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Nice, I noticed that you took down the pinned topics about enlightenment and nonduality from years ago. Thank you for clarifying your stance.

Anyone here who claims to be AWAKE, or to understand what AWAKE is, or what GOD is, or what CONSCIOUSNESS is -- is fooling themselves. The only one here who understands these things is ME. This does not mean, however, that I cannot sometimes be full of shit myself. I can. I am not perfect. But not on this issue. Enlightenment is not AWAKE. Buddhism is not AWAKE. Nonduality is not AWAKE. No amount of meditation is AWAKE. There will be a lot of bitching and moaning over this issue. But I simply told you the truth. You've been warned. This is way more tricky than you ever imagined. My function here is to guide people through every trick. But the problem is, they don't want to be guided because they already think they've figured it out. Don't be that guy.

Of course it's possible. That's the point of all this work. I am not saying anything that limits you. It's got nothing to do with narcissim. Just reporting to you the traps of this work. I want you to appreciate how tricky this work is. That's all. I get no joy out of saying these things to you. I wish I didn't have to say them. I have spent months not saying it, hoping I don't have to say it. I spent a lot of time hesitating before saying it because I know how it sounds. But in the end I gotta focus on what is true vs how things sound. If I don't say these things people will get decieved by nonduality, Buddhism, enlightenment, self-inquiry, meditation, etc. The stuff that someone like Rupert Spira teaches is simply not God-Realization. These people have no clue what God is. And you guys are falling into those traps. I am one of the only people on this planet who can point out these advanced traps to you. So if have that ability I must use it. I can't just sit quietly while newbies follow Rupert Spira and his ilk to some weak-sauce version of God. Well, you will not know until you reach the levels of consciousness I am pointing to. It's good you guys are skeptical. That will keep you from just turning this work into dogma. Yup, well, this cannot be resolved through human validation. Again, that's what makes this work so tricky. You see how problematic all this is. And that's my point. There are very big epistemic problems here which nondualists do not take seriously. They just trust that their teachers are AWAKE. You cannot assume that. You cannot assume the Buddha was AWAKE. That is not a given. That is just a story. You've identified the problem exactly. You will never know just by trusting one guru or another. You will only know by unraveling the mystery of Consciousness and God. And of course you cannot trust me either. There is no one on this planet you can trust to tell you the truth. Of course. But what I am supposed to do? I can only go with what I think is most true. From your POV I could be deluded. But I cannot let that stop my work. At some point any teacher you interact with has to draw a line and tell you: "X is true, and I know so absolutely, regardless of whether you think I am deluded." Look at it this way, if I am wrong, at least I made you question every guru and teaching. Which is a good thing. You guys clearly don't do that enough. Hence I wrote: Important!

Anyone here who claims to be AWAKE, or to understand what AWAKE is, or what GOD is, or what CONSCIOUSNESS is -- is fooling themselves. The only one here who understands these things is ME. This does not mean, however, that I cannot sometimes be full of shit myself. I can. I am not perfect. But not on this issue. Enlightenment is not AWAKE. Buddhism is not AWAKE. Nonduality is not AWAKE. No amount of meditation is AWAKE. There will be a lot of bitching and moaning over this issue. But I simply told you the truth. You've been warned. This is way more tricky than you ever imagined. My function here is to guide people through every trick. But the problem is, they don't want to be guided because they already think they've figured it out. Don't be that guy.

Yes its is, but accessing self is generally most peoples problem when doing IFS in the first place. Some basic ability to transcend ego is required to even start IFS so it basically assumes you can already do that. The unbending process in IFS is called introspective awareness in meditation. However, to reliably sustain this, requires months of meditation practice. There is also a higher state called 'metacognitive introspective awareness' where you are aware of your entire internal system at once. This makes IFS much more powerful. Some ego loss may occur from unburdening childhood traumas, but full enlightenment can't really be achieved with IFS alone since that would mean transcending the notion of self and parts. I've spoken to people who have done IFS for years and they always tell me that they are never fully healed and that its a lifelong journey. The video I linked in my previous post explains this very well. Just ignore the new age shit at the very end... That being said, doing IFS has made my meditation practice wayyy deeper since there are fewer obstacles on the path. In that sense, they are synergistic and everyone should do both. I think most people on this forum, especially Leo would benefit from IFS. Consequently, most people doing IFS should practice meditation and nonduality.

I think my previous answer lacked nuance so I'll elaborate. The work and IFS are both sides of the same coin, love and light, masculine and feminine. The masculine mode of healing deals with dispelling illusions and transcending the parts with the light of awareness. The feminine mode of healing deals with loving the wounded parts to heal them. The work is fundamentally a masculine principle while IFS is the Feminine principle. However there is a significant asymmetry between IFS and the work. IFS is perhaps the most advanced and nuanced method of the feminine mode of healing. On the contrary, 'the work' is pretty shallow compared to other masculine healing modes such as Buddhism, Taoism, Zen, nonduality, the works of Eckhart Tolle and Alan Watts, etc... That is not to say that it isn't useful. It seems like a really useful tool for the masculine approach. Just not the only tool. I actually realised I was doing 'The work' automatically after practicing meditation and mindfulness. In my personal experience, I have experienced more inner transformation and long term healing after a few months of IFS than 3 years of masculine healing. Interestingly, 'the work' became much easier after this healing and I found myself easily letting go of limiting beliefs. Both are true because the mind is a system of parts yet the ego is an illusion. Once you transcend the idea that you are a limited separate self, all suffering will cease because there is no one to suffer. However, complete ego transcendence is extremely difficult, if not impossible, for most people. An ego is also pretty much required to function in society, so unless you want to become a monk and live in a cave for the rest of your life, ego transcendence is not really a viable option for healing trauma. IFS is extremely effective for healing but It doesn't really transcend the ego. The masculine and feminine modes are healing are synergistic and people should do both.

It helps make the guru's job very easy. These nondualist teachers are lazy. They don't want to bother doing any serious intellectual labor. So they just dismiss it as unimportant. And thus they deceive themselves and their students. Nonduality is not God-Realization. It is a gross kinda of reductionism and anti-intellectualism.

@Yimpa Nonduality may not be what you think it is, but that is ok. It sounds like traditional self-help might bring more satisfaction.

It was a necessary trap to have gone through I think, based on my life circumstances. I was born into a Roman Catholic upbringing, but left religion at 14. Nonduality filled the void from 16-25. I won’t even get into how difficult it was to leave my extended family members a few years ago (I still speak with my immediately family since they are more open-minded). Now I’ve been building my life these past few years (I’m 26 now). Ketamine and cannabis helped open up that possibility. I’ve made lots of progress with my relationships and learning to live independently; I’ve also had to face fear head on many times (I still will, of course). I’ve still got a looooong ways to go, but I’m in a much better place than I was before. — Thank you all for the guidance, I’ll contemplate what is being said. I’m excited for this new chapter of my life. If you’d ask me to question nonduality just a year ago, I would have thought you were foolish. Little did I know that I’m the fool. And I pity the fool

If you take nonduality to mean that then that is definitely a trap. It's simply false. You can improve your life even if there is no so-called "doer". This is like another one of those conflations of relative and absolute domains. You are also God but that doesn't mean you can grow wings and fly.

You're applying nonduality to the materialist plane, "since there's no doer, I have no way to change the trajectory of my life and to make my life circumstances better for myself and others." if there is a "your life and circumstances to make better", then there is also a "doer". You've been taught only a part of non duality.

So I got into nonduality back in 2015. However, ever since I began doing therapy with my current therapist a year ago, as well as Leo calling out nonduality, I’ve been slowly chipping away beliefs and concepts I’ve gathered from it. One of the biggest traps that still controls me to a certain degree is the idea that since there’s no doer, I have no way to change the trajectory of my life and to make my life circumstances better for myself and others. Do any of you still believe this? It seems like this concept has been a major copout for why I shouldn’t make any effort to change. Edit: heh, this is my 420th post on this forum.

In many corners of nonduality (I.E Rupert Spira) deep sleep and death are often compared. It’s explained that your “true self”/consciousness loses all the extra layers (relationships, desires, personal stories) in deep sleep and also in death. Of course deep sleep is temporary- it isn’t feared because you have the expectation of waking up again in the morning. Why are deep sleep and death talked about by many as a way someone returns to their true self? Doesn’t that sound dualistic? There was never a someone to return to a true self- it’s all THIS. Also why is death talked about as no problem because it’s akin to deep sleep? As I said before you expect (most of the time) to return from deep sleep. In death we truly don’t know what occurs but returning to the physical life as you know it isn’t in the cards.

It's hard to dodge all 3 of those bullets in the spiritual space. Because spiritual people do not actually think. They subscribe to one dogma or another. 95% of spirituality is dogma. And I'm not talking about religion. I mean the non-religious stuff. All of nonduality and Buddhism is dogma. These people are not seriously thinking. The dogma tells them not to think and they follow it. It's the most devious kind of self-deception. You can be the best meditator in the world, but that doesn't mean you know how to think.

seeing the futility of nonduality and no-self “Emptiness, Pt. 2” by Mount Eerie The feeling of being in the mountains Is a dream of self-negation To see the world without us How it churns and blossoms Without anyone looking on It's why I've gone on and on And why I've climbed up alone But actual negation When your person is gone And the bedroom door yawns There is nothing to learn Her absence is a scream Saying nothing Conceptual emptiness was cool to talk about Back before I knew my way around these hospitals I would like to forget and go back into imagining That snow shining permanently alone could say something to me true and comforting

It certainly isn't limited to 11 dimensions. That is a very artificial construct. Salvia is insane. It will deatroy all your ideas of awakening and nonduality. It's way more profound than anything Buddhism teaches. It's not merely that you see some crazy object like watching it on a screen. In order to see that object requires your whole field of consciousness to undergo a radical transition where you hardly feel human any more. That is the scary part. You lose your humanity and sanity in the process. Then you see some impossible geometry, as you are in the middle of losing your mind.

Seems like the rabbit hole goes on forever Can we call these insanely deep levels of awakening still "God"? Is it still the Self? Or would you say that there's something deeper beyond God realization? Something akin to realizing that nonduality is not the deepest level, I mean.

Here's the blog entry Leo shared: https://www.actualized.org/insights/actualized-quotes-030 It's really unsettling and disorienting, especially since I've had several glimpses into solipsism in the past. I feel like it's overwhelming because I have this human need of being comforted by others, the need to feel companionship and sharing words, ideas, feelings etc. The most impacting part is the last one: I am always projecting space and time outside of my direct experience. I have zero experience of others, I only have experience of my interpretation of others. This is scary as hell. Sometimes I feel like the absolute Truth is just insanity, not in the sense that it's false, but in the sense that Truth is just pure existential madness. I keep on doing my spiritual work, regularly and with passion, but the more I go on the more I sense existential terror. I don't even know why I'm going on, I must be becoming insane. Who knows? The paradox is that the more I go on with seeking the Self and awakening, the more I become conscious of my psyche and heal it in a wise direction, I can tolerate more and more of my emotions and I can learn a lot more from everyday life. It's like nonduality and the awakening path are teaching me how to learn from life. Yet, at the same time I feel like my mind is becoming more and more and more central in reality, hence creating the sense of madness. I remember that before starting my awakening path I was 100% solid in reality being made of matter. Now I can see more and more how it's just made of subjective experience and there is no physical matter but just sensations. I am conceptualizing others, yet I have no solid experience of them. What are others? The only thing I possess of others is my perspective, which is still something made by me for me. I really hope this is not going to damage my psyche in the long run. Thus far, seeking the Truth of who I am has only benefited me, it's been like shining a really bright light on my psyche and dissolving a lot of that darkness and closemindedness. Maybe the most important question is: Why me? Why do I keep going? I wanted to share this with "others"

Are you referring to the "Beyond God Realisation" video? As I understand it Frank was talking about how "God" is just a more expanded experience of ego, and that there is more to go to arrive at total permanent centerlessness. He wasn't exactly saying that Leo's insights are below "traditional Enlightenment". He was outlining some trappings on the path that prevent people from attaining centerlessness, which is something that Leo doesn't really talk about... I wonder if Leo's attained it. If he has, awesome. But if not, he should.. and THEN critique Frank. From how Leo talks about and dismisses the no-self insight, I am not sure he's actually had it. Not deep enough to realise permanent centerlessness anyway. Maybe he has... But I don't think so simply because I've never heard him mention it. And I've watched basically everything he's put out on enlightenment, consciousness and nonduality.

What are your Realizations about how this Universe works (about God, Infinity, Nonduality, Solipsism, Purpose) How does it feel to be highly conscious (what exactly changes, do visuals remain the same) Is Consciousness absolute or are there also finite seperated Sub-consciousnesses within the Absolute Consciousness Can Consciousness replicate or divide itself or create something disconnected from itself Why is my Consciousness not on a constant level and sometimes higher and sometimes lower / why am I not conscious when I sleep What is the difference between being Consciousness and being conscious Am I conscious (me who is typing and asking this questions) / do I or my Consciousness exist Am I your imagination or are you my imagination Is Imagination the activity of Consciousness when it takes a form/shape (like a table) If I am God/Consciousness why am I not simultanously conscious about everything (the whole Universe with all creatures consciousness) Why I am a limited me and look at the Universe being "behind my eyes" instead of being everything at once

It's okay to be wrong. But that's not issue here. The issue I have is with people who get into Buddhism and nonduality, and then start thinking they know everything, and start acting closedminded and gaslighting me about God, Awakening, Truth, Love, Consciousness, and psychedelics -- denying these things in one way or another. This has become a recurring problem. I can give you a list of people who have come here to gaslight me about Awakening, and the error of their ways. Whether it was WinterKnight, Nahm, Frank Yank, Rali, or many others. Curt has done some psychedelics. Obviously not too much because he is scared of them. Yes. Everything boils down to understanding. When I say "understanding" I am not just talking theory. The understanding I talk about requires massive levels of consciousness and direct experience. So it's not just conceptual. True understanding requires direct experience and Awakening. Surrender is important in that your ego will not be able to manipulate its way to the highest levels of Consciousness. So surrender plays a role of course. But it is not an end in itself. Basically you surrender to Absolute Truth/God. The point is not to surrender, the point is to access God, by whatever means possible. Well, that's the trick. Deconstruct all that stuff and see what remains.

Nope, that's just a narrative in your mind. Understanding Consciousness is way more tricky and radical than that. Yes, absolutely they are mental constructions and dogma. This situation is so bad that even after you have some of your so-called "enlightenments", even THAT is mental construction! Yes they are. You are doing it. Pure nonsense! This is self-deception! Most of the so-called "enlightened" people on this planet are deeply self-deceived. Nonsense. You fundamentally misunderstand how psychedelics work and what Truth even refers to. No. You fundamentally don't understand what Truth is. Consciousness comes in many states and degrees, and all of them are True. However, Awakened Consciousness is an extremely rare state and you will not be in it 24/7. Nor must you be in order to understand what Truth/God/Consciousness is. You are treating truth as some abstraction. What's not what Truth is. Truth is your entire field of experience, no matter what that experience is. However, even though that's the case, that doesn't mean you are Conscious of much. A dog's experience is Truth, however the dog is not Conscious of anything existential. I can say the same thing for all your meditative achievements. Even the fact that you have ever meditated is a concept/memory. So if you are going to deny me access to memory, I will do the same to you, and therefore even Buddhism doesn't exist because it's just a memory. You have never read a Buddhist book nor ever sat down to meditate nor done a retreat -- by your own logic. Calling me schizophrenic is completely nonsensical. You have no idea what that word means. Concepts can be used to make sense of reality, there is no problem in doing so, as long as it is done carefully and you understand what you are doing. This is Buddhist dogma that you picked up and which now forms the background of your entire worldview. This is just one way to frame things, and it certainly is not Awakening nor any high degree of Consciousness. Nor is it any kind of deep metaphysical understanding of reality. What you are talking about is shallow stuff. I don't give a fuck about equanimity or surrender. That is Buddhist dogma. What matters is Consciousness and understanding of reality. You are chasing the wrong thing. No! You have no comprehension of what God or Omniscience is. More Buddhist dogma. A piece of dog shit is God. But that doesn't mean you're deeply Conscious of anything. I'm well aware of what you're referring. What I'm referring to is a whole order of magnitude beyond the things you're talking about. You cannot even imagine what I am talking about because it is so radical. Simply irrelevant to Consciousness. You are full of shit and I see through all your Buddhist posturing. You haven't even begun to comprehend Consciousness. And if you keep acting in this utterly arrogant manner, you will be banned from here. You actually believe you comprehend Consciousness better than me? You're insane. You are a posterboy for the dangers of Buddhist and nondual teachings. You've turned them into a just another dream state which you now call "enlightenment". That's not Awakening, that's just a spiritual dream. I repeat: Buddhism and nonduality is not God-Realization nor Awakening. Enlightenment is dream. Since your mind is closed, I will no longer me making an effort to teach you. This is a consequence of your own mind's design. That's how you wanted it. So that's what I will give you. I am not going to teach people who refuse to listen and think they know better than me. You have not outsmarted me. You've just fooled yourself. I told you from the very beginning how much openmindedness is required for this work. You failed to learn that basic lesson. The amount of arrogance and gaslighting that I have to deal with from people like you is outrageous. You should be be ashamed of yourself. You have no respect for the sheer intelligence I offered you. I'm one of the only people on this planet who could have helped you access the highest Consciousness. But now you can go swim in the dream that you and your Buddhist friends have constructed. What I teach is not Buddhism. Because Buddhism isn't Awakening. If you don't like that then you're in the wrong place. The things I teach, no other human will teach you. It will take you a long time to appreciate that, if ever.

Okay, let's look at that. Realization (enlightenment, etc) is about what is TRUE in direct experience, in this moment. That is like the entire game. It is a radical and uncompromising commitment to authenticity and to seeing clearly. Concepts like "nonduality" and "no-self" and "dependent origination" emerge FROM that investigation, they are not dogma going into it, and they are never considered TRUE of themselves. They are pointers to what is true, guides to deepening the investigation. Once completed, self-deception literally isn't even possible, because there is no "room" between this and that, between a self and a truth, between experience and someone to judge experience. Pure seamlessness. Your psychedelic "truth" is a joke for several reasons. It is never NOW, but always in the past, a memory, an experience, and always seen THROUGH the contractions and conditionings you retain as "you" in this moment. The memory occurs now, but it is only a simulacrum, a reconstruction. It is not IT any more than a photograph of London IS London. Your only defense against this is a ludicrous one, in which you ASSUME the so-called "truth" you got from the trip and apply it circularly (e.g. you'll say shit like: You're just God imagining that he remembered the trip"). This is epistemological BS and you know it. What is true MUST be true NOW, or it isn't fucking true. It's not about brain chemistry or no-mind or any of that crap. If it IS TRUE, it is true now/always (and not in concept! in experience!!!). All of your remembered trips is nothing more than concept, period. And I call you schizophrenic because that is the delusive state in which concept is taken to BE reality, which in your case is pretty fucking accurate. "The work" as you say leads to THIS. It is the only thing it can lead to, because it is right here and right now regardless of the content, regardless of what is perceived or thought. But see, you don't seem to understand how this actually progresses at all because you literally didn't make it out the gate. You don't understand that sensory clarity deepens, and eventually allows one to see the finest grains of experience, and you don't understand what happens when you bring equanimity to ever more subtle gradations of "selfness". You don't understand how self and resistance arise together, mutually dependent, to precipitate out of Nothing "everything", in a sense, even consciousness itself. Boundaries are just more distinctions, more resistance, and they CAN be dissolved with equanimity and surrender. The agent/doer is more resistance, the watcher or observer is more resistance, even Being God/omniscient or Being Nothing is more resistance. This isn't seen in a mystical flash, but in a microscopic AND macroscopic examination simultaneously that is clearer and clearer until even clarity gets sucked into the black hole that collapses all dualities. Being and non-being, existence and non-existence, God and nothing at all... all collapse, but not into "emptiness" (which the buddhists are not using in the way it sounds in English), but into THISNESS, which is just a way of saying there IS this dance happening, but that in it the divine and mundane are unified utterly. A piece of dog shit is as divine as the most incredible alien god-realization you could ever dream up. Literally, there is nothing "outside" of THIS because it is itself without a self. The tongue twists and fails in describing the collapse of duality, yet it can be KNOWN literally as true Unknowing (what do you think Ralston's title really means?!). But this realization is achieved only through this radical journey of acceptance and love at deep and subtle levels. Loving a criminal is a walk in the park compared to loving the subtle horrifyingly painful vibration that you feel to be you in your deepest existential being. It must be done until "done is what needed to be done." You, sir, have no ability to imagine or understand this, no matter how many trips you do. Someone being able to "talk" about the nature of God is only a disqualification, never a qualification. THIS cannot be spoken of, and disregarding that as folly IS folly. You probably won't hear any of this, being the dishonest narcissist that you are. But to anyone with whom this resonates, I sincerely encourage you to look to your heart for truth, not to Leo.

@mr_engineer The (Masculine and Feminine) has its roots in Chinese philosophy, specifically the Zen tradition. It is referred to as Yin-Yang, as in the famous nonduality symbol. It has also been around in Plato's philosophy. But more recently, it was popularized mainly by Carl Jung. Essentially, Yin and Yang are the two forces that are opposites in some way, but not entirely. They are distinct enough from each other, but not completely. They interplay with each other without cancelling one another, which gives birth to this phenomenon called Life. And these two forces exist on every level that you can imagine, from microscopic to universal. They also manifest in different forms, like the psychology of a person, or the cycle of life, or just the inhalation and exhalation of air in each breath. Basically, any duality that you can perceive can be thought of as an interaction between the two polar forces of Life. The labels are interchangeable and there's not really hard distinctions between them. That's the Chinese philosophy, and it's centered around the concept of balance. Then comes Carl Jung and starts making connections between that and the human psychology. Eventually, he came up with the Anima and Animus theory that explains one's personality as an integration of two opposite aspects that he referred to as the masculine and the feminine as they were culturally associated with gender. Now, I'm not entirely sure about this but I think that Jung understood that this cultural association is not absolute, and that it can change depending on culture. The concept is solid, as every man has to repress some woman (feminine) qualities inside himself and every women has to repress some man (masculine) qualities inside herself. This is necessary in order to be a functioning part of society. And it's always valid to refer to the counterpart with its corresponding label, because there are only two counterparts. For example, you can always say that a person who has problems managing their emotions is dealing with Anima possession, regardless of their gender. So the feminine part of their personality which is responsible for managing emotions is in their (unconscious) shadow, which is another Jungian concept. And in order to correct this problem, the person needs to consciously examine the part that is causing problems in order to make it aware, in this case the feminine, so that it leaves the shadow and enters the conscious mind. And while emotions are typically associated with females in our current mainstream culture, Anima possession can affect women as well, as neither parts of one's psychology has a gender.

Not just a religious person..You seem to claim that NOBODY at all understands what God is . This is an outrageous claim .you seem to claim to be the most awake person ever and you shit on Buddhism, Islam, advaita, nonduality and almost all spiritual teachings and teachers since the dawn of time. You have yet to prove that you know better than all mankind.