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Undoing 14 years of religious upbringing and 10 years of nonduality isn’t going to happen overnight

Thank you for clarifying. I’m still shedding the whole nonduality look-up-to-the-master deal. I’m glad you don’t approve of that behavior.

No. Understanding is more fundamental than embodiment. Embodiment is always secondary and derivative. You cannot embody what you do not understand. And understanding does not necessitate embodiment. Pure Consciousness is distinct from embodiment. This is one of big mistakes of nondualist and Buddhist dogma. They emphasize embodiment more than pure understanding, which leads to self-deception. You have to understand what the fuck is going on first before you run off like a fool to embody it. I swear, these Buddhists are fucking monkeys doing cartwheels. Step #1 is understanding that Buddhism and nonduality are imaginary.

AWAKE does not require alien consciousness. AWAKE requires that you become conscious of how you imagine the entire world into existence around yourself. It's very direct, very pure, very profound God-Realization. You need to get to the very root of what GOD is. Not as Emptiness or Nothingness, but as yourself imagining everything around you -- including your body, your memories, the Earth, and other people. And including all spiritual teachings and enlightenment. You have to realize that enlightenment, nonduality, Buddhism, meditation, sleep, birth, and death are all imaginary.

Learn cutting off (or seeing them for what they are, as objects moving in you) your separate self arisings (thoughts and feelings) in your mindstream. They will get/arise faster and faster, and you can see them emerging out of consciousness as consciousness, and being elaborated in language afterwards. I had to read "Pointing out the Great Way," by Daniel Brown (chapters Skill of Reckognition and Yoga of Unelaboration) ten times plus to get it, and try a lot in implementing it. Pointing out the Great Way is a synthesis and summary of the Mahadmudra-System of Tibetan Buddhism. If you learn to cut off these mental arisings, at first they get faster and faster (Skill of Reckognition). That is some kind of protection mechanism of the separate self/Ignorance/Maya. Look into their nature, they arise out of empty and aware consciousness, they are not separate from consciousness, and they return to consciousness. But the tricks of the separate self mindstream arisings are limited, at some point you know all these separate self arisings (thoughts and feelings). The first shift comes when you can cut them all off and stay in the Awareness that you are (Skill of Reckognition). From that point onwards, bliss develops just from doing that. And later, it starts getting vast spaciousness and nondual. And you realize the Always-Here-Mind (Yoga of Unelaboration). That You/Mind/Reality doesn't come and go on time, but is always here, eternal and fundamental. And then you develop full Nonduality of the Visual Field as mere infinite appearance (Yoga of One Taste), and from there on fully "empty out" the separate self in Nonmeditation Yoga (Awakened Awareness being Reality itself). Up until this first shift (Skill of Reckognition, see above), meditation can be pleasant or unpleasant. After this shift, you generate your own happiness, on the pillow and off the pillow. In Mahamudra its called the three special states of bliss, clarity and nonconceptual stillness. And try some Psychedelics as preview for Nonduality/infinite Visual Field of mere appearance, and to empty out/transcend the separate self. Just don't expect that you have enough time in these states to empty or transcend that last remnants of the separate self (very subtle feelings of individuality/separtness watching some kind of infinity) fully. If it all gets transcend permanently, great and Namaste! But if you can't sustain that state sobre, maybe some separate self arisings still happen to cloud over the infinite mere appearance awareness-space that You are. All the best ( : Selling Water by the River

Yes. To realize what sand is, what You are, ever have been, ever will be, what Reality is, was and ever will be, and what is and will be the Reality of everything that could ever be, is Enlightenment (the final version of it, not the small ones lining up before that). At least in my lingo. Feel free to call it anything you like. And the sandcastles of the past or future don't exist, but are imagined right here and now. Take the sandcastles/appearance away and there is no time. And what kind of Sand Castles Reality/God can imagine, well that exploration and adventure is what you are seeing right now, to be continued. And since there is an Infinity of differently large Infinities (see Cantor Set Theory and Leos lovely Videos on them, especially "Understanding Absolute Infinity Part 2") , even God/Ultimate Reality will never run out of new sand castles to imagine and explore. That means "It" doesn't even have to imagine all of them (hey, lets skip that Horrorshow Sand Castle over "there", shall we?) to still have an Infinity of realties/Sand Castles yet to be explored. Would be a bit boring if you would already know all infinite Sand Castle-Adventures already. Having what you call Specific Omnicience of every Sand Castle possible/imaginable, that is not possible. God/Ultimate Reality is exploring its potential of an Infinity of Sand Castles. General Omnicience or realizing what Sand is (and what You really are), what the specific Sand Casle of ours is, and what the "substance/Reality" of every possible Sand Castle, is possible, see above. There is not only an Abyss when looking into the Abyss of the Absolute Subject, which by definition can't be an Appearance, or any form, it has to be in-FINITE, not FINITE, initially unaware if nothing is appearing (forms of Deep Sleep as anology), but with the potential for sentience of an appearance if manifesting it in IT to IT, made of IT (the Nondual-Awakening aspect). Your True Face before your parents were born. The Absolute. To really realize that, you have to be fully empty of any separate self arising that you don't see immedeately as object moving in you. Nonduality alone, or hearing the angels sing while still looking out from an empty transparent anything to "that" Infinity won't do it. But on top of that in-FINITE-ness of the Abyss of the Absolute Subject/Reality/Nothingness, there is an Infinity of Infinities of Manifestations/appearances/sand castles arising in IT possible. Ready for the adventure? Selling Water by the River PS: Nice books on these topics: Szyper, Infinite Consciousness: An In-depth Exploration of the Shift in Consciousness Constitutive of Enlightenment in relation to True Nature, the Soul, the Body-Mind, the Heart and the Me Good explanation of the stages of Enlightenment: 1. The Shift [Enlightenment] into the Manifested Essemce of Consciousness (various Awakenings) 2. The Shift [Enlightenment] into the Unmanifested Source of Consciousness/ Shift [Enlightenment] into Infinite Consciousness Gorman, What_s It Like To Be Enlightened, Book 1 & 2 (partial and full Enlightenment) Dziubin, Consciousness Is All

I agree to all that Leo has written above. Some musings from over here: Free will vs. Determinism: The Real You (Infinite Consciousness/Reality) has absolute freedom. The separate self illusion arising in you just feels like being you, but is not you, never was you, never will be you. Never could. You contain these arisings of the separte self in the real You. So it doesn't really exist, and since it doesn't exist, it has no freedom. But the Real You has absolute freedom. Nothing is or could be outside of it to limit its power. You project this freedom that you so strongly intuit on the separate self. So it is an illusion/ignorance. But the core of that feeling of freedom of choice it true, it is the Real You. But: That reasoning will not be clear before some Awakenings into what you are, and then it can help you passing and ripening that understanding, and stabilizing you in resting what You are. Then & there it is beneficial. Before that, it is just impossible to fully get it. Structure of your World-Bubble-Perspective/Visual Field: Since any form of boundary between perspectives would be an imagined arising, it is illusory, an appearance. Your current consciousness is limited, you forget all other perspectives in real time. But you add/imagine separate self arisings (feelings and thoughts), which are the illusion/ignorance. With more consciousness, you can have a Vision like Leavitt (see book cover with infinite perspectives). To get Enlightenment or Omniscience into the structure of Reality, you don't need to see all perspectives, but to fully understand the nature/structure/essence of your perspective, which you then realize has necessarily to hold for all other perspectives/beings. And for all dimensions, since there are only perspectives in Indras Net. N+1 -style. Even a Molecule is some kind of proto-perspective, the interiortity of a Holon in Ken Wilbers theory for example. Although a very rudimentary one. Here some ideas/Koans how to investigate your perspective, and which kind of [Awakenings/Enlightenments] you need: all appearances are imagined arisings in you, any boundary to any other perspective would just be imagined/arising (so not real, just appearing): What is necessary for that Awakening: A state of sufficient Nonduality , appearances appearing as just appearances (hovering in you, hologram-like/translucent). Not the normal everyday state, so either lot of meditation done correctly or Psychedelics are necessary. Psychedelics are very useful to get a preview on that, it takes a while to get there via meditation. the True You as the fully empty Nothingness which is "structurally infinite": Awakening in to the Nothingness or empty cogniziant nature of your core. "Structurally infinite", since any boundary limiting it would just be an imagined appearance, NOT really limiting it, but appearing within it. Something outside that imagined boundary can always also appear/be imagined. And since it is infinite, has no boundary (that would just be an arising in itself), it can't go anywhere, can't die: Awakening into eternity or "always necessary here-ness, can't go anywhere else-ness, can not not be there-ness". Also wasn't created (that would be another arising). It has nothing outside of itself (would be another appearance/arising) which could have created or caused it. That is a mindf*** (sorry) of the highest degree once you stumble over it. No daddy, but You get used to it. ( : It can imagine whatever it wants (omnipotent). Then we have timeless/eternal, nonlocal/"everywhere"/every possible being and reality, literally the only "One" or Reality itself, nothing can be outside of It (omnipresent), and omnipotent (since its the only Reality, no other Reality is stopping It from whatever it wants). So we have eternal, infinite, omnipotent/all powerful. And in some persepctives/beings, it even knows its structural fundamental nature: omniscient of its fundamental structure/being. And that is where sometimes the God-word (eternal, omnipresent, omnipotent, infinite, omniscient) comes in.... But please, don't use any of these insights for separate-self-identity/arisings. That only makes trouble and, you know, bad Karma. Because it is just not true. All of that holds for the True Nature of You, not some not-really-existing (EX-isting = standing out from reality) separate self. But it is not standing out from Reality, it is moving in it, as it, the temporary arising separate-self illusion moving within you and temporary capturing the show for itself. after all of that, you can Awaken to the nature/structure of Manifested/Appearing Reality/Consciousness, God Mind, Infinite, Brahman, Nonduality, ... However you want to call it. The last step is: (oh yes, after all of the above when having been stabilized in it for some time (days, months, years), the last big shift comes. And you won't overlook that one, because all of the above is gradual. This one is quantum). You won't overlook this one, you don't need to contemplate it, don't need to "make a decission" on it or on what you hold as true. It is totally fundamentally self-evident. It IS YOU. With that, you can look the devil in the eye and not blink. You will have the peace and bliss of your True Nature, that is "maintenance-free", since it IS You. It is variously called Great Enlightenment (Zen), Basis Enlightenment (Mahamdura Brown, Pointing out the Great Way), Great Liberation, ... Who or what is aware of all of that described above? Of the nondual infinite God-Mind Bubble Universe of manifested Infinite Consciousness floating in Infinity, as Infinity. What is the Reality/Awareness of Yours, that is inseparable of this Reality? What is the Awareness/"Subject" in perceptions perceiving themselves, without ever possibly having any location/center? What is the Reality/Awareness that can be originally "unaware" when no appearances arise in You (for example, in unware "normal" Deep Sleep), but has the potential of sentience as soon as an appearance is manifested? Who is hearing these words right now? What is this Absolute Subject, the Absolute Nothingness, that is so empty as Subject itself that the Absolute Abyss, that even God can't see anything in It? That you can only "experience", or that becomes available when "looking back" from "one level lower" and intuit/understand it as absolute Abyss of the Absolute Subject that you are? That then can be intuited/realized as total Abyss/Nothingness. That can never be any form or arising, because "the eye can't see" itself style? The Unmanifested Consciousness Reality that can be unaware of itself if no appearance is imagined, and yet that manifests as any possible world appearance in itself as itself, totally nondual, as the One Infinite Reality? What is beyond Manifested/Appearing Reality/Consciousness, God Mind, Infinite, Brahman, Nonduality, beyond all of that, but at the same time expressing itself through that? What remains if all of that, the Universe-Appearance, is switched off and ends, and before a new creation arises (for example in Deep unaware Sleep, or immediately after death before the show goes on)? What is the unmanifested "side" of Consciousness/Reality/Nothingness, but which is not different at all from the appearances arising within it, as it? That which can not not be there? That which has been called Para-Brahman, Godhead, the Absolute, Absolute Awareness, Infinite Awareness. The Fundamental Real You. That neither exists as appearance, nor does not exist because something still appears? The Water of the River that every Being is at its core. Or much much more precise, after all my clumsy descriptions above have failed: The Clap of the One Hand, or your face before your parents were born. And since You are already It, "I" am just.... ... Selling Water by the River ( : Somebody made a Video Channel on the last step: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC9vlZGtpdFIts8GOG5vu27g Bassui on the never stopping short with small Enlighenments: "I have seen that the foundation of the universe is Voidness; still what is this something within me which can see and hear?” he desperately asked himself anew. In spite of every effort, he could not rid himself of this obsessive doubt." [Emptiness and Nondual stage, separate self still intact, on a very rudamentary level, just a void separate self watching Infinity. "The lesser masters from whom Bassui had sought guidance had all sanctioned his enlightenment [see above, Awakenings], but Koho, sensing Bassui’s keen, sensitive mind and the strength and purity of his yearning for truth, did not give him his stamp of approval but merely invited him to remain" "At work, at rest, never stop trying to realize who it is that hears. Even though your questioning penetrates the unconscious, you won’t find the one who hears, and all your efforts will come to naught. Yet sounds can be heard, so question yourself to an even profounder level. At last every vestige of self-awareness [remnants of Empty Witness] will disappear and you will feel like a cloudless sky. Within yourself you will find no “I,” nor will you discover anyone who hears. This Mind is like the void, yet it hasn’t a single spot that can be called empty [no location, unilocal, perception perceiving themselves]. Do not mistake this state for Self-realization, but continue to ask yourself even more intensely, “Now who is it that hears?” If you bore and bore into this question, oblivious to anything else, even this feeling of voidness will vanish and you won’t be aware of anything—total darkness will prevail. [Don’t stop here, but] keep asking with all your strength, “What is it that hears?” Only when you have completely exhausted the questioning [having become fully empty, even of identity with manifested Consciouss, "God-Mind"] will the question burst; now you will feel like someone who has come back from the dead. This is true realization. You will see the Buddhas of all the universes face-to-face and the Dharma Ancestors past and present." "With the passage of time one’s thoughts are stilled and one experiences a void like that of a cloudless sky [Emptiness, Nonduality]. You must not, however, confuse this with enlightenment. Putting aside logic and reason, question yourself even more intensely in this wise: “Mind is formless, and so right now am I. What, then, is hearing?” Only after your search has permeated every pore and fiber of your being [having become totally empty] will the empty-space suddenly break asunder and your Face before your parents were born appear. You will feel like one who abruptly awakens from a dream." from Kapleau, The Three Pillars of Zen PS: I didn't create that Video. But it is beautiful.

Then this 0.01% consciousness is a fraction of 100% Absolut Consciousness. Means they must be "connected" and also "seperated" like a room in a house, with different experiences and independently conscious of itself. So the 99.99% is conscious of itself and the imagining process, and my 0.01% consciousness is not conscious of all that. My direct experience is just the fraction of Absolute Experience. Its nonduality and duality at once: the illusion of seperation is so strong that it becomes reality Is this explanation right?

Of the names you me Of the names you mentioned, Rupert Spira is very helpful as a teacher for new people to learn meditation. From that starting point they can move into many different directions. It's a place to begin from, not to finish at. Personally I find much lacking in the larger geopolitical schema that internet nonduality personalities lend themselves to and for that reason regard nondual spirituality teachings as unfinished. The application of metaphysics to social concerns is a major blind spot in all online spiritual communities. It is only remedied by concurrent study of political philosophy, economics and so forth, as well as with international travel, networking and active engagement on the ground to get direct insight of things.

Hello all My first post here. Been listening to Leo for a couple of years and been on this confusing but awesome journey of clawing myself out of the materialist paradigm. I have done lsd and 5 meo a handful of times and I’ve had the world melt away and been thrown into the void so it’s obvious to me that the computer I’m typing on isn’t some kind of external object with independent existence that I’m perceiving through the eyes, but that this is a dream. What’s still bugging me though is this whole POV thing. From what I’ve read others talking about on this forum I don’t seem to be alone with being confused about it. I’ve read quite a bit of people’s comments and I have picked up what kind of jargong you guys have here so first I feel like I should mention some things before I get to the actual question and example. First of all, I’m not claiming to be awake or anything. I don’t really care who’s what. I used to think I understood everything and would even look at myself as ”special” and even ”above” others, but then some brutal ego backlashes humbled me. All I care about now is understanding this for myself. Not look like I got it all figured out, but actually figure it out. Just telling me I’m playing mind games or whatever and then not explaining in what ways or why you think so doesn’t help me figuring anything out. If you’re in a position to say that you’re supposedly not in that trap yourself and should be able to give me some guidance, or maybe you just want to give the impression publicly that you have come so much further. If that’s your intention, please don’t bother to comment. Just telling me I don’t understand and then not helping me is also useless. It’s like the teacher telling the kid just starting out math class he doesn’t understand any math. Yeah, like why do you think he’s there? Also, please don’t spew some nonduality one-liner on me, I’m looking for serious feedback and not interested in hearing the same old lines every newbie loves to write under all the Rupert Spira videos. I’m also not interested in hearing about your definitions of what enlightenment is unless you’re able to talk to me about it in the context of what I’m writing below. With a lot of spiritual folks I more often than not get the feeling that I can’t even have an actual conversation without them starting to tell me about their definitions of enlightenment, or maybe just get a ”there is no you” thrown in the face without even engaging my question. If you’re not engaging what I’m actually writing and just repeating some platitude I won’t take you seriously. A lot of spirituality folks I’ve talked to always dismisses my desire to understand and tell me I should just drop it because it can’t be understood and that I should ”just be” or something similar, but I’m not content with that. Maybe it’s just you who have a weak mind so it’s easier for you to say ”it can’t be understood” because you don’t understand yourself and then confuse your own limits for what’s possible. I’ve even been told ”you’re very philosophical” in a derogatory sense, as if that’s a negative when doing this kind of work. Jeez. With that out of the way I hope I can be taken seriously here. So I have been doing a lot of different thought experiments during and after my trips and I’ve found the video game analogy to be a great visualization to create clear distinctions to understand better so I would really appreciate to get some feedback to course correct me if I’m deceiving myself. For you who play video games this might make sense. Let’s say I play some 1st person game but split screen. So I split it into two 1st persons perspective and then in each of the two perspectives we have a body from the 3rd person perspective. With this example it’s easy to see that the two bodies from 3rd person perspective don’t exist in the same world, an external world, but that they only exist as an appearance within each of the 1st person perspectives. If one of the game characters would observe his hand we wouldn’t actually have just one hand but two. The hand from the 1st person perspective isn’t even the same hand as the one that’s in front of the face of the body from the 3rd person perspective that’s part of the other 1st person perspective. There are no internal worlds because the 1st person perspectives that we usually think of as internal are not that because it’s the other way around where the bodies that we previously located the 1st person perspectives in instead themselves are in those 1st person perspectives. The 1st person perspectives can’t be located in anything appearing because that would basically be claiming that one 1st person perspective is located in another and that would be the typical grounding that materialists do where they locate objects inside of objects to create ”experience” as something owned by a body. If we would turn both of the 1st person perspectives around, both of the bodies from the 3rd person perspective would now have disappeared but none of the 1st person perspectives would have disappeared as they were never located in those bodies. So when I’m interacting with another body I understand that there is no 1st person perspective located in that body or owned by it, there is no difference between that body or a rock or whatever, both are appearances within this 1st person perspective, but I still think of it as if there is another 1st person perspective where what I usually call myself in daily normal self-referencing, my body from the 3rd person perspective, is an appearance. Alright, so here’s my confusion about solipsism. In this analogy there are not two subjects, the bodies are not what’s experiencing or owning any of the perspectives, nothing is being perceived through the eyes or being calculated or created by any brain. Neither is existing in an external world and neither is having any inner experiences. It’s all direct appearance without inside or outside. The whole story of sense organs and biology and external independent world and so forth are something that’s being imagined and then projected as an overlay on the one-layered appearance to create a sense of a separate reality with multiple subjects. There would not be two separate positions either. If we go further than the screen analogy and imagine we would remove the dividing line between the two 1st person perspectives and merge them so that they are superimposed on each other and then do that with every possible perspective, then all perspectives are located at the same point that itself has no location. A pointless point lol..where everything emerges out of, which is what I think people mean when they talk about the Godhead. Basically that nothingness that sits where I previously imagined and believed my head was. So there is no one looking out of any head, only the Godhead that’s not located anywhere that is looking. My body from the 3rd person perspective, that’s only an appearance within the other 1st person perspective and with no existence outside of it, is also something I’m looking at as the Godhead. I could see how someone might call this solipsism but my understanding of what’s usually meant by that word would in this screen analogy be equal to if we simply removed one of the two 1st person perspectives on the screen and now only displayed one and that’s it. That’s all of it. Which means that when I’m communicating with another body there is no other perspective with an appearance of me as a body from the 3rd perspective talking. Sounds like a pretty small infinity to me if all there is would be only this one perspective being imagined by the Godhead. Also, when someone says ”there is only you” or ”you’re only talking to yourself” it can mean drastically different things depending of what ”you” and ”yourself” is referring to. If you said that to a materialist who believes he is a body that’s walking around in an independent external world and using his brain to construct an internal image of that world, that would make no sense to him. Some of these things can be very confusing depending on where you’re coming at it from. I don’t see how one subject has to mean only one perspective. I mean, in the materialist model we have many subjects but one world. So if you’re coming from that paradigm with thinking it’s only one world and then you hear something like ”there is only one subject”, i.e. you, and you erase all the other subjects you previously imagined to exist under the materialist paradigm, but then still hold the idea of only one world subconsciously, I can see that it’s easy to then draw the conclusion that the forms that are present for you now is all there is. But if you drop the ”one world” idea then one subject doesn’t have to mean one appearance. Am I on the right track with this line of thinking? Anyhow, I’ve been wrecking my mind incessantly over this the last few month and people are saying different things regarding this and I guess this will be no different but would appreciate some feedback about all this from someone with some real experience and hope we can talk about it within the framework of the analogy. If I’m fooling myself I wanna know. That doesn’t mean I will buy anything you say though. Thanks!

Enlightenment is in most definitions defined as seeing that all appearances arise within the infinite you, being imagined by you, through you. And you are that, the Totality, Tat Tvam Asi. That includes all arisings, including the feelings and thoughts of the separate self, including memories. And of course the boat (all spiritual teachings) that carried you to the other shore, that you cast into the stream after crossing over to the other shore. They also arise just in you. Reality/True You includes every possible arising or imagined form, n+1. I also agree that Just experiencing or becoming Emptiness or Nothingness is not sufficient. You can experience the Godhead as state (Cessation, Nirvikalpha), and even experience yourself as Nothingness in a nondual infinite state, and it is not yet IT. Why? Because there are still a very very subtle feeling of Inviduality, of being separate, that will continue appearing in you. Even if it is just a very subtle "Nothing" watching the infinite. And how to get the Realization into daily life? Like, seeing the whole infinite appearance bubble arise within you in daily life? Learn to get proficient in spotting this last feeling of indviduality/separateness, and cutting them off before they fully rise up and elaborate, put You under their spell, before they get believed. A High-Speed-Search-Task for the Emptiness of the separate self arisings, as Daniel Brown once called it. And when you are fully empty (your personality is not gone, it continues working more efficient and better than ever, its just blows like the wind through the Totality that you are then), you can sustain that. Nondual, infinite, blissfull, the not so separate self or character moving in you like the wind. You realize that you have always been that Totality, before with the illusion of something separate appearing in it. @Leo Gura : I am (at least in my understanding of your writings, especially the one above) very close with my definitions of these terms to your definition on God-Realization/Enlightenment. I understand why you put so much emphasize on understanding the points you mention above, because its sooo easy to stop short, and various teachers like Jac O'Keffee or Wolinsky, Massaro (I know...), Wilber, Davidya, even Bassui a few hundred years ago.... also emphasize that a lot: Further, never stop short. It is so easy to fool yourself, and stop at Nonduality with a separate self still left and not fully seen through. I also like your wording of imagination more than the classic buddhist wording of "empty or empty of inherent existence", the question of BiploarGrowth. ("Could you define imaginary as “something not having inherent existence and being completely reliant on Consciousness/You to appear”?). So, at least in my humble opinion, the more or less only point where I put a different emphasis than you (yet, which at least in my experience, has a drastic impact wether you can carry this realization into daily life), is: This last quantum of getting totally empty of the last Individuality/separateness-arising-items arising in you, not a lense seen through, but a lense fully transcended moving in you and not seen through, which enables you to sustain this Realization sobre without pychedelics, and to get it totally unbiased of any last separate self interpreting lense. @Leo GuraLeo, just one question: Where is your line of kicking out people? I understand that probably most people who write in a not so polite way or are making fun, or being ironic/sarcastic in a not so light way, or are being arrogant, are probably not writing that while being aware of their True Nature (at least while writing it, yet some may be), but are a bit annoyed by some manifestation in their visual field (which in that case happen to be your writings). So, for them, a little challenge: How about writing it being aware that Leo is actually fundamentally not different from you, and writing your message in a loving way, even if you feel the urgency of critique? Writing while not rejecting parts of your visual field (in that case, Leos message)? I respect you and your work (which is marvelous in so many areas). I just have a different perspective on the utmost importance of getting fully empty, seeing the separate self arisings in real time fast enough and not getting hypnotized, and to be able to carry that realization described above into everyday life, and the ensuing happiness/bliss that it brings. Utmost at least in my experience, because it made the difference on so much more happiness and bliss that has come into my life so that I can not honestly write about this topic without mentioning the experience I had with this aspect. Let's respectfully agree to disagree on that one point? Namaste and all the best! Water by the River

AWAKE does not require alien consciousness. AWAKE requires that you become conscious of how you imagine the entire world into existence around yourself. It's very direct, very pure, very profound God-Realization. You need to get to the very root of what GOD is. Not as Emptiness or Nothingness, but as yourself imagining everything around you -- including your body, your memories, the Earth, and other people. And including all spiritual teachings and enlightenment. You have to realize that enlightenment, nonduality, Buddhism, meditation, sleep, birth, and death are all imaginary.

I was texting my girlfriend and she is a nerd freak just like me(although she knows nothing about nonduality)and we had a discussion about the existence of God. So I thought I would share it..because I made a really good points lol. she asked me : Her: do you think god exists? Me : of course. Her: what is your proof? Me:existence! Her: how so? Existence could be a product of chance or maybe there is multiple universes or maybe we are inside a simulation... Why does it have to be God? Me: existence is a proof of existence. God is existence actual existence. Her: I don't understand.. Which god are you talking about? Me :there can only be one God because there can only be one infinity. Her: that's true but which God is the real one? The Christian God or the hindu God etc? Me : none of them. Her: how so? Which one is it then? Have you seen him? Me : of course no. No one can and no one will. How can you see something that has no beginning and no end? Her: hmm.. But then .. What makes you sure that God exists? ..isn't it better to be agnostic? .. Maybe there is no God after all.. Me : lol. There is no way. If you are fully aware of this present moment you will know it's impossible that God doesn't exist. Her: what does that have to do with God? Me: because God is not separated from creation.. God's fingerprints are present in every moment of creation. If you can see it you can see him. Her: you just said that you can't see him.. Me :yes because God is infinite.. There is no place for both YOU and HIM to be .. He take all the place.. If he is to be present.. You have to leave first. Her: leave? Me : to die basically. To disappear. That's the only way to see God directly and to know for certain that he is real. That he is the reality itself. Her: so are you saying that God is existence.? Like the pantheism of eastern religions? Or is God a separate being who created the world and is no longer in contact with it? Me : the infinite can't be separated from anything. Yet at the same time it is always free and not limited to only include a certain finite worlds. So God is precisely this present moment that you are experiencing right now and yet he is none of that stuff and completely beyond it and beyond anything you can even imagine!, Her: that's weird lol Me : exactly. God is a weird motherfucker. Why do you think humans struggle so much with understanding God? In fact he cannot be understood. That's what makes God God. You can understand anything except God. Investigate reality as deep as you can.. And once you hit a point where your mind collapses and your logic give up.. You've reached God.. You've reached to nowhere and everywhere.

That is not my experience. At some point you take the practice off the pillow into daily life. There are techniques for doing that (for example the Mahamudra-practices described in Pointing out the Great Way, Daniel Brown). Then, it would simply be rather unpleasant to not continue doing it. And the energetic shifts towards emptiness and nonduality continue and increase. I can imagine that falling back happens happens with something like only sitting-meditation concentration style or Koan-style (Zen, or Theravada-style). But I don't know, that is not the system I used mainly. At least according to my experience, it doesn't happen with something like the Yoga of One Taste of Mahamdura or the Yoga of Unelaboration/Skill of Recognition (Pointing out the Great Way, Brown). I don't see how that could not stick. And I don't think Genetics is the main part. I didn't have any great genetics, it took me around 15 years+, but only because I didn't get the efficient techniques at the beginning. If I would have been coached in the right way, it would have been a lot faster. Looking back, using the right techniques is so much key. If you don't, you can bang your head against the wall (or rather stare at it) for a looong time until something happens. You will not get somebody who failed at most stuff at life and without discipline there. But using the right meditation-techniques and diligence, and as soon as possible roll that out in daily life, then you will be doing fine. General understanding of the technique, diligence, and finding soon a way to make it pleasant. I believe that is key, at least it was for me. If you look for example at Pointing out the Great Way, Daniel Brown, you have around 300-400 pages on these techniques. It is a very clear defined step-path, with many sub-techniques for each stage. The Tibetans have been doing that 1000 years, and it is in my opinion its the most sophisticated system on the planet. The Zen techniques (Koan and just sitting) look rather.... well, rudimentary compared to that. At least in my perspective. And the Theravada-techniques are not at that level of sophistication. Also just my perspective. If the meditation doesn't get pleasant after a certain time, in my opinion one is either not using the best techniques available, or is doing something wrong. Concerning the marvelous spiritual genetics topic: Here we are, in a forum in large parts based on Self-Help and quite a part of Self-Help on male-female dynamics, and there it is forbidden to blame looks, but with meditation we blame genetics. Without really knowing and having no statistics, Just because our meditation technique feels bad or boring (maybe the wrong technique, maybe there is some better stuff available?). I didn't have any special genetics for meditation, meditation was hard and not pleasant at the beginning, that is why I didn't do too much at the start. Then I stumbled (or rather read about all the different systems) over the right technique, and to this day I marvel on how infinitely much better that made my life. Today, Selling water by the River, Self Help Mindset Flavor! ( : sorry, just kidding. But I really mean all of the above. Never limit the belief in what you can achieve. Of course, don't be unkind to yourself and overload you, but never stop believing! Here the 2-Year-Old with nearly most of his skin burned who went flying Air Force Jets, including the fastest of them: How do you think that 2-year-old would have gone for meditation? Get blocked my limiting beliefs?

Selling Water by the River, todays water batch: Difference between Awakening and Enlightenment: Enlightenment: You had to cut/transcend every subtle separate sense feelings/thought (very subtle ones, very hard to spot). Then you are fully empty, which is your True Condition. Then, all separate self arisings arise in you, and move in you, but you are not only them. They move in you like the wind. The wind is also you, but you are not only the wind. They are fully transcended. Why is that necessary to fully understand Absolute Reality, or what You are? What you are can be fully empty. Like, nothing at all. Total Nothingness. When no arising is there, Absolute Reality/You is unaware of itself. But with the potential for sentience if something appears (for example, check Hawal and Massaro books). You are still there when all arisings disappear (Nirvikalpha, Deep Sleep, your face before your parents were born). And if you want to understand what You are while forms still arising (like, in normal life), there can not be a subtle separate self/anything cutting the one infinite Unity of the Real You/Reality into a felt subject (Awareness) watching Infinity, even if it feels nondual or infinite. It has to become perceptions perceiving themself, no separate self anywhere to be found. You can not have separate Awareness separated from the field. The infinite field watches itself, literally does. And your body-mind moves in the Totality that you are. The thoughts and feelings of the former separate you are moving in in the True You like the wind. The bliss/love you generate in that state without needing anything external gives you autonomy from chasing externally generated bliss via experiences. It gives you total absolute freedom and love (Bassui below: You will be entirely free) If you understand that for your perspective, you understand that this holds for the structure of all perspectives/beings, for the whole Absolute Reality. Why? Because all perspectives are only form arising in the Absolute, any boundary from one perspective/being to another is either forgetting or form arising in Awareness, seeing itself. The advantage if do that sobre: You need a high developed state of nonduality/nonlocality/centerlessness/mere appearance of the visual bubble. You get that via meditation done correctly. Which doesn't need to be unpleasant or hard (although it normally takes quite a while), at least if done correctly, see for example Pointing out the Great Way, Daniel Brown. If you feel centered in your head, and the outside world appears as solid, you can not understand the Nature of Reality, impossible. So this state is necessary for Enlightenment. But not sufficient. From that stage (Yoga of One Taste) for example, you can continue to dissolve the last remnants of the separate self (for example, Nonmeditation Yoga). And then you can have Insight into what you are. You will not miss that, its definitive. Also, and most important, you got a built in safety check/quality control: You will not cross over to full Enlightenment without fully transcending any and all separate self arising coming up (and the visual field being Nonduality, centerless and infinite). You can't fool yourself here. And you will understand when you are there. Why it is absolute. Awakening: The energetic state of Nonduality/Unity/Infinity with some remnants of separate self still not fully transcended, you can also get by Psychedelics. Which of course is useful in order to have an idea of the goal, a feedback loop to build this nonduality-state via meditation, on and off the pillow. But here, you get the nonduality/mere appearance with subtle remnants of the separate self still intact. You don't have the build in quality/safety mechanism of classic Full Enlightenment. So it is very easy to confuse these experiences for the final Realization of what you are. Everyone having experienced it claims this on the difference between Awakening and Enlightenment, see for example Frank Yang/Ralston/Wilber/Jac O'Keffee/Steven Wolinsky/... (anticipating certain feedback: "they are not awake, but enlightened". Well, with the definitions above I could agree). Enlightenment is in a different ballpark. And you can't imagine it without it fully happening. So it is not some mild form of "God-Realization", or Nothing. It is something of a different category. It is, to quote Ralston, fully understanding what You are and what Reality is. Without any separate self filters, however subtle, still active. So what happens if you value Psychedelic Awakenings or Understandings higher than fully being and realizing what you are? You guessed it: Reality doesn't let you off the hook, you still have psychological suffering. The separate self arisings cut you off from the full flow of love of your True Being for itself. So you need experiences to get this love flowing. For example the love you feel when understanding-experiences of the exquisite beauty of the design of Reality/Dimensions happen. Is anything with exploring Alien-Godminds wrong? For sure not, this understanding is probably among the most beautiful experiences you can have. I just feel it becomes problematic if you value getting the love the unenlightened separate self needs from these experiences, and valueing these understandings of Alien-Godminds higher than classic Enlighenment and fully understanding your True Nature, and resting in it. Why not pursue and value BOTH endevours on an at least equal basis? Not downplaying Enlightenment as somehow not on the same level or lower than any other insight into the appearance or form side of Reality (which is infinite). If what is stated above is correct, with one path one is lead to salvation (Enlightenment), and with the other path (Understanding/Awakenings), well.... best regards from Maya, but you get a medal from her with distinction for playing her game on the highest level possible. For the readers: You will probably not achieve higher level of bliss and love than your teacher using his teachings. And how these levels will develop: Well, we are in the prime seats here to see how it will continue. I don' think I have a high chance of convincing Leo. So that means that the job of convincing to develop via suffering (or hopefully only not being as happy and loving than one could be) stays where it always has been, and ever will be: Maya, CEO of Samsara. All the best, enjoy the ride and the show, and Namaste! Selling Bullshit Water by the River. PS: There is already water by the River, so I am too lazy to carry Bulls**t there. ( : Bassui: “What is it that hears?” Only when you have completely exhausted the questioning will the question burst; now you will feel like someone who has come back from the dead. This is true realization. You will see the Buddhas of all the universes face-to-face and the Dharma Ancestors past and present. ... If you push forward with your last ounce of strength at the very point where the path of your thinking has been blocked, and then, completely stymied, leap with hands high in the air into the tremendous abyss of fire confronting you—into the ever-burning flame of your own primordial nature—all ego-consciousness, all delusive feelings and thoughts and perceptions will perish with your ego-root and the true source of your Self-nature will appear. You will feel resurrected, all sickness having completely vanished, and will experience genuine peace and joy. You will be entirely free. For the first time you will realize that walking on water is like walking on ground and walking on ground like walking on water; that all day long there is speaking, yet no word is ever spoken; that throughout the day there is walking, yet no step is ever taken; that while the clouds are rising over the southern mountains their rain is falling over the northern range; that when the lecture gong is struck in China the lecture begins in Korea; that sitting alone in a ten-foot-square room you meet all the Buddhas of the ten quarters; that without seeing a word you read the more than seven thousand volumes of the sutras; that though you acquire all the merits and virtues of good actions, yet in fact there are none.

Biggest trap I believed from nonduality, hands down. Very clever way to deceive yourself from seeing YOURSELF.

I agree. Ego-Loss and Presence is not final Enlightenment. Ego-Loss and Presence would be Roger Thisdells stage 3 and 4, a more or less transparent Witness, and that can include Nonduality and Unity-states. Not his stage 5, True No-Self, or final Enlightenment. His videos are on Youtube, see my previous posts. At the end, when only the individuality-feeling of the Transparent Witness remains, and even that is seen as moving in the True You or Reality/Infinite Consciousness itself, among with all other mere appearances of the Visual Field, then there is insight into the Ultimate Nature of Reality and your True Self. Not before. That is called Great Enlightenment in Zen, or Basis Enlightenment in Mahamudra. All small Enlightenments before are called Kenshos or smaller Satoris (Nonduality, Unity, certain Ego-losses). But the final and total drop of the separate self arisings is the Great Enlightenment, the insight into the nature of Existence/Reality and the real You. Version 1, Peter Ralston: Peter Ralston: "So you know enlightenment is you yourself becoming conscious of what's true, directly conscious of what's true, like what you are or what existence is, no more than that". Version 2, The Supreme Source, God-Realization Dzogchen-style: My intuition is with the importance you lay on God-Realization: Never stop short - on which I fully agree. Thats the worst mistake one can do - stop short in understand what You and Ultimate Reality really are. I really agree on that. Apparently, understanding that everything is just appearance arising in the True You, Reality itself, and what that True You and Ultimate Reality are, is paramount. But why aim for understanding all of the endless/infinite perspectives (Alien Minds, whatever...) that work together to give rise to all these appearances, when by definition its infinite and endless (n+1) and never can be fully understood, and call that God-Realization, and give it a higher meaning than the Full Classic Enlightenment? Isn't Ultimate Reality the final Godhead? Infinite other dimensions run and understood by other Alien Godminds? Aren't these other realms not just... more appearances arising in Ultimate Reality? Why place more importance on these insights, which by definition can never be complete, than on the understanding of the "wetness" of each wave of appearances in the ocean of Ultimate Reality? Which by the way, is the definition of final Enlightenment (or Great Enlightenment in Zen, see Kapleau three pillars. Not the preliminary ones, Kenshos and smaller Satoris, which show Nonduality and various other facets). But the real thing, like Ralston said, what Reality is and what You really are. Why not get the wetness and bliss of the ocean in your everyday-life, and then go exploring the Alien Godminds? Or do you aim for that with exploring the Alien Godminds? As always: Review the perspectives, and if one doesn't like the kind of water that is being sold here at the river, look deeply into yourself if you are not already the river... ( : He who knows the well doesn't drink out of the jar. And doesn't angry on other jars. PS: And besides, in exploring these Alien-Godminds, I think you are doing an awesome pioneering job, stuff for the history books in the future. What would really delight me is if you find within yourself a place living from which brings you a radiating bliss and love in your everyday life 24/7, and freedom from psychological suffering. All the best and bon voyage!

Correct. When consciousness reaches levels beyond human -- way beyond nonduality, Buddhism, and even most psychedelic trips -- it transforms into alien forms of consciousness and intelligence. All human spirituality is just that -- human. It is not the same as an advanced alien mind. Surely you understand that there exist aliens in the universe with brains 100x larger and smarter than yours. The most enlightened human is like an ant next to that level of consciousness. Now ask yourself, how would it feel to stop being human and become that alien? What would that kind of intelligence/mind feel like? Well, what I am telling you is that I know, because I have directly become it. And I can tell you that it turns all human spiritual understanding to shame. No human on this planet is that conscious. I cannot maintain such a level of consciousness for long, but at least I know that it exists and what it is like. It is utterly radical and nonhuman. That's a lot closer to the kind of intelligence that designed reality. Human intelligence is incapable to comprending reality's design. Your genetics and brain are too limited. Even if you were born very spiritually gifted. Remember, humans are just ants in the grand scheme of thing. The only reason humans act like the ultimate is because no one is around to put us to shame. Human intelligence is infinitesimally small. Imagine what it's like to be an ant relative to a human. Then imagine what it would be like to be an advanced alien relative to a human. Your mind would be so advanced you would experience reality in a completely new way. This goes way beyond merely not having ego. Ego and egolessness are just a small part of your consciousness and your life. Even if you lose all ego, your experience of reality will still be extremely limited and basic. Your understanding will still be very low. Ego loss and presence is not what this work is truly about. That is a minor matter in the end. There are much larger issues at stake. You cannot comprehend GOD merely by losing your ego or being very present. This is the core mistake of Buddhism. They confuse such things with CONSCIOUSNESS. But those are very narrow aspects of CONSCIOUSNESS.

It's the anymore part that may give people pause. When I first joined the forum, I was lectured about referring to the theory (rather than the reality) of nonduality. Now it is alien consciousness. Stay tuned for the next episode in Leo's amazing adventure! If people want to live by spiritual proxy and see the journey as entertainment that's fine, but nothing will improve the quality of their lives like direct experience. I am not disparaging Leo. Setting aside that he has to support his family, and that a cascade of self-trumping claims serves this purpose, I feel that in his core Leo is sincere. I am only asking people to be sincere themselves, and use that sincerity to dive deeply into the unchartered territory within.

@axiom Fully agree on all points. I should have added some concluding remark from the Absolute side of the street, not everything from the Relative side of the street. >There is noone already, so there is nothing that can be done. There are only appearances arising which may or may not involve what seems to be an individual on some kind of path. Totally agree, but for sake of teaching-efficiacy, the Mahamdura-system throws the stick with which one pokes and blazes the fire only into the fire when the fire is sufficiently burning. In the Mahamudra-System (for example Pointing out the Great Way, Brown), there is only effort or artifical activity (or a person) involved up until and including the stage 3 of One Taste (One Taste = Nondual). One learns to cut all thought- and emotion-arisings fast enough (Stage 1& 2). When one is proficient enough in that, the visual field starts getting nondual (Stage 3), the separation perceived before drops away, and the visual field gets an appearance-only quality, empty, hologram-style. Then, at stage 4 (Nonmeditation Yoga), this effort or artifical activity (or believing in a person or agent doing these things) gets dismantled, because cutting off the Illusion-thought-arisings has become fast enough and automatic. Together with that, the concept of a doer/person/agent gets pointed out as another concept, and the meditation does itself. Here, the mindstream aligns for the first time with the real state of things, that an understanding can happen there really is no person, just a bundle of I-thoughts/I-feelings arising. And of course, there was no person/individual in the past, only an apparant Gestalt that looked like that, and which one used to overlay ones true being (Infinite Conciousness or Reality itself) with, there isnt one now, and there never can or will be, only as an illusion or overlay on the real nature of things. Ones True Being is able to generate this illusion (magnificienlty), but is not dependend on it. The show can happen without it. But reality can generate this illusion. Basically then one goes full Tony Parsons (there is no person, nothing needs to be done), but only at stage 4 Nonmeditation Yoga and not before. If you do it before, certain qualities are not generated that one needs to conform to the enlightened mind (nonduality, mere-appearance/imagined hologram-like quality of the visual field, infinitesness of the visual field, space not as independend self-existing "thing" but sth. imagined in consciousness which consciousness doesnt need to imagine, time and memory happening in it now, that one cant get out of it because there is no outside, and some other stuff). And when all of that is in place, Basis-Enlightenment or Crossing Over can happen, which Brown describes (among other things): " Seemingly individual consciousness (yid), the point of observation throughout the entire path of meditation, is now found to be a mere concept (btagspa), which drops away. … The seeming reality of individual consciousness along with its functions and activities gives way, leaving only an infinite ocean of awareness-space " The description of enlightenment as a dropping away of any kind of separate-identity/person/individual arising is universal in all enlightenment descriptions. Don't worry, by definition, the real you can't go away - ever. Only an illusion is seen through and understood. And the real you can generate the separate-self Illusion-show, so nothing really is lost. Whats more fundamental is still there. So It sounds more negative than it is. Leaving only an infinite ocean of awareness-space: And if you have become so impersonal or universal consciousness (nondual) that you can have that state of huge nonduality/mere appearance of the visual field/infiniteness sobre, well then you have deconstructed your separate self enough. This is the Gate-Keeper of the Gateless Gate. This deconstruction is better said a high-speed-search-task-and-cutting-off of separate self illusion-arisings (I-feelings, I-thoughts, Trekchö-Style), and that is what boosts the nonduality and mere appearance aspect of the visual field, which is exactly what you can also boost with psychedelics, but with much more of the separate-self illusions still staying intact.... Frank Yang called that once the God-Mind-state. >From the other side of the gate, it is said that to see apparent individuals believing that they exist, believing in their own agency... believing they have achieved enlightenment or indeed anything at all - is the sweetest joke going. Fully agree. And if it can happen natty in Nonduality-States, it can even more easily happen with doing only/mainly Psychedelics, because among other things, they exactly boost that Nonduality/mere apperance/infinite state. And if the separate self arisings are not fully seen through, you can get quite a show. And by the way, as Ken Wilber said, people doing both meditation and psychedelics, get the most out of it, so I am not against Psychedelics at all. Somebody made a very nice youtube-Channel on looking deep into the Abyss or Nothingness that precedes Nonduality: Prior to Non-Duality https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC9vlZGtpdFIts8GOG5vu27g You can have full blow nonduality WITH an enlightened ego/person with an identity still going on, believing to be enlightened. Believing to be Awareness, Presence, God, whatever not. Stage 3 in Mahamudra. Quite a show... Beautiful video on that by Jac O'Keffee: and now, walking from the Relative Side of the Street a bit more towards its Absolute Side: In actuality, there is nobody selling water by the river, and nobody is buying it... And the short form, of all written above is: The old pond, A frog jumps in: Plop! Enjoy the ride!

I would like to add that, to be fair, Leo did at one point teach about enlightenment, meditation, and nonduality. Given this, of course his students would be confused and misled. On the other hand, we can’t allow that to be an excuse, as Leo had to also make those mistakes himself. It takes guts to not only point out that the prior teachings are null, but to also take this ship in a different direction by not continuing to entertain the old teachings. Feel free to correct me if I’m wrong about my observation.

Thats true. Although it can take quite a while without psychedelics. That stage was variously called the One Taste (Yoga of One Taste), Nonduality, Big-Self, Infinity, Mere Appearance, Unity, God-Self, Big Mind, .... But who or what is aware of that? At that stage, there is still some nebulous murky identity arising, watching or being aware of this Nondual Big Self. Even in this Nonduality/Unity, there are the last remnants of the separate self (very subtle, hard to spot, takes some training) still arising. Roger Thisdell has some nice youtube-videos on that: Not Self - A Stage Theory of Enlightenment (4/5) In Roger Thisdells System, it is his stage 4, which is beyond his stage 3 Big Mind, which is already Nondual (One Taste/Yoga of One Taste, Nonduality, Big-Self, Infinity, Mere Appearance, Unity, God-Self, Big Mind) with a already much reduced separate self. Stage 3 can have full Nonduality/Unity, with the separate self much more intact than the pretty empty Not-Self of stage 4 (which has just Individuality or a murky Subject-Object left). It is Ken Wilber Empty Witness, Daniel Brown "Individuality", Jac O'Keeffe "Identity", Greg Goode transparent witness vs. opaque witness, Nisargadattas and Stephen Wolinskis Brahman vs. Parabrahman). One can find this stage in every system: Infinite Nonduality/Unity with the remnants of a separate self, some kind of identity or indviduality/separateness. And the last stage in his system, stage 5, Enlightenment: True No Self and No Centre - A Stage Theory of Enlightenment (5/5) And then perceiving this boundless infinite field of mere appearance of your Awareness Bubble/reality/infinity, and then dissolving the last arising remnants of any remaining subject arisings perceiving this nondual infinity. These can be very subtle, "no-self"-arisings perceiving infinity, but still some subjectivity/individuality sensation/arisings remaining. But these arisings of any form of subject/individuality can still be seen as objects hovering in the infinite field/Suchness that you are. Don't worry, your True Self will still be there afterwards if these separate-self remnants dissolve. Then one can understand why it is so often said there is nothing beyond this stage. Because it is you, it is Existence itself, see the Ralston Video. To learn these last tricks of the separate self, you need enough time in these states, and the right techniques, (for a suggestion see below, no artifical activity), and then the One Hand Claps. How to do that? I like the Nonmeditation-Yoga in Daniels Browns "Pointing out the Great Way". Learn to automize the meditation (on the pillow and in daily life) of cutting off these separate self arisings, so that no more of what he calls "artifical activity" is necessary, because any effort at that stage done by a doer/separate self arising prevents the realization. It has to become fully automized. Definition of concepts Awakening, Enlightenment and No-Self: I believe we got a lot of different meanings of what we mean by No-Self, and Awakening and Enlightenment. Enlightenment: If Enlightenment is knowing what you are and what existence is, being able to stay in that knowledge in everday life: That has an endpoint: You know what you are and what existence is. And that brings permanent happiness and bliss. Of course you can suffer when you have bodily pain, but psychological suffering is gone. Resting in your True Nature generates bliss by itself. And that is the same as True No-Self, which is the same as True Self, because it is Reality and the core or Buddha-Nature of every being. But here, words loose their meaning, because reality has no opposite. No-Self: The real No-Self is not just giving up the Personality/Ego and going to the Witness (opaque or transparent, which can even be Nondual Kosmic Consciousness/Nature Mysticism style) with something still watching. That something can be mostly empty, just a transparent witness, but it still has the last duality of some kind of individuality. Problem is: This is something one only fully understands when these remnant-arisings of individuality are gone. If there is no separate self having individuality, the universe is watching itself, appearances watching themselves, thoughts are arising in immense vastness as objects, floating through you like the sound of a bird, and the feeling of being something separate is also seen as object in immense vastness. See Roger Thisdell stage 5. Awakening: If one defines Awakening as knowing all the manifestation mechanisms in this or any other dimension, then one perspective/being can be more awake than another. But: Infinity means there are endless dimensions. And a few thoughts on Genetics and Meditation: I believe that using the right meditation techniques at the right stage are essential, more so than genetics. Good techniques change along the path, check for example Pointing Out the Great Way by Daniel Brown. Classic Self-Help-Mindset: I would never let my success and drive be limited by such a limiting belief genetics <-> meditation. Do the the best with the Karma you have. Give it a try! The biggest heros are those who go furthest with the worst genetics/Karma. How do you know if you are limited, if you dont't fully try? Maybe you are not? And of course use Psychedelics on top, why not? If anybody is annoyed by this attempt to Sell water by the River: Please review the perspectives, do your own experiments, and review the outcome. My suggestion would be in judging if any insight is valueable, worthwhile, and higher: Does it bring the understanding of what you are and what reality is, beyond any doubt? Does it bring permanent satisfaction and bliss? And don't worry: Its already what you are, covered by lots of mistaken identities, and it is the only thing you can not loose. The only stuff you can loose are arising appearances, confusions/ignorance of what you think you are. By the way, does anybody read that until the end here?

Love this. I left religion, only to find myself following nonduality. It’s an improvement in certain aspects, but I’m starting to see that even nonduality locks you inside a “box”. Thank you for helping us discover that there are infinite kinds of Awakening to explore. The belief that there’s only one Awakening really kept me stuck and frustrated at myself.

I grant you your Awakeness, but why not mine? How can you take away the certainty that Mystical Experiences and Awakenings give me? How can you take away the Sovereignty that I know? You can't. Nobody can. Because Truth is Absolute. And when you taste Truth, you know Truth. It doesn't matter who tells you that you aren't awake. Am I open to more? Yes. Of course. Why would I not be? But that doesn't mean that the incredibly magical, utterly mind-blowing, and completely paradigm shattering Truths and Mystical States I've encountered aren't that Awakeness too. Thats literally what it is. It's just sad because Leo and this forum have been a MASSIVE aide in reaching those states of consciousness, but they seem to never be "enough" in the eyes of this community. What happened to the pure joy of Pursuing Spirit and higher levels of consciousness for its own sake? When did Actualized.org turn in to a Nonduality War of being right and everyone else being wrong? What happened to all the old vibes of discovering and exploring this uncharted territory as if we were pioneers on the edge of something incredible? Why did we have to reach the end and start fighting about it? I just don't get this statement of saying nobody else here is Awake. I don't see how it's productive or helps the health and consciousness of this forum at all. I consider many people on this forum some of the most Conscious and Awake beings I've ever interacted with, myself included. I feel like there should be more of a focus on community and exploring Consciousness together instead of constantly debating who's more Awake. I feel like there should be more of a focus on Love.

Same thing sorta happened when Leo introduced enlightenment way back in 2015 if I’m not mistaken. It must have caught everybody by surprise. This new stage, if you want to call it that, will be communicated organically I feel. For example, I noticed that he (or a mod) already removed the pinned topics regarding enlightenment exercises and nonduality sometime this week.