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I don't know about regular DMT. I only tried a tiny bit (1 gram) of mushroom, and that's all my experience with other psychedelics. As far as 5-MeO goes. I really don't know what this substance is or how it works fundamentally. It does miracles that's for sure, but what it is existentially I can't answer. My best "scientific" speculation would be that it is a neurotransmitter that is activated during peak experiences, such as childbirth or death, to help the body/mind cope with the process. It disables the part of your brain that is responsible for your sense of self. You experience Ego death, which is real death because the Ego is who you are. When the Ego is dead, you melt into nothingness, which cannot be described or spoken about.

@Shin I am actually experiencing this zero control but it leaves me with questions shin. If we ultimately have no control, what's the point? I feel (today) as if I have stripped away another huge layer of the self. I think 'I'm' making my way slowly towards nothingness. I genuinely thought killing the self wasn't going to induce this much fear but oh my god was I wrong. Completely and utterly underestimated this... COMPLETELY.

just want to clarify and understand... when it is said there is no "I", I get there is no questioning entity with it's own awareness/sentience inside of my body or anywhere else in the manifest universe. but whatever is there, is beyond I... it is the only thing which exists and it does have sentience/intelligence . it's the reality as a whole, with awareness and alive presence everywhere, without bound / exception. correct? the "your" in the above line... that is what I am... but that is not this body/mind/thought or the thing asking this question. sure, nothingness is its/mine nature but it is still okay to know/feel that there remains "something" which is nothing but is still "something" but in an unconventional way

I have a very complicated mind, one that loves to analyze the intricacies and nuances but that is just ego looking to justify itself through it's machinations. This doesn't change that awakening is simple, being present in the moment is simple, not attaching to the self identity is simple. The simplicity of this is not enough to satisfy the ego's craving for relevance and to justify it because it in fact empties the ego of it's importance. So it invents a myriad of complexities to keep us from being present and from severing attachment to it's content. The complexity is involved with the techniques and methods of the 'path', all of the things that people will do to occupy the mind with tasks they associate with their 'spirituality' and 'consciousness work'. So they spend countless hours discussing these things with others, in writing and reading about them, so that they can indulge the ego's desire to traffic in self styled 'wisdom'. People become infatuated with the complexities of their path and it distracts from the simple nature of just being present. Just because it's simple doesn't mean it's easy, it undoubtedly can be very difficult to be present and stay present in a hyperactive and challenging world. This nonsense, pardon me but it is nonsense, about explaining the unexplainable is simply the ego projecting onto a blank screen what it believes is there. 'Nothingness' and 'emptiness' has no form, no characteristics or any definitions so to be talking about 'it's this' and 'no, it's that' is just the ego attempting to polish that blank screen into a mirror so it can gaze at it's own reflection. Liberating one from suffering is not mutually exclusive from finding a purpose in life. Although liberation is a very fine purpose in life itself and without it every other purpose leaves craving more and continues to cause suffering. So even though we may have a complex array of variables that relate to our particular life circumstances in getting what we need to survive it would be a mistake to conflate these two into one in the same. Chopping wood and carrying water is the same act that gets the same result but the fulfillment and peace in liberation is incalculable. It has been said that these techniques and methods are merely scaffolding to build our 'temple' of our path and isn't actually what we are working on. The problem with this metaphor is that it implies we still have a need for the scaffolding for as long as we continue on the temple path. I say we aren't building the temple but dismantling it, we ae tearing down the scaffolding as we tear down the temple so that neither of them remain. We aren't writing the book of our spiritual path, we are erasing it and burning the pages. The ego cannot see the wisdom in that.

I'm having a huge surgery in the future. Double jaw surgery. I'm gonna be under general anesthesia, and I'm interested if some of you have been through this as awakened beings. First of all I would like to know if it went smoothly, without problems. I interested this because I've been worried about anesthesia awareness, and if there is a higher risk if you are on a higher consciousness than most people? Also I'm interested in knowing what effect the anesthesia has had on your consciousness. It's a little unsettling that anesthesiologists doesn't really know how it works. This is because it works on the level of the understanding of consciousness. But doesn't this imply that your level of consciousness has a say in how much and how well it will work? And how is it that a drug is able to send you into total nothingness for hours and then turn you back after? I actually think this is a very interesting topic.

Liberation is to cease self suffering, that's what liberation is, everything else is blah blah to preoccupy the egomind. If cessation can be accomplished simply why get complicated? Depth doesn't equate to complicated, that's ego distracting from the simple and tricking someone into believing they need complicated. Liberation is a deep peace, If it is the notion that emptiness and nothingness are attributes and characteristics of the awakened and 'enlightened' life then why fill the mind with all these spiritual systems of labeling and identity? That's like becoming a hoarder to be a minimalist. How much self suffering is created by people trying to understand and meet the demands of these complicated systems? There's plenty of people offering the complicated on this forum, elsewhere online and in spiritual communities everywhere. I offer a simple path because that is what liberates my experience of self suffering but I see so many still suffering and struggling with the complicated. Wisdom is often knowing what is useless more than it is just what's useful.

I did a 30 year juice fast like a year ago and about two weeks into it I was feeling weak and would notice intense rush of blood to the brain when getting up from the bed too fast that would make me really dizzy to the point of almost passing out. One morning I got up way too fast, was walking into the kitchen....I started feeling the very intense blood rush and dizziness and then it was just blank....I woke up on the kitchen floor with a really eerie feeling of not knowing where I am and how I got there. It took about 10 seconds to realize what happened. There was literally no memory, no sensation and no consciousness of any kind during that blank, it was as if everything that "happened" in the moment of passing out was deleted. Another time when this blank happened was when I put under general anesthesia while having surgery at 12 years old. Again there was no memory or experience of any kind, there was just a mask being put on me, me taking a few deep breaths and then waking up with a tube down my throat coughing up blood, the time and "existence" in between never happened for me. General anesthesia is said to "induce a loss of consciousness." So....what are those "states of consciousness" of absolute blank? Is that what nothingness is? Why was there no transition phase or fear of any kind in a similar way to what happens leading up to ego death?

Detachment from the process and outcome is better than being obsessed and attached to them, including the outcome of nothingness.

As far as my own experience goes though nothing comes close to this. I love piano, but this must be my very favorite album ever. When I tripped once, I plugged in this album and I instantly felt perfect peace and stillness. Next thing I remember I regain consciousness on the LAST NOTE OF THE LAST SONG. I was gone for the whole album. Literally gone. My face was washed in tears of utter bliss in nothingness. Even remembering this brings up so many feelings.

Something I've always been confused about. When I have an operation, and am under anesthesia, there seems to be no self. There is no perception, no concept of passage of time, just nothingness. From the time I go under, to the time I wake up many hours later, there is just nothing. So shouldn't the Self still be experiencing and perceiving during that time? Could you please try and explain this.

@Leo Gura At around 1:30:54, it's counter-intuitive to put yourself in the enlightened masters' shoes and be radically open to why they are saying that. For example, some of them had their nothingness awakening (Riding the Ox Backwards) when they were children. You can't induce that with a substance at that age. Then, for them, there are 'minor' awakenings afterwards throughout life, which are just as important as the nothingness awakening. They don't want to miss out on those because those can set them in the right directions in life. If you keep inducing this and that, you may just be skipping steps and missing out on the meaningful lessons. As you said in your blog, life is a school. I agree. In the actual school, we can't miss out on the lessons which set the foundations. You also have to factor in karma as you go along. It makes the spiritual path very complex.

OP, I've been where you are, afraid of the possibility of experiencing a bad trip. Honestly, If you do not have a family history of schizophrenia, you are able and comfortable with soothing yourself emotionally, and you are not impulsive. In addition, if you are introspective and even introverted. I would bet that you would be okay. You gotta be confident when you take the leap and just have at it. Look at the bright side of things. I am afraid before all of my psychedelic trips lol. And pretty much every time, I say "I don't know what I was worried about. this is awesome." Except N-N DMT, that feels like I'm dissolving into nothingness. Can be a bit scary during the moment, but I still leave it feeling amazed. You're bound to reach some weird moments where things may take on an ugly appearance or a dark tone, almost like the difference between watching a horror film and a Disney movie. You become really sensitive to the energy around you and the energy you create. You just gotta stay conscious, use rationality as difficult as it may be, and be able to let go when it's necessary.

Yesterday I had an enlightenment experience where I became conscious of what I think was nothingness. I was watching Leo's video, What Is Consciousness, and he was talking about how consciousness can't have any attribute since if it did it wouldn't be able to take on the opposite of that attribute. For example if consciousness was red, or cold, or rough, or smooth, or etherial, or solid, it wouldn't be able to be the opposite of that attribute. If it was red it couldn't be green, if it was smooth it couldn't be rough. So consciousness needs to be able to take on any attribute and therefore it needs to be completely empty of any attributes or properties. Even free of time and space. I was watching the video and suddenly my consciousness shifted and I felt like I was Leo, I was looking of a picture of a guy and I was him too, I was everyone I ever knew and also everything around me (all objects), and then I realized what I was was nothingness. So by becoming nothing, I became everything simultaneously. I also felt like that nothingness was what was looking through my eyes. It really felt like awakening from a dream and the term "awakening" is a very accurate description. The nothingness was not an idea of nothingness, it was actual nothingness and for that reason it kind of feels like it was magical nothingness since it exists but it still is nothing. It feels like it is beyond existence or non-existence, beyond self and no-self, time and space, colors, or any other attribute. I am writing in past tense but I am still conscious off these things that I noticed but it is not present all the time and it can be more or less strong. So now I am wondering where this experience/insight stands in comparison to the 10 ox herding pictures and if anyone here on the forum has any reflections on that?

To put it to perspective, you are already nothingness, but you are not nothingness, you can not put finger on nothingness as it is everything and nothing, if you become everything , experience everything ,you will still not be nothingness , as it will be just experience,, it is hard to explain, because it has no logical explanation.

I have no clue what they meant when they made thous steps, is it understanding nothingness , or is it embodying nothingness , which would be still just state, experience , as you cant become nothingness .

I'm not offering help but asking for it. This video flew a bit over my head. Being 4 hours long, I'd imagine it's a very important concept and yet when working with it (admittedly quite briefly), it doesn't really seem to have any impact on me. Unlike the other videos, which often leave me feeling a lot more wise and seeing reality differently. Just one example, the video on perception... I noticed a huge shift just listening and considering all experience as external. And this counter-intuitive video has me inspired af. But with sameness vs difference... what's the big deal (cue the "IT'S THE MOST IMPORTANT CONCEPT THERE IS!!! REALITY IS MADE OF DISTINCTIONS!!!" freak out)... I mean, I can look at two pens, maybe one red and one blue and yeah... they have differences and similarities. I know/understand/believe that ultimately everything is relative, and in a way I am generating these differences. I've even in a way experienced this before, all distinctions collapsing. But in that moment... it's just two pens with some similarities and some differences. What's been more beneficial for me is to just let go and appreciate the raw existence and experience and presence of a pen. Or maybe getting out of my head and being the pen. So what's the big deal with this? I mean, everything is the same in that everything is different from everything else. And for something to be the exact same as something else, it has to literally be that thing itself. And reality is made up of all possible (and impossible?) differences that can be perceived of from an infinite singularity of nothingness. So that's kinda cool.... What can I do to grok this more and have some direct experience? Any hints as to a path to go down in contemplating "What is sameness and what is difference"? (Tbf I've spent maybe 10 minutes total on this). Maybe I should rephrase it as "what is a distinction"? Is this just me and everyone else was like wow this changes everything when watching this video, or what?

*note, not a native English speaker. It's consciousness. I'am this thing called god. I'am the one. I'am conscious of myself. I always was myself, but believed to be someone else. Rolling back to yesterday. Sat around the house, ordered pizza to eat with my wife, the evening was kind of a mini celebration that she got a new job. Also we vaped weed as well, we kinda randomly stumble on some serious mystical experiences while we're high and my wife loves them. Anyway we talked something deep about our relationship, we kinda opened our hearts out to tell the deepest of truths that we hold on to each other. Then a bit later on we kinda changed topics and went spiritual, started asking questions. I can't remember how it actually happened, but somehow randomly I just stumbled on the question like "How am I, I?" "How is my wife, herself?" And then I was like "wait a minute, can it be true that I'am my wife, hmmm, how can I be myself? Why? Maybe I'am just consciousness perceiving everything from this body who is able observe and thinking that I'am something else?" And then it clicked. I consciously understood that I'am everything. I'am me, I'am my wife, I'am also my mom" and I'am also you who is reading this post! Then I said that to my wife! And her jaw dropped when she heard about it. In her mind it also clicked. We were so excited of this insight. Then I like looked at her and felt like I'm looking at myself looking at myself. Then we thought about everything that could pop in our heads. And the boundaries and our projection of good and bad were melted away in an instant, everything seemed good. I thought that we need to test this out. Then the theme of rape rose up. I asked her how do you see rape now, and my wife actually thought that you could seriously enjoy some rape. Nothing bad about it. Like our notion of BAD has vanished, everything that we considered good, bad or we saw fear on something just POOF, as it never even existed. Everything seemed perfect! It's just the way it's supposed to be. Also death is good. You cannot die. You will always be. Interesting thing I felt in myself particularly that moment of the conscious understanding was that I felt a separation inside of me. It was as if a fake me and the real me was split in half and I could feel them inside of me. Inside I felt two sides, on the left the "god, consciousness, everything" me and on the right the "ego, self creation" me. And the ego felt like it was gone. He was never even there. I was shocked to found out that my whole life I wasn't who I always thought to be. I clearly found out my true self! I'am consciousness. There was no me in the first place. I'am everything. I'am everyone of you reading this post right now, but the ego separates us, you see yourself as a separate being which is false and therefore an illusion. Also I thought about how people are worshiping god praying to it, seeing it as a higher being than himself. The understanding can't happen if you see yourself as something else than god itself. You will never find it from the ego mind, you create it and fall into the trap believing that you are lower than "him". The notion of an external entity is false. I still can't answer the question why there is something rather than nothing, I tried, but the answer was that this is nothing, just total nothingness, but I think that this didn't answer my question really. I couldn't understand the answer so I thought I need more time to found it out. But the one thing that is clear for me right now is that I found my TRUE self as everything. I feel compassion to everyone, seeing everyone as myself, just behind this ego smog. And I think I will never try to convince people the truth, because they won't understand it. I will just enjoy this state as much as I can. I still think I will go back to my old ego self (hope not, or not so fast). I kinda feel it creeping a bit on me. I had dreams that I was fighting with with my wife. So the ego is resisting as usual. Hopping for the best.

I just watched your live enlightenment video, and I'm getting everything you say. I'm having the same thoughts. I made a post yesterday, and it's like I've shifted into this enlightened state without warning. Everything in my reality has shattered to pieces from one day to the next. I'm aware of the total oneness, that this post and me writing it in itself is part of it. I'm just not happy about it. I'm feeling lost and betrayed by the simplicity of our reality. That everything is nothing. That I'm you and your me. That everything and everyone I ever cared about is just a part of this infinite nature. That nothing really matters and it's all an illusion which stems from the nature and laws of nothingness. How can this realisation be good? How is it not more enjoyable living in ignorance? I'm lost.

I would say there is an immature understanding and a more mature, truer understanding of emptiness. This is one reason meditation is so important - if the mind quiets down, you can get glimpses of this truer emptiness - which is nothingness, stillness, peace. Most people first notice it as small gaps between thoughts. The gaps get longer and deeper. Once you can drop below thoughts / feelings into that stillness, you will start to see attachments / identification with thoughts and feelings. Yet, this can be uncomfortable to the ego.

The verses are taken from https://terebess.hu/english/oxherding.html The reason is there was too much words I didn't understand to write them down 1) Searching For The Ox Stumbling around in life , suffering, scratching your head, hear people heard people talk about enlightenment, basically lost and clueless You must begin with an intense desire for the truth, renunctiation of the desire is on an another stage When you first affirm the vow to attain enlightenment, at that very moment there is already a splendid enlightement" = important step The Ox = Enlightenment 2) Seeing The Footprints When you have tiny glimpses, for few seconds Stage when you conceptualize enlightenment so much taht you think you understand it. It's a trap because it's just a story in your head, it isn't the real experiential thing. You will delude yourself if you don't study non-duality 100% chance of awakening if you are serious and comitted. 3) Seeing The Ox First Mystical experiences When you understand for real what all this stuff is about, you are SURE that the Ox is real now. So beautiful and awesome that you can't looks at it in the eyes for long, you need to develop yourself just to look at it. Hard to talk about something that includes everything (the Ox) by trying to explain it with only a tiny part of it (language). 4) Catching the Ox This is when you go beyond the first glimpses and embody them in your own life, and realize how difficult that is. Can't have the full Ox if you're still full of desires and attachments. The Ox would make all those desires and attachments feel stupid and childish, irrelevant. You need to cleanse all your concepts about the Ox (emptying your cup) to let it approach you. 5) Taming The Ox This is the stage when you get really serious about taming the Ox, about letting it purified you. There is a will to let go of all the egotism. What is really hard is having a mind with no thoughts, that is the mark of a master. 6) Riding the Ox Home The stage where you seriously embodied enlightenment. Not even a need to talk about it anymore, since it's your natural way to live life. You bring back the mystical into the mondains. At this stage many enlightened people gives the advices that there is nothing to do. This is only true at this stage. 7) Ox Transcended The stage when you have transcended the seeking of awakening and enlightenment. You realize that everything that ever was has always been the Ox, that there was not a single moment of not being it in the first place. There will be no distinction between anything. Also the stage when unconditional happiness is realized. The reason is because you realized you've never been born, you're already dead, the worst thing that could have happened to you, already happened, so everything now is a bonus. 8) Ox and self transcendance You transcend everything, you let go of everything. True emptiness -> Infinity You realize that everything that has happened never really happened, it's all pure emptiness/nothingness. All distinction collapse, all boundaries or objects, everything. You can't even distinguish existence from non-existence anymore (life from death) You realize the source of the universe, where it come from and where it goes, namely that it never really happened. = Fana Al-Fana At this point you've never been born. 9) Return to the source This map is a general guideline, it's not rigid, especially if you've used psychedelics/unorthodox practices or are spiritually gifted for example. There are different depth to realize the oneness of the same thing. Some dualities still stays untill stage 10 is "achieved" Wherever you go or do you're already going one step too far from the present moment. If you do nothing you're gonna be carry away by society and will forget everything about this. If you take the path you're also wrong. It's a paradox you're stuck. By taking the path you'll backtrack to the source, to the step zero. 10) Re-Entering The Marketplace You're so ordinary and humble that you blend in "normal life" fully, there is nothing special about you anymore, not even an once of selfishness or ego left in you. You don't even talk to non-duality to people. Humility is the most genuine signal of a spiritual master.

That’s not an understanding, nor a realization, that’s why you’re intuiting it as “not good” aka (not Truth). It’s a ‘right thought’, but nonetheless, let it go completely. When nothingness is no longer a thought, but experience, everything literally flips. You will have the exact opposite perspective / experience, and it is ineffably wonderful, but you must begin the (possibly counter intuitive to you) letting go of every thought about ‘it’, to be ‘it’. Just to hold a single thought, just to blink, is already too much. Hopefully you see what I’m saying by that. It’s more like the light suddenly came on, and the room’s a little messy. Use the light to clean up the room. Try to be glad the light came on, it’s lucky, though I hear you, it doesn’t feel that way...yet. http://www.buddhanet.net/oxherd1.htm

that is amazing, thanks for sharing I've not seen my true self yet, but I did see the nothingness, it's not nothing but it's not something either, it is nothing but within the nothing is the potential for everything...at the time it was perfectly clear but idk now if that's even right...

Dig deeper about yourself, chip away the not authentic to you, find your core, core and True Self is in other spectrum.. i'm speaking from, i just got back from Vipassana , i have so many insights back there and i experience "Everything" i just woke up, not deep like Leo but deep enough that either i will accept all my life i will just here forever until i die and try to go deeper in here, or try enjoy Life in a meaningful way.. after all you exist and you wake up from here and have your life... path of enlightenment for us is too heavy for us to go just beeee right now, i can just like give me one year just in the vipassana meditation retreat i will become fully enlighten just give me 1 year myself is ready to surrender but i see that i miss a lot in my life, i am wake here in earth not just only to see GOD but life here, the core in myself, I don't want to spend my life now to facebook all day, or doing porn, i feel the sensation of porn but, what for? If i just give in it will generate sankara, and it cannot satisfy my existence here, it is not enough to spend time to enjoy your existence here as you who have life doing nothing and not meaningful things, it is better that we experience what you take in the path of enlightenment and it is important to express high self... i understand Leo why he cannot just go full buddha easy, he can but he is destructed by actualized.org... everyday if he full surrender his self he can fully liberate himself easily, but he has actualized.org this is his life, if he wants to go fully buddha he needs to be dead... so yea i want to process my enlightenment not just doing it fast, i want to enjoy other facets of life first.. i want to enjoy the life here in earth, i want to be happy and live everyday with my highest self, meaningful life.. meaningful activities... life purpose, selfactualization, i want to settle my self actualization in my life time, i want to actualized first , taste richness of life, then maybe one day i will go to himalayas sit until i liberate fully, or wait for the time it's just hit me and boom! Because if you experience nothingness, it's nothing in there, pure, let the light from within burst.. love "YOU"

How do you know there isn't something "more" outside of nothingness? For example: Nintendo's Mario might start to question himself and discover he doesn't really exist. That there's essentially no difference between himself and the rest of the computer code. That this computer code is really fundamentally nothing as well and that everything is an illusion (in this world). However, there is still an external/higher reality outside of the computer that runs on very different rules and what may have felt very complete to Mario's realization doesn't take into account this inconceivable reality. I guess what I'm ultimately asking is if there's the chance of an even higher/deeper/more fundamental truth existing beyond what is considered enlightenment?

@Shin I read in a book (probably "Neti-Neti Meditation") 3 stages: 1. Duality 2. Non-Duality 3. Nothingness