation so I know that definitely can't be it. When I try to sense the emptiness outside of myself, it's still just a single point of "nothingness" I'm imagining in space in front of me, as opposed so something that permeates everything. Even if I think I'm feeling pure awareness or stillness, it still seems like there's a physical sensation associated with that. How do I know for sure that I'm finding true emptiness / awareness / true self, instead of it just being my mind tricking me? Am I supposed to be able to find it? Or is this some neti neti thing where I'm supposed to struggle to find it for hundreds of hours, and then it will just suddenly click?

The entire fabric of reality is completely empty. There was never a process of nothingness going into somethingness, there was always nothing. This is nothing. This moment is not something and before this there was nothing, this is a false paradigm. This very moment is absolutely nothing. This is what nothing looks like. Also there's no one here, this is a scary feeling... there's absolutely no one here. No one is reading this, no one will reply, and no one wrote this. This just hit me hard and recontextualized my previous beliefs. Wow... knowing that no one will read this makes me wonder why those fingers in front of me are still moving and typing this?

On the topic of drugs: It is a common assumption for people that the default state of the mind is the most correct state, but is that really true? The brain at default is no different than drugs. Its all chemicals that is being used to interpret information. By this all interpretations are equally valid if you don't ride on an appeal to popularity game. All drugs give you some bigger picture of reality itself. Some people get too caught up in one aspect and forget the previous. But if you build a bigger more holistic view, you can rise up above both. Remember that science is a model of the the reality we experience. Science measures patterns but there is no guarantee reality is following the patterns we measure or that it will continue to be consistent. So using science as the holy grail of describing reality will fall short and lock you into ideology. No model can fully encompass something infinite in its fundamental form. When you talk of the universe you are creating a separation here - how much of the universe there is we do not know. Consciousness expresses itself in every way possible which results in infinity. This is simply one story inside the infinite story. But hearing this from me and believing it is all bullshit. The whole point of meditation and self inquiry in this work is for you to directly experience it. To rise above the ideological confines of being 'human' and to realize you are everything. Psychedelics help people realize this faster which would take much longer without it. LSD showed me separation is an illusory concept. Salvia showed me how illusory perception is. DXM gave me a higher understanding of nothingness. These are all experiences that go alongside the sober experience. You are always tripping. Thats the whole point of a hallucination. Everything I am saying though is just words, concepts, and imagination that do not compare to the indescribable experiences. Believing in just words and concepts is how you get modern religion. So use your skepticism to delve deeper to question deeper. We can only offer intellectual understandings to point you where to look, but you must still look beyond the concepts.

Recently, I started to get a glimpse of how profound Quantum Mechanics is. I've heard about the famous Double Slit Experiment when I was in high school. I even did some basic calculations of the interference pattern in my college physics class. Yet, it never occurred to anybody just how counter-intuitive, profound, and outright bizarre that experiment is. Brief description Imagine you have a loaded gun pointed at a wall with two slit openings. Behind it is another one, where every bullet entry can be clearly seen. The first wall acts as a sieve for all the bullets fired at the second wall. Common sense suggests that only the bullets fired at a specific angle will go through. After hundreds of rounds fired from different angles, you should expect two lines on the second wall. Those lines are a projection of the two primary slits. After a good number of rounds, the emerging pattern was very counter-intuitive. The marks suggested that a bullet was not following a straight path. There were bullet holes found in spots that were physically un-reachable without curving the bullet direction. The marks appeared in an Interference pattern, which is a phenomenon of waves. It can be observed at a beach when ocean waves encounter rocks. Still, bullets - electrons, are not waves, they are real physical particles. Your body and everything around us is made out of them... or so it seems. This result was basically the stuff of science fiction. It suggested that when a bullet was shot, it immediately transformed into a soup of all possible positions. It collapsed back into a bullet again when it reached the second wall. And then it got even weirder... When scientists put a measuring device that catches the bullet's exact position. They stopped transforming into a wave and acted just as regular physical entities! There was no Interference pattern, and the results were predictable. When they removed the measuring devices, the pattern appeared again. So what the hell is going on? The conclusion was that the act of observation collapses this wave of infinite possibilities into a single point of outcome. Yet when you are not looking, it all exists as a primordial singularity, infinite potential or a probability function. Although this function (Bell curve distribution) favors certain outcomes, there is never a 0% chance for any outcome. This result caused credible scientists to consider that we truly live in a simulation. We are in a game engine that and only renders things we actually need to see. Like a game character uncovering dark areas on the map, except that dark areas are non-existent prior to discovery. I'd like to hear your conclusion. Here is mine: Aside from quotes like "when you are not looking at the moon, it isn't there". What this seems to suggest is that consciousness is not separate from the "outside" events. In fact, there are is no external reality. Everything exists as nothingness, void, and infinite potential until consciousness is introduced. That stoplight awareness gives rise to the 10,000 things we see around us. Like an old movie projector with a tape running through it. The tape images become visible only through the light of the projector. The present moment manifests itself only because of awareness. There is no outside reality to present experiences. We are the raw experience that collapses the emptiness and manifests reality every single moment.