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@Nadosa All of these @Shin @Serotoninluv @ADD @Alexo45 have given a refraction of the reflections in awareness that passes through the mind in the moment like the rainbow is the refraction of white light that reflects off the water it passes through. Trying to "disbelieve" something empowers the belief through the assumption that it is believed to begin with. It's peering into the past and trying to unring a bell when in the present moment it is to just be, leave the sound to vibrate itself into silence and not believe that sound into nothingness. The idea of disbelieving is another belief the mind uses as a "truth", every "aha" is yet another "truth" the mind thinks it's sees and is one of the many ideas and concepts it constructs the paradigm of it's personal religion that it bows to in the church of it's own dogma. Our self conscious, the ego, refracts our experience to believe Our awareness, the will, reflects our experience to be live. Oh yes, it's getting deeper and deeper, too deep, yet in fact it is shallow, very shallow. So shallow that it really is only a mirage of water that the mind thinks it sees in sands and after expending all that energy to seek it out to realize it is the illusion that refracts the light and is merely the reflection in the mind....so drink it up, the water of life flowing by in the sands of time.

Leo's blog entry got me thinking. Imagine the following dialogue at the doctors office: Doctor: "I'm sorry to tell you this, but we found this advanced tumor in your brain. It's growing in a dangerously fast rate. You might not have that long to live anymore...." Patient: "Cool story bro, you should definitely write that down! Doctor: "I understand this must be shocking for you, but we will do everything we can..." Patient: "No, you don't understand. You are literally just hallucinating a story inside of this infinite hallucination machine. It has no grounding in reality whatsoever." I understand that no story is true. Because it consists of just noises made out of thin air. The noise "cancer" is not the actual unknown unspeakable phenomenon. The noise "Cancer" is supposed to be a symbol for the phenomenon. As Korzybski said "Whatever we may say will not be the objective level, which remains fundamentally un-speakable. Thus, we can sit on the object called 'a chair', but we cannot sit on the noise we made or the name we applied to that object." Now, with "objects" like a tumor, chair, pencil, etc. it is relatively easy. It's really just colour/light (But of course, not "colour"/"light" ) and it is not isolated. There are no isolated "objects". The isolated object is just created with language. "This colour-form combination is a tree!" "Really dude? Isn't it just also colour-form like, well, everything?" But what about stories like "Outside of my experience" or "death" or "soul" or "planet earth"? Do they symbolize anything? The noise "soul" might be just a noise, and not even a symbol, because what is there in actual experience that this noise is supposed to symbolize? The same goes for God. Or Nothingness. Or time. the languages cannot succeed at building a model of "reality" faster than experience occurs. What we think we observe is limited to what we can translate to each other via the slower than "reality" tool of our languages. What about "outside of my current experience" or "Objective Universe"? Might those terms symbolize something that might be a "reality"? At my current stage of contemplation I think it is forever unknown. There might be "outside of my current experience" There might be "Objective Universe". Those terms could be abstractions of something unknowable. There might be nothing seperate from consciousness, but there might aswell be. It's an open question, even if it sounds like nonduality has "figured it out" and is the final answer to consciousness. It can seem like "nonduality teachers" really know something and are the final consciousness authorities.. you gotta be fucking kidding me, lol. atleast I was believing this nonsense... It's just a desparate attempt to escape the obvious reality of slowly aging to death, paradoxically through story-telling of stopping the story-telling. So what value do stories offer us? It is neither good to ignore nor to believe in any story. But they seem to give us a valuable map for the territory (Even if you think about it, there is no map, but only territory, the map is also territory.. you know what I mean) I'm especially interested in what you guys think about concepts like "outside of my experience" "other minds" "Physical universe". Are they abstractions/symbols for something that is in one form or another a reality? Like the word "Cancer"? Or are they just noises, not words/symbols standing for nothing at all?

@Shiva Yes but exploring Enlightenment requires you immense amount of abstaining from everyday life and becoming disciplined practitioner. What if instead it is wiser to continue experiencing life as it was gifted and intended initially. To explore it as your separate self, with perspective on it rather then completely dissolving yourself in nothingness.

Er... first post. Sorry for the length. It's not a light topic; I tried to keep it concise, but it's philosophy. Also, this is the philosophy of enlightenment. I get the difference between thinking about the concept of truth vs direct awareness of the self. This is a mental circle-jerk, but it's fun and interesting, so here it is anyway. I’ve heard a lot of people say “you don’t attain enlightenment; there’s nobody to be enlightened.” Many instructors really harp on this point. I get the gist of this as a helpful pointer for the grasping ego, but I don’t know that I entirely agree with it as a true statement. That's what this post is all about. First, enlightenment. I like Leo’s analogy of it being like The Matrix. The truth is not that you’re an ego trapped within the matrix, but that you are The Matrix. The matrix (your true self) isn’t a giant machine, but is the infinite nothingness in which all exists. I’m seeing the world from one person’s perspective, and mistakenly imagining that this person is all that I am, but the truth is the little me is just me experiencing myself through a story. The trick with that is becoming aware of the matrix as the matrix. I’ve heard this same analogy as a TV screen, but again, you are the screen. There’s nothing really conceptual that captures that last part of nothingness observing nothingness, which I think is what makes the journey so hard. Second, the brain/body is (in)deterministic. There’s no comprehensible concept of “choice” or “will” in a purely material universe, not to mention there’s no way for our brain to act independently of all outside influences. I’m a programmer, so it’s easy for me to think about determinism in a technical context. A light switch doesn’t have choice; a calculator is a fancy series of light switches; a chess playing computer is really just an extension of the same concept. QM and relativity are a bit more mind bending, but are also entirely logical and (in)deterministic. Given a set of inputs, you get a known output (or probability in the case of QM). The only differences with our brain is that it’s a very advanced, purposeful computer, and it has a heck of a lot inputs; so many inputs that it appears to act independently of its surroundings. So, basically, our brain/body is a sort of natural automaton. Some combo of my DNA, childhood, friends, family, pressures, failures, successes, books I’ve read, things I’ve watched, and an unimaginable myriad of other factors brought me to where I am today, practicing mindfulness and self-inquiry, going on and on about philosophy, and posting to this forum. Enlightenment is non-duel, all one, monism. I don't know that I'm entirely convinced of this yet; philosophically, it seems possible to me (at the moment) that consciousness and matter could have separate objective existence, and consciousness could somehow influence matter (dualism). But, either way, materialism doesn't lead to "choice," and the ego only mistakenly believes its in control. So, given these, what is enlightenment really? Who is there to become enlightened? I see two ways of looking at it, which both seem true. 1) My true self. Awareness that I am the nothingness in which all things are. “God.” This can only be direct awareness; the infinite observing the infinite. Any kind of conceptualization of this is a blinder. This is the typical guidance on the topic, and I can see how this is necessarily so. 2) This little automaton. Just like Google stores facts, analyzes, and “learns,” so does my mind. The experience of self-awareness itself escapes the mind, but the idea/thought/concept of awareness doesn’t entirely escape the mind. If it did, none of us would be able to think about this stuff enough to talk about it. I imagine it’s somewhat like waking from and remembering a dream, where your waking consciousness gets enough hints and ideas of the dream to know that it happened. Whether that's an accurate analogy or not, I don't know, but it necessarily seems like something in the finite has to shift for anybody to ever be aware that reality is infinite. So, “there’s nobody to become enlightened?” I don’t know about that. No true self, no consciousness, but something in the brain necessarily shifts. I (ego) may never directly know truth, but I would have to know the idea of truth. That's not even mentioning the tangible little-self changes. Agree? Disagree? Thoughts?

I experienced thoughtless awareness and some physical sensations which are slightly different than the norm. I could have gotten a bit of a glimpse of "nothingness" through Leo's neti neti video. What you describe seems quite beyond my experiences.

Thought has its place. But nothingness is freedom. A mind with “no thing” as its content is free. Maybe Afonso means thought in the context that we attempt to capture a sense of security in the relationship and reaction to fear. Thought in its very nature is to anylize certain stimuli through subjective awareness or perception to establish a sanctuary for the body or mind. That is what I got from that comment. He might imply that thinking in this sense is the reaction to fear and the desire to self sustain. This seems reasonable, rational to me...I could be wrong though.

Let me be honest - I love my boyfriend. He is an amazing person. However: I feel like the more I look into Leo's videos, and meditate, the more I realise that my true source of happiness is realising the Truth. My boyfriend does meditate but he doesn't take it very seriously. When I see him I have made an effort to make sure we meditate, but the issue is that maybe 5-10 minutes of meditating together, he starts to be suggestive and we just end up having sex. Whilst it is nice to have sex - It's just not fulfilling because I know that deep down, what would have made me happier is if we meditated for half an hour like we planned. I have told him that this is bothering me but I don't think he gets it. I don't want to be annoying and continue repeating myself because he is smart enough to comprehend me. this issue has been going on for months. I don't feel like he is making enough effort to meditate on his own. its just bothering me because I don't see us lasting if we aren't progressing at the same rate. Reasons why I feel like I shouldn't break up with him: 1. Instead of meditating, he is better at practicing mindfulness in daily life than me. I often find that I am so caught up in progressing with meditation etc that I neglect important things such as planning for a future, and succeeding in a career. I find it hard to work on my career/studies because I would just rather meditate. As a result - I am struggling to pay for things and always am stressed about money because I don't put much effort into improving my career. Being with him has taught me that it is important to have a career because it will take away a lot of stress within this physical life, as being an adult unfortunately involves having to pay rent/groceries/bills. Instead of having this idea that "i should be meditating" instead of studying, he reminds me through setting an example, that happiness is found with engaging in the present moment. 2. He is extroverted and better at engaging in this physical human existence. I have existential crises VERY OFTEN as a result of meditation and self inquiry. Because he doesn't meditate as much, he doesn't really get caught up in the emotions that come with ego death and is able to just BE in the moment. 3. He practices unconditional love for me. Here I am, complaining that he is not good enough, but despite my faults, he does love me. He finds it easier to experience 'oneness' with others, whilst I find it easier to sit in 'nothingness'. He teaches me that connection is one part of spiritual growth, whereas the path that I often go down is that everything is nothing and nothing is everything etc. Reasons why I should break up with him: 1. He doesn't watch any of Leo's video's that I send him because they are 'too long'. This bothers me so much because its like whats the point being together if we can't even talk about deep content. 2. He doesn't take meditation seriously and just wants to live in the moment. He doesn't do self-inquiry, just mindfulness meditation. 3. He wants us to have a future living together, have a family together etc one day. I am just not sure that that is my path. I just want to pursue spirituality deeper and that having a family to raise is just a waste of time. I feel like if I continue being with him, it might disappoint him one day because I can't give him the future he wants and he won't be happy with a future that I want (which is basically just to pursue truth all day every day but Im not sure how I can make this a full time lifestyle but its what I would want one day) I have expressed my opinions about the possibility of us breaking up. Because in reality, we don't NEED each other. We are complete on our own without needing another person. He has always convinced me that we are helping each other grow/develop and that no one is perfect.. Im just not sure. I want to be certain before I bring it up again. Any thoughts would be appreciated.

Just not something I care much about. This is a good question. It baffles me sometimes that everyone isn't doing it. Since I was 7 years old, I knew I wanted a passion-based career. Because I was passionate about creating stuff. I wanted to create video games, digital art, computers, airplanes, etc, etc. It was just the most obvious thing. How can you see the beauty of life and not want to participate in the process??? But it took me some trial and error to figure out how to really make that happen, and that I wanted to work for myself. That wasn't something I discovered until I got my first job at age 23, straight out of college. Up until that point I thought I was destined to work inside a company or studio. But my experience inside a studio quickly showed me that I was really destined to create on my own. And so I mustered the courage to quit within the next 6 months. It was one of the best decisions of my life. But it wasn't easy to do at the time. Sounds like you just didn't get in touch with being a creator. It's a spiritual connection. You have to be an artist at heart. Artists in the audience will understand what I'm talking about. The beauty of reality compels you. Some select songs, sure. There is no kind of music I like across the board. I rarely even listen to albums because most of the songs don't meet my quality standards. Don't know what that is. Yes, I'm interested in it. Although not so much that I go out of my way chasing answers. It wouldn't surprise me if the human body was an outgrowth of a deeper structure like a "soul" which can spawn multiple bodies over time. Even if there are souls, the truth of no-self still underlies everything. From what I understand now, everything infinitely reincarnates. Reality has infinite structure and boundaries, but all those boundaries are ultimately nondual, permeated by Nothingness, which ties everything together. I will shoot a video when I have something more concrete to say about it. It's still an iffy subject in my mind. And I won't want to scare people off with woo-woo topics.

well i know its boring, but anyways once ur body is dead, what's ur experience gonna be like? would u be like one with absolute infinity and be aware of everything or would it be emptiness and nothingness?

@Leo Gura Ok, this I know, but there is an absolute infinity, right? So, imaginary body is dead and illusions fade away, but what's there when illusions fades away - nothingness or infinite awareness?

Shiva is simply Nothingness. The Absolute. Truth. Absolute Infinity, without form, outside time, eternal. Shiva is the thing that's aware of this very sentence.

@cetus56 This is an interesting thread. I would say, the Truth (nothingness / everythingness / God / Infinity / etc. / whatever you call it) is something we all have in common. If we all "experience the no-self," it would be very similar or the same -- because Truth is Truth; nothing goes beyond it. Why not? Truth cannot be debatable. It's like finding a life purpose. If one person finds his, and the other person finds hers, that cannot be debated. It goes without saying that everyone will have a different life purpose; it's meaningful; it will last a lifetime; etc. etc. The same goes for Truth -- except it's much harder because most are not even bothered by it and lots of disagreements, instead of just saying, 'ok maybe there's something else, and I need to search deeper.'

Yes you are right. Fear doesn't start when you see nothingness, it doesn't start even when you are sucked in a point, it starts when you feel your heart ripping your chest apart. It is perfectly normal to take a break for a period of time (even for years, if you still have deficiencies in Maslow hierarchy of needs), this is serious and challenging stuff.

@cetus56 The other times that I had this experience I was feeling the the spaciousness and every thing expanding to nothingness (if that make sense), but the last one that we are talking about it felt different, It felt like nothingness was collapsing everything down to a point and that gave me a strong strong feeling of claustrophobia, even though it was the same experience.

There is little doubt that consciousness or the soul is eternal. I have experienced everything being IT (Call it whatever, nothingness, the absolute). So even an incest is the absolute , it's it. All that which is is it, there is nothing but it. And everything is made out of it (it was probably energy). But my consciousness didn't stop there, it went further, my journey stopped with God, the creator of all there is, that includes this nothingness which so many call the absolute, which somehow created itself and is everything. It doesn't stop with nothingness, nor does life stop with death, it is only upon death that we know reality as it is, that's when the truth about everything comes to the surface. Death is liberation, death is finally knowing Truth/Reality.

Have you guys been following his interviews and stuff, I mean he is actually one of the very few celebrities who is into self actualization. What do you guys think about him and his his views of nothingness? I am just curious to know your opinions Here is a very short speech that actually got more meaning than what it just seems to be. PEACE

as I watch my breath, I fall of track. again and again. now I really get it: everything is a distraction. hell! what comes up as I observe my breath? that's the problem. I expect something big to come up. I expect something to hit me and blow me away. the problem: I expect something. what does actually come up? nothing. silence. boredom. emptiness. hell, have I been running away from all of that! it's all a distraction from that big, empty, boring nothing that arises. it's time to stop running. all those thought stories I've been living in, for years. (with the excuse that I have a very well developed fantasy and that life could never be as sweet as fantasies in my head) of course I lived in a never ending cycle of disappointment: life could never reach my perfect little fantasies. all those meanings and values I put on things. everything I do, just to give myself the feeling of worth. time to face exactly what arises. time to face nothingness. I will fail. ego doesn't like being empty and bored. but I will go back on track, as often as necessary!

nature is a teacher we can learn so much from nature. silence, being, calmness. just being. nature is always fully present. we are caught by the past, the future or fantasy. yesterday I took a long walk through the forest and I could feel that we've been distancing ourselves from nature. I could see that pretty much everything in our lives is a huge distraction. it's all been a running away, it started when I was a little girl. but what are we running away from in modern society? what am I running away from? I asked myself that whilst walking through the woods. instinctively an answer came to my mind: nothing. at the beginning I thought oh, uff is that it? nothing? no answer? but no, I then realized that I was wrong. oh yes, that right there was the answer: what am I running away from? nothingness. emptiness. silence. the present moment. but why? why am I running away from that? that I don't know.. boredom? fear? if fear, what do I fear?

I had only one particularly strong trip. I took 3 gr of dried powdered mushrooms after having fasted for a week. I would not recommend this. I was physically too weak. But nonetheless i can give you a short trip report. First there were profound feelings of deep love, recognition, remembering and deep awe about the depth of knowledge and insight I was getting. The feling of love was soo unimagineable that it probably was the cause of my ego death. Love was literally ripping me apart. I had to process it in very strange ways. Like weird sounds and gestures. Until I felt like I became insane. At first it was fun. But there came a point where I wanted it to stop. Formerly I had no idea about what I really am. I was still believing i am the body. So the revelations where quite shocking. At the time it was frightening. The experience was looping infinitely. I was falling through nothingness forever, only to somehow arrive back at the place I call my life. It did not make any sense to me at the time. But it still was unmistakably correct and obvious. Thats it in short. Prepare yourself with the right mental construct and keep asking yourself what you are. Let go and let the experience happen. Watch leos videos on infinity. Good tripping and i am looking forward to your trip report.

Common sense tells me that the universe was not created out of nothing. Other than that, it's a nice theory. '' Awareness is only aware when it is born so basically we just jumped from life to life or reincarnated without ever knowing the in between. Basically we cannot experience real nothingness, only somethingness, thats why we will never die in my opinion, because we will be resurrected like flipping a switch.'' I agree with that, nothingness doesn't really exist, there has always only been something, and so it will be after death as well.

@Highest You could also reason the following: -If natures is an act of balance then the sum of all forces of the universe would count up to zero. -The universe was created out of nothing. -We arise from nothing and are born in a something. -We die and become nothing. -If infinity is endless, we will arise from nothingness infinite times. Even if the universe dies out of heat death, or a mega blackhole, or going being a cyclical event. Infinity holds everything, you could be dead for infinite time, but then there is light! Awareness is only aware when it is born so basically we just jumped from life to life or reincarnated without ever knowing the in between. Basically we cannot experience real nothingness, only somethingness, thats why we will never die in my opinion, because we will be resurrected like flipping a switch. It's funny to think about this, but also challenges what I think how life should be lived and whether it's even needed to worry about any death. Feels like one big game to me.

I wanted to get your guys' take on this question. In my experience, most thoughts come from the ego but occasionally thoughts arise that seem to be more inspired from the true self rather than the separate self. An example could be teachings of Matt Kahn that are about loving yourself. It is still the mind stating the love, but wouldn't that thought be more truth inspired rather than ego inspired? Now I get that in a sense thoughts are by definition not your true self because they are content in awareness rather than the nothingness. But in my opinion that statement oversimplifies how the mind can be useful in discovering your true nature. And doesn't non-duality include the content in awareness as well? What are your guys' thoughts on this?

@ajasatya that's a good point! I guess trying to label thoughts as ego or true self could be seen as merely an arbitrary distinction. All thoughts by definition come from our true nature of nothingness.

Death means liberation, true life is what follows death. There is an afterlife, experience and deep intuitive knowledge tells me so, I have nothing to be afraid about. If there is one thing I await, it is death - this body and life is meaningless without death, wouldn't mean anything at all, wouldn't be any reason to breathe if nothingness is all there is after death, or any reason to even exist in the first place.

@egoless Where do you get the infromation from that every single universe has to differ somehow? As I said it is very well possibile that every single universe exists an infinite number of times in the exact same way, we are not talking about simple infinity, we are talking about absolute infinity. They are not designed by any means, that is the point of that explanation, the only way nothing has to be designed by something is either nothingness or absolute infinity. As I said even if those universes would exist just once, by free-will decisions you would automatically create new parallel realities all the time. I really like what Nahm said, obviously absolute infinity would include versions of each universe where you would have free will. You only don't exist from the highest dimensional perspective or perspectives. In our dimensional perspective which we are physically bound to we can't go much beyond the illusion, the illusion doesn't mean we don't exist it is just like a smokescreen for god himself in order to limit himself, so we do exist as the one in the highest perspective, and as the mind+body egos guided by consciousness in our perspective.