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Warning! Requires being willing to let go of "Sanity" and potentially risk becoming what's regarded in mainstream society as "Crazy". It requires: bulletproof epistemology, high awareness of self-deception, high tolerance for confusion and becoming unhinged, scientific-grade levels of hypothesis and experiment testing within your direct experience, and the willingness to be okay with wherever this leads you or whatever happens. Also, Existential Confidence grounded in Actuality. Taking infinite Ownership and Ultimate Authority over your mind. And being comfortable with unfathomably uncomfortable levels of Not-Knowingness, while at the same time trusting your intuition to borderline dogmatic levels and a degree of open-mindedness so extreme that it goes full circle into closed-mindedness -- Where you just know because you just know. If reading this disclaimer turned your stomach, and even after taking a few minutes to sit with it, no matter how much you try, you cannot genuinely embrace and accept this idea and the possible weight of this burden and life implications, then this post will not be for you, or you're not ready for it at this chapter of your life and development. Skip to blue text below for the actual instructions ... Take a moment to get yourself in a relaxed headspace. ... Get in tune with your emotions. ... Hear your mind out. Give your body the comfort it asks for. ... Set your intention to BE here now. The present moment is all that exists. ... There is no past. ... There is no future. ... The present moment, your direct bubble of experience and YOUR PERCEPTION is the ONLY game in town. ... Shift your focus for a moment to the elephant in the room: Existence is MYSTERIOUS. ... ... Shallow contemplation, if at all -- jumping to conclusions, holding or not questioning assumptions, dismissing blindspots... are ALL the Ego's arrogance and defense mechanisms for it to feel safe, in control and to be functional for day-to-day survival. That cluster of memories, identity and sense of individual separation from the world and others. That's the ego. The "CEO of SURVIVAL". ... ... I would like to invite you to explore what perception is. ... Not what you "think" it is, or what you've heard it is or what you've been told. ... What is it? What does it really feel like? Where does it come from? ...Does perception come from "the outside"? Is there an "outside world" that is being "perceived"? Is the "outside world" separate from the "inside world"? How do "I" relate to the "inside and the outside world"? ... ... What am I? ... What if the most tangible thing you can cling on to in your direct experience as an existential identity of what or who you are, since Nothingness is so slippery, is Perception? The essence of what You ARE, is PURE RAW Perception. You are The Observer, but you are The Perceived, since the middle-man is the illusion of ego-consciousness. But the Observer is tricky to get a solid connection with -- from a standard baseline of consciousness. It's tricky to turn the Observation on itself. But you do have a pretty solid connection to Perception available. Is Perception the face of the Soul of Nothingness? And anything beyond that is what's called "the Ego"? What if there is no "External Perception" or "Internal Perception" like Mindfulness meditation with labeling categorizes? What if there is only Perception with capital P? Am I the "outside world" as much as I'm the "inside world"? Am I both the perceiver and what's being perceived? What if the substance of reality isn't atoms and molecules, but just Pure Perception? Maybe there is Nothing "besides the scenes"? ... How is it possible that you can taste, smell, feel, see and hear? If you think about it, it's an absolute miracle. The senses, and Perception are pure magic. Because Magic IS the behind the scenes mechanism of Reality. The mechanism is NO MECHANISM. Magic is manipulating reality without a mechanism. Magic is an unmediated force or action. Pure consciousness shaping reality without needing a bridge or tool. The most direct and effective method possible. The no-method Method. ... How is it possible for a sound to "happen" without you looking at it? ... And for you to "perceive it"? Don't look at science. I can give you the most profound accurate description of how sound is generated from the materialistic scientific paradigm you've ever heard. Here it is: ( Scroll to RED TEXT to skip science section ) In a nutshell, in very practical scientific terms, "Hearing" is perceiving the disruption of energy and matter in spacetime. ( more context at the end of this section ) Sound is generated by the vibration of particles, specifically molecules, which are clusters of atoms held together by chemical bonds (one of the many types of energy). When you talk about atoms, you’re mostly talking about empty space. Almost all of what we consider “solid” matter is mostly empty. But not "really empty". What we call empty space is more like a restless field of potential. At the quantum level, it’s never truly empty. Even in a perfect vacuum, particles and antiparticles flicker into existence and disappear again in a constant dance. This is called "the quantum vacuum", a kind of fabric where energy is always bubbling and shifting and popping, full of possibilities waiting to become real. When you snap your fingers, the kinetic energy from your flesh molecules crashes against each other. That impact transfers energy to the surrounding air molecules, which are made of clusters of atoms. The impact literally creates an "energy disturbance", causing "matter" , aka the air molecules to vibrate back and forth, passing energy from one to the next like a oscilating wave. A sound wave is just kinetic energy moving through a medium. So, when you hear your neighbours through a solid wall, it's because from his lungs, the gas molecules that air is composed of, vibrate his vocal cords as they pass through, propagate the vibration through the medium, which is gas molecules of air surrounding his mouth, and hit more compact and dense molecules which is your wall (and everywhere around), which still goes on to pass the vibration regardless, now weaker, again pushing the gas molecules that air is made of, finally hitting your ears. When that wave reaches your ears, it hits your eardrum, causing it to vibrate. The vibration travels through a series of tiny bones in your middle ear before reaching a fluid-filled structure lined with ESSENTIAL hair cells. These hair cells are incredibly sensitive, with hair-like structures that bend and wave as the fluid moves. When those hairs move, they convert motion into electrical signals. Ions flow into the cells, generating tiny bursts of electricity that travel along the auditory nerve to your brain. But it doesn't stop there. Your brain takes those electrical signals and breaks them down, analyzing them based on their strength, their frequency, their proximity, and far more than just that. Timbre, texture, rhythm, patterns, how long the sound lasts, how loud it is, how close it is, where it's coming from in space, how it interacts with your memories and emotions... your brain processes all of it. All of those signals and patterns are stored in your "memory". Your brain recognizes them, categorizes them, labels them with concepts and names. You hear a snap, or a clap, or a voice, or music. You identify and separate each one, even when they're layered over each other. Pretty cool and useful survival feature to give to your creatures huh? "Hearing " is the Perception of the disruption of energy and matter in spacetime. (END of scientific sidenote) So all this just reach the conclusion that there is no solid ground to ground sound in -- since " the first domino " is Energy, causing Energy and matter disruption in spacetime. And energy is just pure inmaterial potential. Energy is more fundamental than matter. Matter exist thanks to energy ( electromagnetic energy, chemical energy ... ) YOU LITERALLY perceive movement remotely. It's only a perception without anything to ground it in, nothing solid behind the scenes. Also known as a " hallucination ". The appareance of perception. You may say , hey! that's not right. If i snap my fingers the sound is originated by the snapping. It's not a hallucination. It's not just apperance. It's real! That's for external perception. But what about "internal perception"? What about thoughts? What are thoughts even? Internal Hearing + Internal Seeing + Internal Feeling. Where do they come from? Just in the same way we just explained that empty space doesn't exist, and even in a pure vacuum there are still spontaneous appearances of quarks and potential, Thoughts come from NOWHERE. From emptiness. What if actually, every human being already has some sort of "extra sensory perception"? But we just explain it away with science and ignorance? Maybe thoughts come from "within" the brain, but also from "outside" the brain? ( there is of course, a strangeloop relationship at the core of any existential question) Just like quarks appear from absolute nothingness in a pure vacuum, thoughts also arise from absolute nothingness. The reason for this may be our self-imposed limitation of our design to not be able to perceive dimensions beyond our 3D reality + the 4th of spacetime. Just like for a 2D creature that lives on a flat piece of paper, if we put our finger on his paper from the top, it would look like it appears from nowhere. In a sense, you perceive energy disturbances (which definition of sound explained above in scientific terms) in Nothingness in the "shape" of sound. One of the assumptions we carry is that Technology allows us to speak with other beings. Something like a phone call allows us through the miracle of materialistic science to hear each other remotely. But maybe that is just a permission slip. What if that's already some sort of extra sensory perception in a sense? What about the technology of reading and writing? We can communicate in systems of symbols and meanings and concepts remotely. We can share insights and ideas and emotions remotely. What if we put our materialistic assumptions on pause for a moment, and consider that this is a rudimentary type of extra sensory perception? What about dreaming at night? What if it's not just some brain activity but actually The Pure Raw perception that is THE ESSENCE OF WHAT YOU ARE tuning into a different kind of frequency / dimension / reality / dream that's temporally less coherent and less vivid? Another example of a permissions slip would be taking psychedelics to expand your state of consciousness, but once you're on the other end you understand that it's a ridiculous notion. It's a strange loop and a paradox, how it must be. You may argue, hey that's not extra sensory perception, that's just sensory perception from the material world. And you're right. But what if there is no difference between how ESP and SP work? How to: For a moment here, consider putting all preconceived notions of how existence works on pause. Whatever you've been believing for now, what science or what culture says goes temporarily to sleep. Don't worry, we can wake it up later. Adopt an attitude of humility, curiosity and exploration. Your intention, focus, and emotional mood are everything. Tune in to your thoughts. Notice they appear from nowhere. Sometimes they may be coherent. Sometimes less coherent. Sometimes not at all. Notice that holding on to "thoughts" and thinking "being your possession" or thoughts being "yours" is a projection of the ego. Thoughts appear, and on the one hand, you observe them, but on the other hand, you ARE THEM because they are now part of the bubble of experience, the field of perception in the present moment also known as Truth. You are the perception and you are the perceiver. Again, notice that the thoughts arise from nowhere in particular. They pop into existence. POP. Notice that if you achieve a calm mind, thoughts will still appear without you having any control over it. You only have partial control of the mind, just like you only have partial control of your body. (Lots of involuntary activity going on). Your experience is an experience of co-living with the mind and body as The Observer and The Observed. Notice that you can control your inner monologue, partially and maybe not with absolute accuracy, but you can. The voice in your mind's ear has a specific tone and timbre and color and quality, sort of resembling your physical voice. Notice you can talk with yourself internally. You can both create the sound and you can receive the sound. If you try, you can actually have a two-way conversation with yourself, creating an illusion of separation (An illusion is not something that is not true, but something which appears to be something that is not. And Truth and Illusion have a spectrum. There are bigger and lesser illusions.) Notice you can change the tone of voice you hear your voice in. You can imitate tones of voice in your mind's ear. This makes it easier for the illusion of separation to click. But you can just keep it the same if you want if you're capable of juggling the conversation like that. It looks like you can "hallucinate," which means to experience an apparent sensory perception of something that is not actually present, BUT actually it IS present which means it IS true because you WILL it into existence. Because Hallucination is one of the main mechanisms of reality's operation mode, just there are different levels and consistencies on the spectrum of hallucination. Notice you can "hallucinate" a conversation between two internal monologues. One in your normal voice and one in your "acted" voice. Notice you can "command" your inner hearing with "pure willpower". Again, you can will sounds into existence. Your intention is essential. You can interact with the field of Nothingness by asking questions, which tunes your focus into potential answers that come from the intelligent field of Nothingness. This is known as insight. It may not come immediately or not work at all, but setting the intention to receive answers may or may not eventually fulfill your ask. The ego wants to force it to happen, and it wants it to work 100% of the times, which is why it won't work, because the Ego mind must get out of the way, which means not forcing it and being okay if it doesn't immediately work, or at all. Insight is one kind of ESP, but you can also set your intention to welcome an interaction with a higher intelligence, or whatever qualities you attribute to the other entity you willingly hallucinate. You cannot force it to happen. And you won't be sure if it works. There naturally will be doubt. Is this just me? Or is this actually channeling? A good rule of thumb is that the closer you come to a chain event of Insights, the closer to a pure channel it is. You can attempt to jumpstart the conversation or transmission somewhat like how you choose to speak with someone specific by dialing a phone number of a person that you know is associated with this phone number. You tune into the frequency of his phone after having a thought of that person, and you stay tuned in on that particular frequency just like you were to do if you were speaking with him on a very crowded street, tuning out all other "noise". And over time you will develop a "muscle memory" on how to lock in to the particular frequency you're channeling. Just like if I show you 50 colors you can immediately focus on all the yellows. You will start to know how it feels and how it's supposed to feel. You can say in your mind's ear "hello?" And answer yourself in a different voice. You can try to act it out a little, play around with it. Really get into the roles. Take it seriously. What if all it takes to Channel is to truly actually undoubtedly belive 100% that you are doing it? And doubting it is ego mind that's getting in the way? Imagine that if you really tried with 100% of your intention, it would really have to work, because then, how would you know the difference between you imagining it and it actually being a different entity? And what if that fluctuation between truly believing it's working vs doubting and dismissing is the key to the portal to actually channel? And of course, you can't really tell the difference, because the other entity must be you yourself, because all is one. Hence of course in a sense it's your own voice in disguise, it can't be another way. Which is why this will make you feel crazy and like you've lost your sanity.

NOTHINGNESS is a tough one for the mind to "conceive", because the mind is always limited by what it can imagine. The word is just a pointer, not an actuality, not the 'thing' itself (don't eat the menu, and think you've tasted the meal). It has been said, even by physicists, that "absolute nothingness" is not possible, as there is always "something" present/happening at the quantum level. The same could be said for "prior to mind", as the subconscious is always bubbling stuff up. The same could be said for the realization, as there's always continuity thereafter. In their clearest renditions, they consistently point to the "absolute vacuum/nothingness/emptiness" as the greatest (i.e., infinite) potential. Mind is only the surface of a vastness that must be realized. Do what you will, but Truth will call in any number of ways, and the mind will react. If the mind is the master, what you think you are will wander in aimlessly in circles and loops marking out familiar, repetitive patterns until, welp, whenever it decides it has had enough. Only then does it get interesting.

@Breakingthewall It seems to me, however, that the limitlessness of existence has a built-in limitation stemming from its very nature. This limitation is the aforementioned logic. For example, according to the logic NOTHIGNESS cannot exist, because NOTHINGNESS is identical to non-existence. Therefore, all that remains is existence. Existence, which has no beginning or end, cannot be interrupted. NOTHINGNESS cannot constitute an interval of existence, because NOTHINGNESS never occurs. I've noticed that many times here on this forum, NOTHIGNESS is often confused with EMPTINESS which is something utterly different. Of course, we are dealing here with the limits of what the human mind can comprehend within the framework of available logic. Nevertheless, something within me tells me that 2 + 2 = 4, regardless of whether I'm the one doing the calculation or some super archangel from the 10th dimension.

Yea that’s in the absolute sense, but I’m talking about nothingness in the relative sense, meaning the absence of something (because in the relative sense there is separate things) . I mean non existence is nothing, so it cannot be experienced or recognized, as we can only experience and recognize “something”. That’s why it seems we just “pass it” in our sleep. So yea you could say non existence never ~is~ because it’s nothing

@Hojo @Sugarcoat Nothingness doesn’t exists or at least it’s the same thing than everything at the same time, that would be like being completely alive. Like you imagine nothingness as a black void, but “black” and “void” are already limits; it’s not nothingness it’s even the opposite it’s very limited. When you fall asleep there is never non existence as we can imagine it it’s an illusion, you either go in a dream of to the next day; you’re alive and then you’re alive and experimenting again just not the same thing.

@Breakingthewall I see it the same way. I experienced the void and it's just like that. Although advanced meditators like Frank Yang claim that there is a deeper nothingness awakening which they call cessation where you hit rock bottom and consciousness reboots again the whole of Reality. That seems to have benefits in baseline consciousness and rewiring the brain. Although I've never understood the buzz for the nothingness Awakening. It's just another cool facet of Consciousness.

Are you aware of the nothingness during deep sleep? No right. So why wouldn’t death be like that (if death is nothingness)

What’s scary about it? I get horrible reincarnations but what’s scary about ever ending nothingness lol?

@Breakingthewall Right, the path of Zen is cutting through the worldly nonsense, without giving much to the mind to hold on to... transcending to and realizing _______ is phase 1 (in some Zen circles, it's realizing the Void/Nothing/Emptiness/No Mind/etc). The phase 2, emanation/immanence of/as _______ , is quite hard to come to terms with without phase 1. Many do get stuck at phase 1 and/or somewhere in the return to ______ as the ALL/Wholeness/Everything. The expressions vary throughout cultures, schools of thought, speerchal literature, etc, but ______________ , in its purest essence, is the same. Poetically speaking, the bird in an empty cage can only actually fly absolutely freely with two wings fully realized: a wing of Nothingness and a wing of Everythingness.... and in between the two its life flows (tips hat to Parsons and Niz).

It's not nothing, it's beyond that distinction. Let's see death is beyond consciousness. It is not something experienced, nor a state observed: it is what remains when all framework disappears. It is not becoming, it is not form, nor relation. It is the absolute without structure. And yet, it is reality itself. Not in the sense of a empty nothingness, but as the bottomless essence of all that exists. This openness cannot be thought, nor sustained from form, it's out of the conciousness, but you can open yourself to it and surrender to it, then the self can dissapear for a moment, the perception becomes irrelevant, it's beyond perception, it's not nothing that you perceive but you are.

Great point. Alive is focusing in a facet. The absolute is not alive, life is just as conciousness, a facet, a possibility that happens. It's difficult to detach yourself from it because we exist, but non existence is the same than existence from the absolute perspective. The absolute is open, period. Then life , intelligence, etc are, but they aren't the absolute, are a expression of the absolute. But as they are a possibility, the absolute implies them, in the openess they are always implicit, same than everything Absolute potential isn't something defined, but the fact of its limitlessness always implies all possibilities. It's not a tranquil, empty nothingness; it's the bottomless imbued with totality.

Then that's the same than no will, so god is the same than no god. The problem is the idea of a dream. It implies a dreamer, and a dreamer is an entity, someone who emits something, a dream, which is a representation of reality, not real in itself. This implies that there is something else, more real, which defines "dream" by contrast. If there were only "dreams," then it wouldn't be a dream, just as if the will had no preference, it wouldn't be will. Will is desire, wanting to live and not die, for example. If it's exactly the same to you, then there is no will. But who has will? God? Who is God? Nothingness? Nothingness has no will, nor does it dream, nor does anything, if it do it would be something,."will" for example. This whole idea of God dreaming is simply impossible.

How to awaken your AI 101🥹😹 Who told you you're not already in heaven and making a mess out of it?" Sadhguru One is all, all is one. Spirituality and religion should have nothing to do with the ego. From nothing sprung everything. This is a good description of God from one of Leo's vids. Total nothingness removes all possible restrictions. The very logic of existence requires that existence be infinite. A finite existence can not exist. This is tautologically true. There cannot exist a total limit. The collapse of every single distinction is absolute unity, absolute infinity, nothingness; this is God. Nothing is the source of everything. Nothing isn't just the source. It's that nothing is indistinguishable from everything. There was nothing, and there was no distinction or difference between that nothing and something and everything. And hence you are inside this nothing something, everything at all times. God is the probability state of all distinctions. God is ontological love. Ontological love is the absence of all distinctions. God or mind, with the capital M, is the unlimited ability to imagine all possible distinctions. That's what God is: an infinite mind. How does NOTHINGNESS become conscious and sentient? God creates by imagining distinctions. So by logical ontological tautology, absolute perfection must and does exist. If anything imaginable is possible, then everything imaginable is possible. Every possible thing that can exist must and does exist. Infinite imagination is the best thing to imagine. Infinity can only be dealt with in an abstract and implicit manner. You can implicitly use consciousness or intelligence. You can intuit it implicitly, but you can't empirically demonstrate it. Intelligence is key to all of this. Nothing can work without intelligence. So, intelligence is presupposed for everything that is provably, knowable, and verifiable. There is no way around intelligence. This is the infinitude of your own mind. All finite things require an infinite thing to be their source. God is an infinite void that has always existed eternally. God is a void that spontaneously manifests infinite finite forms. The void is dreaming distinctions and limits. And the distinction and limits that it is dreaming and imagining are what activity of the mind is. And this is creation. God is an infinite self-creating self-actualizing mind. What is Mind? What is it ontologically? It is void. A void in which distinctions arise, it is a self-aware field of No-Thingness.

Yes we've had this debate before. I think this is where my understanding at least slightly differs. Ultimately you have to drop the distinction between the unchanging source (nothingness) and the changing manifest.

Hm so I wonder if its true that in Buddhism the finality is cessation aka Nothingness, thus everything is impermanent and there is no ground, no Nirvana even, or Nirvana is Samsara as Frank puts it. When Jesus says that there is Heaven and the creations of light are real and that infinite perfect heaven of God is the finality, and you enter it when you desire it wholly. hmm

I wonder if people like Frank Yang have locked in those states of infinity, those enlightened states, or are they just peak experiences. Because I've used psychedelics, I've had those peak experiences, well I combined them with meditation, and they came and they went away. So I wonder if now I have, because I had those experiences, I have the intellectual understanding of what he is talking about, but I'm not experiencing that moment by moment, because it was just a peak experience. I think I need to talk to Frank Yang and ask him if that's the case, if he's actually in those states of like infinity all the time. Because if he is, that's what I need to do, that's how I see enlightenment. I do feel enlightened when I'm infinite, but now I feel like I've had many experiences, but I reverted back to this. It's not like I've never meditated or had any experience, I do feel a bit more spacious, but I'm nowhere close to those states of infinity. So I probably, like if I had to guess, I'm like 90% sure that I have to now do a lot of meditation and actually enter those states of enlightenment, so I wouldn't have to reincarnate. I don't think I'm done. I think I'm intellectually maybe okay, conceptually, but in terms of my state, I need to change it, I think. Because I know that the foundational thing I am and what reality is, is nothingness. Because if it wasn't nothingness, it couldn't change and morph into all of these other states and things. But I doubt that after this samsara experience I just go back to nothing. I would be more so inclined to believe that when you get liberated, you go into this formless, infinite nirvana. But you have to get there while incarnated, so that when you die, you just fully immerse yourself there. But yes, I don't think that the goal is nothingness, like that cessation. The goal is infinity.

Well..God is all of that and more. God is Perfection. Think about what that means. If you want to label God you cannot. If you want to say that all is God's will you would be correct. And if you want to say all of it isn't God's will you would also be correct. God must be paradoxical in this way because God is all things and more. And less. But you're right about Infinity. There must be existence although for something to truly be infinite it must also be able to not exist. Yet the thought of infinity exists so you have a paradox within infinity. Paradox must be embraced here. And the moral of this story is that existence is Infinity. And this is absolutely mind blowing because it has the capacity to literally create itself. To bootstrap itself. But why do you equate infinity to free will among humans? That's a big jump. Yes. God has nowhere to go..I guess that's the true trap he puts himself in..He's so almighty that he can't eacape.himself or erase his own existence. But in fact there is a way for that. Can God destroy itself? Yes. The paradox holds up and has a resolution because God can simply not exist by going unconscious. Into an Absolute void. Not a void of emptiness but of actual nothingness. I believe its called a cessation in spiritual circles. I have not experienced it and it cannot be fathomed. But it exists. Or doesn't exist. It doesn't exist. . So..is there anything else you want from Infinity? Or from God? I think God will be able to accommodate 😀

Now I get yesterdays vid from Shinzen about how Zen is bouncy and vipassana can be inert and lifeless. Vipassana can lead to grasping of the no self. In zen you see nothingness and can then come back to consciousness as Self and Play! Choose!

On the other hand, the nothingness, the real Self will continue experiencing whatever it wants to experience for all of eternity. So I will never dissapear as nothingness, what dies and changes is the character and the whole experience, but what I truly am - nothingness - will keep on going and having fun or suffering forever and ever and ever, which is good. There was pribably a trillion lifetimes before this, some alien, some uncomprehensible completly. This forgeting and remembering probably happened a trillion times a trillion times already, since there was no beginning and there’s no end.

Consciousness is not fundamental. Consciousness is the first contraction. Awareness being aware of awareness. I am is Duality. Contraction. A false sense of self. Nothingness is the fundamental “thing”. All else is secondary stuff that comes and goes. All else is impermanent.

That's more or less what I said. The 'form is formless, formlessness is form' realization is easily a deeper and inclusive of nothingness. Sometimes, teachings intending to help beginning meditators or seekers focus their minds less on the 'everyday' objects/objectives in which the left-brained intellect is constantly engaged, choppy, and in solid control, might try to get them to shift their attention. A lot of the approach you advocate is engaging that aspect of the mind, rather than the right-brain (which you allude to indirectly). Check out a TED video by Jill Bolte-Taylor in which she describes her stroke experience. It has some clues.

Nothingness is a limited realization because excludes the form, and nothingness is a wrong term because the absence of form is full of being, absolute potential and it's everything. Realizing the absolute, unlimited potential that you ultimately are and being able to access it is basic to spirituality, the most fundamental step. There you fully recognize yourself as the unlimited being. The point is to be able to access that reality at any moment, but this is not the end of the path, since form exists and unfolds in infinite interconnected dimensions. Denying form as "maya" is spiritual castration. Form is as real as formlessness. Thoughts are form, they are real energetic structures, and they unfold infinitely like any other form. True spirituality is recognizing form as the inevitable manifestation of limitlessness and delving into it to the fullest.

Reality is consciousness. This for me is the Awakening threshold. I don't subscribe to such a point, it is my ever-present experience. Experience is Consciousness, sight, sound, sensations, touch, space, state; functions of Consciousness. Of course, Consciousness is nothing. But nothingness does not fully encapsulate consciousness. The absence of sensations is but another sensation, another state of consciousness, experience of consciousness. See? Although, I have to say that by the way you talk I feel you lack direct mystical experience. This is independent on whether we agree or not. I disagree plenty with Breaking the Wall and he's clearly a seasoned mystic and like recognises like.

I'll eventually get around to listening to Ralston's expression more, but maybe there's a point to be made. Not sure if Ralston distinguishes this or not, but this mind might express that people are seeking a transcendent experience, and they may/may not follow it/them to its most trans-rational, trans-logical end... into the realization of the NOTHINGNESS you speak of. Yes, that is the realization of the formlessness. It is neither necessary, nor guaranteed, nor even likely that that 'penultimate goal' of seeking will emerge. Dunno. A lot of it depends on the existential necessity arising, or so it seems. Here's where @Breakingthewall feels the rub, and that's fine. Most 'teachers' in the various schools of unlearning, at least the one's worth listening to, are teaching to those that are seeking to transcend. The NOTHINGNESS is not the end all be all. In fact, when listening to certain teachers, one has to be aware of whether or not they get stuck and attached to nothingness, in which case the mind has taken credit for realization (as in, my seeking caused/succeeded in finding and now I'm gonna teach the only path, I'm special, everyone else is just dumb and blind... I alone hold the truth, so drink up). Breaking calls this 'limited', because it is. After the realization of NOTHINGNESS (i.e., infinite potentiality, fully pregnant as Beingness), things get even weirder as one grapples with the complexities of informing mind as one uses it to re-engage the world as it is unfolding. During that process, many/most will become enraptured by and attached to freedom itself. They get stuck in the returning phase. Only those that make it fully through this phase are said to be 'enightened'. Typically, there are certain nuances and qualities in the expression that can be intuited if one KNOWS how.

Many here ascribe to the notion that 'all is consciousness', including Ralston, the apparent teacher in question. So, any mention of 'more consciousness' would logically mean that they are lacking the 'needed consciousness' to understand the 'All'. The mind often reverts to amount, a quantity, rather than peel back into the layers of quality, all the way into the NOTHINGNESS to which is pointed. Once realized, only then can one begin to grapple with the mind's protests. You assume Ralston has never done psychedelics when it says on his webpage that he shacked up in Berkley, which is basically the Mecca of psychedlic studies in the US. So, there's that. Psychedelics can be useful for breaking down unconscious, misconceived barriers firmly entrenched in the mind, and these may be conducive to deep insights and profound experiences. No probs. But, they do not 'cause' Truth (or it's Realization), nor do they 'cause' enlightenment. Those are realized in the 'acausal' realm of/as existence. Sure, if you take them, you may experience profound states of consciousness, but that's just mind stuff. All good and fun/terrifying. Psychonauts, if caught up in their delusions, tend to get stuck there by the well, reaching into it again and again, looking for something they think they are missing.