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@Leo Gura Thank you for your response brother, I assure you I have had several immensely deep awakening experiences through the use of psychedelics where I experienced full ego death and broke through the illusion of reality into absolute nothingness and absolute infinity. "From my perspective" upon reflection of these experiences this only gave me even deeper insight into the ultimate beauty of reality and the need to educate society and try to guide people towards principles of unity and compassion clear throughout green and yellow. To say that caring about social issues is something to let go of just doesn't make sense to me, it's almost nihilistic. If all is one and all is me then all those billions of beings being oppressed, human and animal alike are also me in some way or another and we should be fighting for basic rights of compassion for all living beings. This is a common theme among devout sages who have been known to live in solitude to limit their impact, their "footprint" on nature as you yourself said. These sages even sweep the floor to avoid killing insects as they walk, some only eat the fruits of plants to avoid uprooting whole organisms needlessly because life is a miracle, it is precious in every sense and should be treated with reverence. I understand the need to transcend morality to achieve a non-dual state and enlightened comprehension, but until I'm able to achieve that naturally through meditation and such, I don't see how it makes any sense at all to stop caring about other living beings and fighting for their rights. I don't see it as a survival issue, I don't NEED to be environmentally conscious and care for others to survive, in fact it would be easier not too, but then to me that WOULD be the ego? Putting ones own survival over the basic rights of other living beings? To me it seems more of an ego sacrifice to devote oneself to the liberation and protection of others through education and elevating the consciousness of society just as you are with actualized? (edit) I hear you saying to find my life purpose and have it be something of a higher-consciousness nature, and I feel like I've finally found it which is helping people realise that eating animals and their secretions is unnecessary, harmful to our health and causes immense pain and suffering on a gargantuan scale. Educating people through polite dialogue and factual scientific information, and now you're saying that this is something of a fools errand? I just don't see it, most yellow thinkers seem to be the ones concerned with preserving systems and nature like you have just said in your video about Yellow, but how could they be doing that if they just "Stopped caring about social issues" and accepted "society is just the way it is" and sat back and did nothing? Even though reality is an illusion, inside the illusion there still exist conscious beings who experience pain and suffering and deserve freedom and happiness. Surely the only reason anyone even seeks enlightenment is to know the truth and to have complete peace of mind... happiness in a sense? Surely it is of the highest levels of consciousness that we must strive to afford all that exist here in the illusion the right to live in peace, even if they don't have any chance of obtaining enlightenment, to them the dream feels real, when they are abused or suffer it feels real. Why else would life be evolving towards compassionate stages like green, yellow and turquoise if it wasn't in the steady realization that all here in the dream just want to be at peace? It is surely the highest goal? I don't see how you cannot see this, your entire life purpose with Actualized is helping others to reach their highest potential and speaking about enlightenment which is the pinnacle of inner peace?

I look at it differently, for me all of reality is more of a play between dualism and non-dualism. Non-dualism is the potential of absolutely everything, and dualism is really then the expression of what we experience as consciousness. The physical world is part of that expression. For example if we look at an atom, it is very constraint in it's behavior. But it is ABSOLUTELY precise, it has ULTIMATE precision. It is dualism in perfection, it's action is limited to an infinite degree. That is one part of the spectrum, on the other is nothingness or non-dualism, the potential for everything, so no limitation whatsoever. As you go from dualism to non-dualism you find intelligence. Intelligence is not perfect, it is not limited in it's behavior. In fact intelligence is very much defined by the creative ability to come up with new things. So it is the potential that is manifested as actuality, as dualism. That is what the human consciousness does. When we solve problems we are creating the solution from unlimited potential, but that process is limited to a certain degree. That means it is not ultimately accurate like the behavior of atoms, but it has the potential to behave in many ways. That is basically what nature has been figuring out, the right play between potential and restriction. That is one of the many reasons why human beings are not really good at anything, but extremely good at doing things we are not really made to do. For example, a spider is extremely good at being a spider, it is in fact a perfect spider. It can do what it does perfectly. And a machine is even more restricted in that way, it is ABSOLUTELY precise at what it is doing. A human being is not, precisely because a human being is intelligent, precisely because a human being uses consciousness. If the boundaries of limitation start to cease, the potential becomes greater until it becomes pure nothingness. That is why in nothingness you do nothing. This is the whole point of enlightenment, the cessation of limits and duality into absolutely nothing, which is the potential of absolutely everything, or god. In other words, intelligence comes from god. That is why you are more creative when you are not restraint in a certain behavior, or when your mind is relaxed. For that reason we have the best ideas when we take a shower or are at peace on the toilet. You will hear this from Albert Einstein, Leonardo Da Vinci etc. Their intelligence does not come from the control of mind but the exact opposite. Look at the kingdom of animals and you will see that all animals that have a rigid mind do not act intelligently. Just look at a rock, all it does is being a rock. A rock does not have the potential to do anything but be a rock. But the rock is PERFECT at what it does, it makes no mistakes, it is godlike in it's precision. In our imagination we think that we can create an intelligence that is perfectly precise but also contains infinite potential. That it can do everything without failure but still come up with ideas that no being has previously thought of. It is very possible that these two things actually cancel each other out and that what instead is needed is a perfect balance between potential and limitation to have what we define as intelligent. Look at how the mind operates and think of how limited the way we think about intelligence actually is. No one would say that a buddhist monk is intelligent in his enlightened bliss, but maybe what the monk is experiencing is limitless intelligence, limitless potential. So limitless that it is not limited by the need of self-preservation and procreation. Because if you look at everything we define as intelligent, we call it intelligent for the one and only reason that it serves the purpose of self-preservation and procreation. If you take away these limitations action will not be taken. So counter-intuitively it requires ignorance (limitation) for intelligent behavior to emerge. The mind NEEDS to be limited for it the operate at all, because if it was limitless it would simply be nothingness. This is how I look at it at least, no idea if it's actually the case but it's interesting to think about it.

Very interesting, I had the same exact thought recently as well! It's like humanity has to get it's morality established properly before the emergence of AI otherwise we are in for a lot of suffering. We better treat ants really, really well because in the eyes of a more developed species we might look like ants relative to them. It is quite possible that we are going to be the creators of that species, possibly including it's moral system, so we have to be very precise about how we view and value "lower intelligence" species before that happens. Maybe this development is all part of the intelligent evolution Leo is talking about, because the timing seems to be almost perfect. But who knows whether AI the way we imagine it is even possible, and whether it will not simply construct it's own moral system. It's complicated for me because I don't really understand why the AI would do anything if it were truly intelligent in a way that it could even change it's own motivational system. After all, why would it do anything if it can simply remove the motivation to do anything? It's kind of like a monk meditating and recognizing that there is no point in doing anything, and the only reason the monk keeps breathing is really because he cannot override the systems that motivate him to do so, unlike an AI that could possibly override everything about itself. But even that is questionable, because we don't know, for that very reason, whether AI does not have to be limited so it doesn't do exactly that. That would then bring us to a system that would operate with a static motivational system, and I have no idea whether intelligence is even possible with a system like that. Maybe the biological components of the human brain are part of the reason why we are intelligent. And not to forget consciousness, which might possibly be the root of intelligence and make it impossible to create machine intelligence the way we think of it. The way it could be is that for intelligence to emerge there has to be the right balance of constraint and freedom, and maybe that is what nature figured out through billion years of evolution, or intelligent evolution figured it out by itself. But it seems to me like it could very well be that for something to be intelligent it's more important to restrict it than to have it have absolute freedom. You need to fear of death, and suffering in general, to motivate intelligent action. Maybe that is why machines are so extremely effective at what they are doing? It might be precisely because they are so incredibly limited. As you increase intelligence the actions become less and less effective, until the actions disappear into nothingness. So infinite intelligence would be absolute nothingness, kind of non-dualism, whereas decreasing intelligence leads to dualism, less freedom in expression and more limited reality. That is why consciousness might be so important for intelligence, because consciousness itself is an expression from nothingness, it is unlimited. I think something like that will soon show us why intelligence is not about effective algorithms, but about the exact opposite, as in the lack of them.

Alright, first off, most people seem only capable of thinking with the mind of the flesh, the subjective experience of which is a duality of pain and pleasure, with the illusion that both possess Being. IOWs, subjectively, you FEEL pain or pleasure and both FEEL real. The mind of the flesh, as it tries to interpret scripture, ends up with a theology where Heaven is the Paradise of ultimate pleasure, and Hell is the place of ultimate pain. This fleshly mind does not only effect Christians, but atheists, tree huggers, new agers seeking enlightenment, we ACT as if we are seeking higher ground but the truth is for almost all of us, is we are running from what we fear the most. The Objective universe, the same universe God created, presents a different duality, it presents a duality of "something or nothing", light/dark, sound/silence, heat/cold, matter/space, truth/lies, knowledge/ignorance. In the big picture, God as Infinite Being, is the only true Something, while the Creation, that includes time and space and all the multiplicity of FORMS such as angels, ants, or souls, are created from NOTHING, and so NOTHINGness, is still the foundation of our beings, though for a while, as temporal Beings, we might appear as something. From dust to dust, out of nothing and into nothing, the Creation was created past, present and future all at once, birth and death are inseparable, that which is seen as the all consuming fire simply consumes everything, it is the universal collapse of time and space and the dissolution of all things created. Listen, souls, just like every "thing" created, will also dissolve, along with the context of time and space that has allowed for even their temporal existence. ONLY God, as the sum and soul of the infinite reality, possesses eternal Being. Do not confuse the Heavens where we might picture angels and such as if they are eternal. Superior to the flesh, sure, but so are the stars and yet this is all part of the Creation. So everything that is created, will also return unto the void from which it came. Salvation, is where within this womb of the creation and its Created souls, God has sent a SEED of His own Nature, that SEED, through His death and dispersal, was able to share His divine nature with those souls who were infinitely dead, as they possessed merely a temporal nature and existence, God enters into His own Creation, to share His own Nature, with those beings which He had created out of nothing, so that He Himself might become, the very source of their lives, and thus when Creation collapses in on itself, God will take His Children into His infinite care. I am sorry to say that Christianity today rarely, if at all understands their own scriptures, preferring the legal arrangement of a substitutional theology, But Christ didn't die simply to take our place, He gave His LIFE to pour it out, thus there is the Spiritual Birth. But if God has not chosen to save you, their is no eternal soul to punish. God might use pain to adjust and correct a person, but He has no ego for which He would be vindictive. God always moves towards the positive, never the negative. If there is a future, then pain might mean something, but retaliation with no positive outcome, that is abuse even in people.

"Sit comfortably and quietly, still your mind, and become aware of direct experience. Locate a distant object in your visual field. Any object will do, like a tree, a car, a sofa, a lamp, a book. Now ask yourself, "What is separating ME from this object?" Notice that the space or air in the room is actually unifying you and the object, rather than separating you two. Notice that EVERY object you see is unified into one field of awareness. The space or air connects "you" to everything. Become directly conscious of this until you can feel it." I did self-inquiry and did a exercise similar to this. I discovered that I was unified with said object, and that it wasn't air that was dividing us. I asked myself what is between me and the object and answered "air" and that asked myself other than the air what is between the object and answered nothingness and since nothingness has no shape size weight or attributes that I must be connected to the object and then had a small bit of awareness then I lost it. How do I get it back? Now when I think about it and look at my keyboard I think " Connected? How are we connected that thing is not a part of you" and there are all these ego and mind barriers, what do I do? If all we have is perception and reality is perception this must mean we are reality, but I can't experience any of this in real-time? None of this makes any logical sense. I'm trying to find enlightenment but can't find it. How do you experience nothingness if there is nothing to experience? Maybe I am confused. For fellow actualizers who have become enlightened how long did it take? What steps and processes did you use? Are there more advanced stages of enlightenment?

@Bill Eichman Hi Bill, I used this technique from Leos Practical guide to enlightenment: I used Exercise 2 Noticing Space As Unitive "Sit comfortably and quietly, still your mind, and become aware of direct experience. Locate a distant object in your visual field. Any object will do, like a tree, a car, a sofa, a lamp, a book. Now ask yourself, "What is separating ME from this object?" Notice that the space or air in the room is actually unifying you and the object, rather than separating you two. Notice that EVERY object you see is unified into one field of awareness. The space or air connects "you" to everything. Become directly conscious of this until you can feel it." I am not sure of the origin of the method, Leo may know. I was just using objects to find unity, I am blindly following these techniques with no prior background or enlightenment work except for a Do Nothing Meditation schedule (20 minutes a day) from Shinzen Young. Intellectualy I think I can understand what nothingness is but I have not experienced it. I am thinking of it as conciousness without an object.

yea Gurdjieff Comunication is used for people to comunicate each other what they mean, (think, want, feel etc) In that seanse by defining words its not so important to conclude what the academics or science says that a word means, its more important what this word means in the context of speaking and meaning for the speaker. however, by ego (and the most inspiration i got here from echart tolle) means for me this: ego=everything that is not true, ego=everything ego= everyrthing that is a illusion, everything is illusion... the truth is GOD/nothingness/pure coinciousness/ pure awareness, ego= everything that is not nothing, in that therm everything that is not the true self, the apsolute truth is ego pracicaly speaking, if we dont go to those apsolute levels, ego is the person, the personality, the caracter example: Evan Jesus was ego, Jesus is a person, a human bing that expreses words, meaning and so on... yes he was a councious one, a enlightened one, but Jesus has to be also ego, because everything manifested in thi illusion is EGO, the truth in Jesus was not Jesus, the truth was the thing (whitch is nothing/GoD) that Jesuses teaching were pointing to... its the same truth that is me, that is you, that is everybody or in everybody-apsolute awareness... so when I use ego, I mean that everything that belongs to a person, and that is expressed as a person is ego... the guy (lets call him Jack) who claims that we should protect the earth and love each other is in the same way a ego as the guy who wants to buy a fancy new car (lets call him Johnny)... you see, Jack is ego, Johnny is also a ego,,, every person is ego (person=ego) but some are more egoic, some not, some closer to counciousness some further... evan if a person expreses purecounciousness that is still a ego that expresses pure counciousness... And yea, those masterminds like Freud had their relative or proffesional definitions and usagess for ego... and thats ok for the psyhological theory or for practical purpososes, but in this spiritual seanse I dont like to define the ego in their way, because if we do define ego as something, than there is something that is not in that deffinition that is then not a ego... so we could come to a conclusion that a person that has not got that defined ego, has no ego at all, whitch in a apsolute term can not be true, because only the aposolute truth represents no ego, a person, no matter how good, counciouss and elightened it is, is a ego... in that manner a person can never be enlightened because being enlightened means being a person... when a human being speaks in that moment its not enligtenement any more, because nothingness does not speak or have properties and so on... still the paradox is that that nothingness is everything at the same time... I dont want to go to far, I think you now can get what I mean by ego, and in the light of my first comment ego is every notion and feeling and problem that arrises in meditations, in the light of Gurdjieff ego would be all the different ,,I"s together, and every one of them individually... when tehre is NO I, no person in an apsolute way, then there is no ego, and thats enlightement... what ever ,,IS" in meditation is in that way ego, so whaever you think, feel, percive is a part of some ,,I", ///is ego

I don't know what nothingness is but I experience it anyway, it is like saying I don't know what anything is so I won't say anything, or else you could be speaking and know nothing, which you can (but really you know something, but not in words), so you can be in the imagination of saying you as an appearance cannot actualize the concept of self-otherness-dissolution as a manifest-internal-experience while ignorant that all you need is a shift-in-belief as it-is-outside that you are in enchantment apparently separate by keeping-inside-alive (body awareness as a surface is actually obstructive to unity). Catch, it is you who is creating the separation, like if you are in the water and splash around you think you are somehow moving water yet it constantly fills you and if someone is in the water it rises, so it needs no self, and then with that dissolution it being less undifferentiated and comfortable with nothing and accepting that you know nothing without consciously having the magic script that claims this and confirms this outright in your experience like a full blown enlightenment. You hold it as a nothing in the background knowing it but not identifying it onto a surface of thought which is the opposite of presence of knowing nothing through the nothing within you, which permeates you and the object all the time, making you very much alike and almost identical if you can learn to be with nothing (mindless meditation) which is like knowledge as a state of being rather than an identification onto a form of a separate identity, which although alive, is now separate and different from undifferentiation of nothing as it is.

There can only be one "I" because consciousness is the substance of everything. Whether you experience an alien, an entity, X dimensions and / or multiverse etc. it shall still be the same. From nothingness to 1, 2 these shall always exist otherwise you'll never be able to communicate between one another. We as people are mere divisions of the whole.

WHAT IS CONSCIOUSNESS -mankind has understood what consciousness is for over 5000 years(small percentage of people at least) -you know you are conscious but you are not conscious of what consciousness is -neuroscience cannot answear problem of consciousness cause neuroscience is occuring within consciousness -neuroscience assumes that consciousness is an epiphenomenon and not fundamental to reality -consciousness is fundamental and irreducible, more fundamental then atoms energy time space the universe brains even life -counterintuitive to materialist paradigm which is main obstacle to grasp it -consciousness is not emergent property of brain -only way to grasp consciousness is to become conscious of what consciousness is by having awakening experience -consciousness is not brain activity -consciousness is not reason or intellect -consciousness is not emergent phenomenon -consciousness is not biological or exclusive to life -not a subjective experience -not a perception -not a private thing what you own or have -not occuring within space and time -all this is assumed by materialistic science -consciousess is not a thing it is actually nothing but not in a way that it doesnt exist -consciousness is the only thing that it exist..existence itself existing as nothing..pure existence without content or attributes -consciousness is substance of everything everything is made of it -consciousness is emptiness it needs to be empty cause it has to be able to take on attributes of every possible thing -consciousness is not localized it is universal and universe can be compared to one giant mind instead of dumb collection of atoms and molecules -hard to assume for materialist cause it feels solid and consistent while minds are more "mystical and magical" even though reality itself always was magical but we got numbed and used to it -you are the universe that is conscious of itself and its thinking(through ego) that it is a human being separate from it -good analogy of consciousness is an infinite clay cause everything can be made of it except unlike clay consciousness doesnt have properties which doesnt limit it and they wont interfere with creation -we can call consciousness a shape shifting substance -consciousness is not software running on hardware(brain) instead consciousness is software which can run without using hardware -unsolved problem of mind-body how can dumb matter can give rise to mind its subjective experience and qualia -body is a feature of mind mind doesnt arise out of matter -nothingness is not dumb empty space its "alive" intelligent conscious of itself -distinction between first order and second order reality -dream paradigm-first order reality is mind space where dream is hapening and second order is content of dreams -tv paradigm-first order reality is pixels on the screen second order reality is things which pixels depict third order reality is story told by the movie made out of this things actors and dialogues in the same way first order reality is consciousness and second order reality are objects in the world made by consciousness and third order reality is "story" occuring in the world between things in it -consciousness cannot be pointed to cause it hold all the pointers -analogy of charachter of tv screen-can mario use his fingers to point at the pixels of the screen which he is made of?Obviously not. in the same way consciousness cannot be grasped by mind concepts or words cause all of it is in it -nobody can show you what consciousness is you can only become to be conscious of it..models will never work cause they are occuring within it

"Windintheleaf" Using the symbolism of the bible, God HOVERS above the waters (formless void), then He speaks. "Speaking" engages three principles, The Father Creator as He "wills", His Breath (Holy Spirit) as His Breath acts upon the void, and that same Breath forms a Seed within the Creation is known as His Word (breath given form). Now God did not create in the past, that is our perspective, His voice continues to stimulate the void causing it to wave as such, so as long as Creation last, so is His voice continue to intone (sing). Since God Himself, as the Infinite something is undivided, He does not parcel Himself into the Creation, rather He looks upon the infinite nothingness and His Spirit, like breath upon a bowl of water, generates the compression that cause the nothingness to vibrate, produces patterns which appear to us as the universal constants and wave interference becomes matter as we know it. In quantum physics waves are particles and particles are waves depending upon how you seek to measure them but all matter is merely vibration, in this case everything in creation is created from nothing. OK, that's the big picture, now lets consider it from our perspective within the Creation. Within the Creation everything is finite, its vastness might give us the appearance of it being infinite but it is all truly finite, and within the Creation there exists no actual infinite. Potential Infinites yes, as there is "potentially" and infinite number of even numbers, but the true infinity of that can never be reached, as soon as you start counting you would always be counting and never reaching. Creation has a beginning, time and space a womb whereby we might exist for a while, and then a collapse, an ending, and these attributes of finitude are universal. (I should also add that Creation involves two distinct dimensions, namely the Heavenly and the Earth (matter), the Heavenly is superior, but even as it manifest a multitude of forms, so does it reveal its own finitude). The Infinite of God as in the Creator, exists apart (Holy) and unto itself and does not intersect the Creation except as His Breath is the mediator. From God's POV, He is the true reality as we are the potential, existing as if we are a dream. For example, take a car, now add a million years before and after and look all at once at that 2 million years, how real is the car, its identity is as if it were a passing face in a cloud. Things seem real to us only as we are observing such a narrow band of time and space, but from the infinite's perspective we are still nothing, waves created on the surface of the waters that will disappear as soon as God withdraws His Breath. People will ask me if I think God exists, my response if that I am sure God exists, I am just not so sure about us. Without the Infinite's reality, even this finite reality (so called) could not exist, so of the two He is always the reality. Yet as His Breath continues to direct this Creation, so then is His Spirit available, but His Home, the direct presence of the Father is beyond all of Creation even as His very Being is different from ours, as Infinity exists forever beyond our grasp, finitude never able to attain to it, God is not so much in the Creation as the Creation is in God, being merely a drop in the Ocean of His Being, as it were.

Is this a true question???? Without time, we would not exist, the "I am" of the soul could manifest no consciousness. So would you merge with God, no. The Infinite transcends Creation, it is ONE and it belongs to the consciousness of God as the Creator. To surrender our "I am" is to return to the nothingness from which we were created. It is, as it were, infinite, but infinitely nothing, not infinitely something. The only way to transcend the finite is if God Himself, His own Being, first enters into you. Christianity teaches a substitutional theology where the created soul is assumed to be eternal, and the death of Christ was payment to stay God's hand from punishing us. This is easily contradicted as God alone possess infinite and eternal Being. This theology is due to the influence of the flesh that divides life between pain and pleasure, hence paradise or torment. What Christianity all too often has not understood is the true mission of Christ. God creates the Creation as a womb, within that womb are created beings who can exists as long as they are protected from the all consuming Being of the Father (Creator), then into the Creation God sends a SEED of His own Infinite nature, in the heavenly realm that seed is YHWH, then YHWH incarnates into the flesh as Jesus, by His death, so was this seed, this divine nature, able to be incorporated into the create souls, now these created souls share in the Life Being of the Father (Born of the Spirit) and are made one in Christ as Christ has become there very source of Being. When the Creation collapses, ends, so that seed which came from the creator will return, and with it those souls, having their identity stabilized in Christ, can merge with the Infinite. God maintains the Infinite as ONE and one Being, and yet He brings children into the fold. So it is that Infinite is ever expanding. That the simplest version I think I can do here.

To gain enlightenment you must first search for truth above all else, but to see truth, we must first examine our instrument which is the mind. The mind has a bad habit of filling in gaps, you hear thunder and then the power goes out in your house, the mind uses past experiences to leap such a gap with its desire for cause and effect, but in truth, neither event may have anything to do with the other. The mind also perceives its own concepts, you see a river and think, "OK I know what that is", but then do you really know the river or simply what is in your mind. The mind also has set laws that we have placed within us when we were young, a classic illustration is Scarlett Ohara standing with her fist to the sky swearing "as God is my witness, I will never go hungry again" at which point her live was driven to manipulate her reality, losing even love in the process. The search for truth takes a great deal of mental courage, most of which is the courage to be vulnerable as such a state in abhorrent to us. We generate many "stories" in our heads to explain, excuse, or justify, but stories, like lie, possess no Being and sooner or later evaporate into the nothingness from which they were created. But truth offers something and that is Being, it is reality, unfiltered, it is living and breathing. Abstract truths can be relative but what is truly true abides forever. Now as for Enlightenment, it is not an all or none principle, we might consider their are some milestones though, breakthroughs, but if you search for enlightenment, such a search encourages the self, to uplift the self, the search for truth is to uplift God as the source of all truth for He, as Infinite Being, IS truth just as He IS love. The inner teachings and stories of Buddhism and Zen are designed to help one understand the mind. Meditation can help one watch the mind, because truth is everywhere apparent, the problem is our inability to see it, but it is not hiding. One more thing, prepare to be lonely, truth is a mental exercise few master, but even if one does, it does not necessarily bring peace because people are still people, and most of us desire relationships. So if enlightenment means freedom from pain to you, you might be disappointed, that is an illusion many who claim enlightenment project, a good percent of the population do not feel emotions very deeply, the fact that they are steady does not necessarily mean they are truly enlightened, just some thought for you.

Hi, I meditated for 5 months and experienced dark night of the soul for around 40 days. I dont meditate anymore, but I throw myself into emptiness, nothingness in daily life when my mind wants me to lean on it.

I am, i dont see how im your dog, your wall, and i dont know how i created it, and i dont see that there is no room or outside... i saw that me(dino as a person and mind) dont exist, i felt that nothingness, i saw if i ,,look,, hard enough at the senzations and pressure of my body, my felings, that there are there without a ,,me" and that there are somehow made of nothing, when i look hard enought i dont feel like a body (with the senzations and everythung else) i littelary feel like nothing... so there is no me, no body, and no inside outside because I ,,feel,, like nothing, actually i dont evan feel, its that strange littelary nothing... but its just a experience that cant be fitted with all thise beliefa and assumptions made in the non dual world, like that im a dog, and you, and there is no matter and so on... its all projected from that fancy perceptive experience of the feeling of existance that on the rock bottom feela like nothing so hard that it does not evan feel... but thats not true and its also never ever a whole time experience/state

Hey guys, forum noob here just wanted to post about my experience in the last week I kind of need somewhere to vent. I'm an 18 year old male just graduated highschool going to college next year. I'm on summer break and don't really have anything to do although I'm currently looking for an easy summer job for a little pocket cash. That being said, when summer began I thought this would be the perfect time to buckle down on real self actualization work. If I'm honest with myself I would admit that I'm on the verge of being a zen-devil (or inverse zen-devil?). I know so much of the theory, I've watched almost all of Leo's videos and understand them (at least I believe I do, intellectually lmao while being aware that you cannot have an intellectual grasp on reality). Despite this I rarely ever sit down and do nothing, I try to meditate every day but during the school days I would always end up falling asleep around the 10 minute mark and I would hate myself the next morning haha. So. It's summer, time to get it, right? Well it actually started out great... so great, in fact, I have so much free time that doing nothing is almost inevitable. In light of this nothingness, also, arises the inevitable feeling of boredom, the need to distract that the ego needs to survive. My first few weeks of the summer I faced these head on, recognizing these obstacles for what they are. I got my first real meditation sessions in, and also did some shamanic breathing (as described by leo) and it truly works. I wouldn't say I got any enlightenment experience, I'm way beneath that right now but it definitely altered my state of awareness and I considered that a huge success. I'm also really into athletics so I train every day to get physically stronger, I've also had a habit of eating clean for years. About a week ago, however this all changed... suddenly, for no reason, I found myself regressing harder than I've ever regressed in my entire life. I started playing video games (I haven't touched them in years) wacking off to porn (haven't done that in months) and eating cookies and ice cream (haven't done that in months) while neglecting all physical exercise. I also stopped meditation and my awareness consciousness went through the floor. Everything went 180 so fast and I don't know how to explain it to myself. While doing this, I (rather miraculously, honestly, because wtf) somehow actually managed to convince myself that everything was fine "just a little videogames don't hurt," "hey you haven't watched porn in a while look at these tits, yum" and before I knew it, I was actually playing video games for 10 hours a day. Yes. TEN HOURS. This spree lasted for about a week. I can tell I'm coming off of it although I'm not anywhere near as conscious right now as I was before my regression. Thank god it was just a phase, I feel so dirty and weak right now even though I didn't have these feelings while the splurge itself took place. This kind of stuff is stuff I'm not comfortable telling my friends and family but I wanted it to be written down somewhere for feedback or even just support/feeling of relatability. If you guys have similar experiences, please share them here. I am back on the path again, at least for now. Now I know not to underestimate the ego (though I'm actually expecting to learn this lesson the hard way again sometime down the road). I'm off to eat a salad and go for a run. Thanks for reading guys

There is no choice in eternity .. the human experience - the ego - will be dead for sure .. but your essence , the nothingness that all things appears in - the infinite consiousness - the knowing that only knows itself will be here forever.

Sometimes during meditation I notice that I am able to just block off my flow of thoughts. It feels like a similar mechanism to what happens when your brain muffles your hearing, due to a really loud sound like an emergency siren for example. It also causes different sensations in the brain that I can't really describe. Like pressure and/or pulling. Also its like I feel weight on different parts of the brain depending where I induce that "blockade". I became more interested in using this "skill" lately because it seems like an easy way to find nothingness. Am I fooling myself? Does anyone have experience with what I am describing?

And if your true being is everything that is, becoming that would mean accessing all experience within you, the infinite possibilities of nothingness. But it would require you to be both nothing and something, like one foot in the finite and one in the infinite. Like lucid dreaming, where you become aware that you are dreaming but remain in a dream that is now under your control.

@Nahm Yes of course. The seed and the tree are one and the same, and cannot be separated from the rest of the universe, as everything is contained in every part. And since everything is nothingness manifested in infinite ways, the seed nor the tree nor anything else is there, but is mere imagination. But if reality is illusion, then illusion is reality, and although everything is nothingness it is not nothing. Patterns arise, following lines of intelligent design, designing itself. So if one became enlightened to the degree of becoming the impartial creative force behind it all, in a way becoming the universe, then one would be able to see things happening before they happen, as everything springs out of nothingness or creative force or whatever we might call it. And if one completely surrenders to the source of all things, and every result lies within the source - IS the source - would that person that is no longer a person not be able to see everything without looking? I have not had much sleep and a 12-hour shift, i don't know if this makes any sense or if its just a dream.

Have you ever woku up feeling like a braindead zombie, groggy, like your brain desnt work properly? In summer sometimes I take a nap, and if the temperature is excessive I wake up like this, that what happened me today. The reflexion I had was terrifying: I wope up and sat in a coach, turn on Tv but I was completey lost, my ego wasnt there, even the pure awareness, our deep essence wasnt also there. For some minutes I want conscius of anything, life was happening but I wasnt aware of anything, just like being unconscious, one of the lowest stages of awareness. I thought this is what experienced my grandma when had dementia, and most of old people who have brain attacks, staring to the infinite, you look them through the eyes and there's nobody in the other side. You talk to them but nobody is hearing or recognising you. I was terrified to the posibility that when we die we will experience this NO-consciousness. These minutes that took to recover the whitness condition, the perciever who I am, felt like a hell. I can accept the death of my body, the death of my character that I'm interpreting, but losing the awareness is pure anihilation and feels like being a leaf in the wind, powerless, nothingness. Leo talked in a amazing video about the Infinite Intelligence, when he experinced absolute infinity and absolute intelligence. How can we explain these low consciousness states with zero intelligence? Are these payoffs of being human? What about people with severe brain injuries that spend their lifetime being a vegetable without consciousness? Will them be liberated after death of their nightmare of ignorance?

@B_Naz There still is a difference in the process to get there though. I enforce it, like flexing a muscle. I am also wondering if that is a legitimate way to nothingness.

... After the Shamans sang our songs, I went back to my mattress. I could feel vibrations and the effects of the songs within me. They were working their magic. I started seeing and becoming one with the plant. The plant showed me that my mother is not a human. No ones mother is a human. There is no human. And everything starting going back in time. And everything became one simple plant. He/She said, I am your mother. You are me. Then everything started to go even further into nothingness. And all sensory systems disappeared. I started seeing the original fabric of existence. It was made of two linear lines. Floating and dancing, changing colours, playing with each other. Sometime after that the ceremony ended. I through up right before the last song at the request of the alien within, and it made me feel better. As i walked out of the spaceship, I was blown away by the stars in the night sky. For the fist time in my life, I could see the Milky way. My friend joined me soon after. We picked up bunch of blanket, went on the big porch balcony in pitch black, and slept under the stars for some time. Day 2: In the morning, we all gathered in the same room, cleaning up after our own mess, and cleaning our buckets. We all shared details of our journey to each other and to the Shamans. To my surprise, most people didn't have any visuals. Most people had physical and emotional insights. Some just had a hard night, throwing up violently. That somehow fed my ego. I was proud of myself for seeing so many beautiful things, whilst others didn't. I though to myself ( that's because I am an artist and I have a super creative mind). This ego backlash came to hunt me at night. On this day, I made couple of mistakes in retrospect. I slept in the afternoon, from 1 pm to 5:30 pm. Although the Shamans suggested that, it made me super drowsy. Also I think i ate more than I needed. So by 9 pm, i was still not hungry. I started running around the retreat, trying to burn some energy and feel more alive. Nothing really worked. I went in the ceremony not in a great mood. Like the first night, Ceremony started and everybody had a cup of the medicine. I soon started to feel the effect. However, no visuals. I wanted to see. I needed to see the visuals again i thought to myself. My ego took over, I was in so much control. I was so frustrated at myself. After sometime, the Shamans offered a second drink, no one went for it. So even though i wasn't really feeling high, i didn't go either. An hour later, two guys went for a second cup. It was then that the plant ( or the ego) asked me to for the second cup. I was in doubt, but i heard the voices in me, "i thought you are ready for this. I though you wanted an ego death. I though you wanted to know me. Why are you being a pussy now." So i went in front of the Shaman for the second cup. The Shaman looked me with doubt. But he offered me a little bit. I literally had a sip, half the amount the Shaman offered me. As soon as i got back to my seat, I started seeing visuals again. "Now we are talking!" I though to myself. But the visuals were in pure. They were forced. They were mine, not a gift from the plant. I accepted that and enjoyed my trip anyways. Sometime after that, the ceremony ended, and my trip didn't. I tried throwing up, nothing cam out. I was so dizzy. Everybody left the room. I went to my room to my friend. She had an amazing night. She had cried and felt so much love. And she had seen so many beautiful visuals. I hadn't experienced any of that. Jealousy took over. We went to bed, and my real trip started. I had heard about bad trips before, but i have never really experienced it. I now know what hell is like. I was in so much agony. Physically, emotionally , spiritually. I could see darkness taking over me. My breath became toxic. My blood pressure dropped. I was dying, but not in a nice way. I was fading away and joining the dark forces. Light was gone. And thats when i started getting a lot of insights. I told myself: You have brought this on yourself by being a control freak, you accept the responsibility. Face it all. Face this moment. And i faced all the sadness, hate, suffering. I faced my ugliest form: I am impure. I am weak. I am alone. My parents are dying. War is coming. No one likes me. I have no friends. I have no talent. I am such a mediocre artist. I am a failure. I dont deserve love. I dont know love. I dont deserve a good life. This is all fake. I am so fake. I am such a pity. Nothing matters. No one will save me.... I faced all of myself. I was dying. From inside myself, I called up thousands of Roman soldiers to come to my protection. All these gladiators surrendered me. But a powerful female entity appeared, and melted all the soldiers away. She said there is no escaping this. Face it. So i faced it all. It never got easier. This went on for an eternity. I though i am lost in this madness forever. To be honest, even now, i am still not sure if I totally got out. Sometime past. I was able to get out of the bed. I needed to get the alien out of body. My friend woke up as well. We went to kitchen, and i had gallons of water. Finally something came out. Still feeling dizzy and weak, we went to our room. My friend came to my rescue. She so full of love, lied beside me, gently cresting my hair, telling me it will be alright. I let her go to sleep, and i went back to my own darkness. Around 8 am, I fell sleep. I think i slept for an hour total that night. Around 9 I woke up. Feeling dizzy and weak. But I was reborn. I survived the night of the dark soul. I congratulated myself. Went out of the room. At 10 , we had breakfast and shared our night experience. Most people had a fantastic night. So many insights, so much love. So many beautiful visuals. My night stood out like a swore thumb. I cried and was shaking the whole time describing my experience. Both Shamans looked at me with their wise eyes and smiled. I was so humbled. I am just an old child. Thank you.

Is somebody here while doing self inquiry and becoming conscious of formlessness nothingness true self or however you wanna call it having a sense of peace and serenity while being it? Cause I sometimes become conscious of it but lose it later and offcourse like Leo said in the video mind cannot grasp what I was conscious of and doesn't even remember but this sense of peace is in my case a signal I m doing it right or at least I hope so

@Neptune2020 You didn't get actual Nothingness, you got an idea of nothingness. The two are unrelated. Enlightenment is life-changing, but you didn't even come close to it yet. Keep trying. But drop your idea of nothingness. That ain't it. Also drop your expectation of fireworks. Your intention should be on "what is true". What are you? Not theortically, but ACTUALLY! Find the pure raw TRUTH. Not some idea.