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@Nahm I'm not sure. I can't believe Leo's concept of enlightenment until I experience it for myself though. But I have had an ego-death experience where I lost the concept of myself as a thing. And I do practice being in nothingness and watching my input portals (thoughts and senses). But I have not experienced the crack that Leo talks about where you lose your sense of self entirely. And I'd be interested in hearing from anybody on here who has actually achieved Leo's sense of enlightenment fully.

@Nahm I'm definitely not a fan of nonduality. I don't accept duality either or the idea that one or the other has to be true (this is an example of a false choice fallacy). But I have had an ego-death experience in the sense that I no longer cling to a notion and feeling of myself as a thing, and I do practice being in nothingness, meditation, and watching/monitoring my thoughts. I do not believe all is one. And I don't think Leo's concept of enlightenment is possible. You can't lose your self entirely. That's a fiction. Maybe 85%, but not entirely. And I would never believe that or espouse that unless I experienced it directly and firsthand myself first. Otherwise it's a pipe-dream at worst and hypothesis at best. And I don't mistake hypotheses for truths. Until I experience the crack for myself, as Leo has referred to it as, I will continue to believe that Leo's concept of enlightenment is a fiction. Nobody else's testimony is really persuasive to me because I can't really climb into their mind and verify it for myself. But I still keep an open mind and welcome testimony, naturally. I never stop listening. To believe it, I must first see it for myself firsthand, especially with something as radical as Leo's concept of enlightenment.

(Note: I haven't watched Leo's 2c-b video, nor have I ever tried any type of psychdelics, but I got really interested in what Leo is suggesting here.) Ok, so my main question is, if while we're alive (what we normally understand for being alive, that is) we don't manage to get enlightened, then when we die, we (our mortal sense of "we") will simply dissapear forever, and if we do manage to get enlightened our bodies will phisically die, but consciousness will be conscious that it is still there, that actually nothing changed. It's like, if I die today (definitely unenlightened), then... my ego completely shuts off and it doesn't have the opportunity any longer for noticing that it was a total lie. It died believeng it existed! So in my case consciousness won't be conscious that it is still there... right? Or is enlightenment just a cool thing to notice whle you're alive, but after we die, ist's the same if you were enlightened or not, because everyone becomes nothingness anyways? This is what really got me thinking. Do you mean by this, if you must kill yourself, then choose the method of becoming enlightened so that you can appreciate (while you're still alive) the fully glory after-death?? "get enlightened before you die", as some wise master once said???? Finally, in this example that old man starting to have an orgasm on his deathbed at least in his last moments he started appreciating that something cool as an orgasm existed, but... what are the odds of that happening? Like if you don't start working hard on achieving enlightenment soon enough, it's very unlikely to happen magically on your deathbed just like that, don't you think? That old man is much more likely to die not knowing of orgasms, or in other words, he is much more likely to die thinking he is actually dying forever. Bam! gone, and he really is gone, because all there was, was an unconscious ego who is dissapearing. I think about this because my grandfather recently died (91 y/o just in case you were interested) and as he was lying on his death bed, I would sit next to him and think... how the fuck do I let him understand that he is not going to die! he isn't going anywhere because he doesn't exist!!! And as weak as he was, just lying there, suffering, I also thought how sad it was that it was impossible to get him enlightened at that point. Some day I really thought of telling him, but then I just thought silence would make more sense for him at that point. Ok that was a very long and confusing post, I hope you can make some sense out of it.

That is what I do whenever I am having low energies. I expand myself out to become aware of the infinite reality and see what a gift this life truly is. Sometimes I will imagine I am in nothingness and imagine how consciousness made reality and started with sacred geometry. I love getting lost in these imagination adventures, often times it leads to some kind of new awareness, curiosity or wonder.

I just watched the latest video of Leo's interview with Peter Ralston. Therein he talks about distinctions. Everything is a distinction. You are a distinction. The moment the process of distinction stops everything is gone and what's left is only the pure potential of the infinite nothingness we call God. You are a distinction machine collapsing potential into experience. Not all distinctions are conscious thought. The fact that you perceive a thought is a distinction but not a conscious thought. Maybe we can see distinctions that are beyond thought as the unconscious mind. With every distinction we create (e.g. concepts, ideas, thoughts ..) we expand the manifoldness of the universe. Awakening is the work of looking beyond distinctions. Any further thoughts?

An intuitive knowing means more than every word I can use to describe that intuitive knowing, I'd say. But, let's put it like this. In the normal non-integrated state of egoic consciousness - still lovin' that phrase - you are deeply rooted in the belief that you are a person. It feels like that. When you reveal that this person is a self-image that is kept up and when you remove the attachment to that self-image, it mostly dissolves - or let's say it integrates. It's still there when you need it, but it isn't your point of reference any more. Then automatically, your identity flips inside out, because it was centralized to this finite self-image and now that this is gone your identity becomes everything that there is. But that happens unconsciously, like your prior identification with the self-image also happened unconsciously. And then, when you are in an integrated state of consciousness, it's obvious to see that you are everything. Then you begin to investigate what this everything is and you see that it's endless surfaces of reality that are hiding the nothingness that underlies it. But these are all metaphors, so I don't really know what to tell you. Sit down and just realize that everything that you ever perceived is yourself. That is true. Because how could you perceive something that is not yourself? it's not possible. Realize that you were never born then, because if you once did not exist you could have never come into existence in the first place. The one who would've done that then would be you now. But how can that be if you once did not exist? Then realize that everything you know happens in one still moment. That there only is this one still moment that pervades all your experience. Just realize that right now. Then realize that in that one still moment, everything happens. Realize that even you perceiving this one still moment happens in it. Realize, that the forms in that one still moment always change. Then look at that. What is color actually? What is sound? How can you tell the difference between sound and no sound? What is that? Where is this coming from? And then just realize that all of these are endless surfaces coming out of nothing. And that nothing underlies all these surfaces and that you really are that. That's basically a direct route to your awakening. One of them. Hope, that helps.

Lol, I had read your previous answers, but I guess I didn't read them with enough attention One more question if you don't mind. I get how nothingness can be known in its pure form. Rupert Spira put it like this: "it’s the sinking and sinking and sinking and sinking of the attention into its source and as the attention sinks into its source, it is divested of all the limitations that thought and feeling have superimposed on it and at some point it stands completely undressed. And attention undressed, attention divested of all limitations is pure consciousness". I've already had a taste of the process Spira is describing when I did Leo's guided letting go meditation. So I get that if I let go of everything (my self included) pure awareness will remain. What I've never understood is how it's possible to be aware of nothingness merged with content! I've heard Shinzen Young and Rali (Naked Reality on youtube) say that it's like an intuitive knowing, but this doesn't really mean anything. Could you please help me understand?

nothingness or letting-go-ness, these are just labels, don't let them confuse you, what you can expect in spirituality is always more vitality, more energy and more happiness. that's what this comes down to. spirituality is not something outside of ourselves, it is a part of us; it is natural to us. labels can make things confusing but the feeling of ''nothingness'' is native to you, when you're trying to imagine how something feels always imagine it feeling good and joyful. if you feel like letting go will let you lose control realize that's an ego trick. spirituality will always empower you, so imagine that letting go will make you feel even more in control, if you like to feel in control , letting go will give you that feeling of control in a way you never felt before. it is fear to trust that makes you feel like you will be weaker, fear of the uncomfortable, there's always a tuning period when you try to let go and trust where you're sorta uncomfortable and seemingly at the mercy of things,but it's a normal transition, you always end up more powerful then before. never believe in a weak spirituality, spirituality is here to please you, to make you comfortable and more joyful. how powerful is it to let go and still rock at living life? realize that perhaps you're afraid of your own power. I've had times when I felt scared of how the world felt,I felt scared of others, till I realized I was afraid of my own power, my senses were so intensified that I almost didn't recognize them, and almost felt like I was living in an hostile world. when I realized this was my own power, that I was afraid of my own intensity, all the power came back to me and I felt at peace with my surroundings

@Leo Gura Do you mean that the net "amount" of consciouness in the universe can change? Is a planet full of rocks somehow less conscious than a planet full of humans? If everything is made out of consciousnes, how can this consciousness "grow"? How can nothingness expand?

Shin...It was more like this: He was excited because he saw nothingness and this: It's called Riding the Ox Backwards in Zen. (Well, the animation is supposed to be going backwards instead.) And, this massive light goes into the body with extreme bliss like this: It may have been different since it's done with 5meo. I dunno.

That's an interesting question. Basically it feels like this. In the normal egoic state of un-integrated consciousness a great deal of energy is used to keep this ball of a self-image going. And also that awareness attaches to it. Because of that, when you see someone else it's completely clear that she is someone else, because the attachment is so focused on your own ball of self-image. It seems trivial. When the attachment to the ball and the ball itself mostly dissolves there is nothing going on in you any more. The normal state of being is not focused in any way. It's empty. Thoughts maybe happening, emotions maybe happening but there is no one to make something out of that. There is simply no one there. It's like a still ocean. As energy spontaneously forms a certain situation - like you are in a conversation with someone or you have a very deep thought story - awareness now perceives this dualistic situation and can normally function in it. You can have a completely normal talk with someone, be in that dualistic state and then as you leave the situation you fall back into emptiness. Into non-centered awareness. You are just not there then any more. It's hard do describe. Then maybe a thought story comes up and intensifies and you suddenly are back in this dualistic situation. This is even happening to you because the "ego" is not perfect in holding itself up as this permanent thing. If you pay close attention, you come and go all of the time. When the ego integrates, you are gone until something pops up but there is no ball of self-image that is kept up all the time. It's like a ocean in that waves can manifest. Small ones are not noticed but as they form into a big one, awareness will focus on that. The normal ocean of egocentric consciousness is always wavy and through that you think you are actually the wave, not the ocean. Also, I can see very clearly that everything I perceive is a surface. It's like you could cut through reality and there would be endless nothingness underneath it. It's that thick. And because I see that I - my body - am just the same surface as the other stuff, it doesn't feel essentially different. Very interesting is being in a conversation with others. I'm fascinated by the eyes. Especially how they move when the person thinks. If you look very closely, you can see all the waves in their heads. All the resistance. All the attachment.

When I listen to music, sometimes I hear a line which sticks in my head and I am almost forced to think about it. I will share the two lines I contemplate on. The first line comes from a Hungarian song, the first line of this song caught my attention: "Be kell csuknod a szemed / úgy láthatsz meg engemet", which roughly translates to "You need to close your eyes, / that way you will see me". What could this thing be? It does not matter that the next line is "To conquer my heart, / you need to know my soul"... Could this be Nothingness, God, both, or something completely different? The second line is from Kygo's and Selena Lopez's It Ain't Me. It is just a fraction of a line, but it sounds very paradoxical: "Who's waking up to drive you home when you're drunk and all alone?". You can exchange waking up with awakening, and get "Who's awakening?". If this refers to spiritual enlightenment, it means that "you" awaken when you realize that there is no one to be awakened. Kinda freaky and paradoxical. What do you think about these? Do you have other lines like these?

The reason why that bothers you is because you see through the duality nonsense of nothingness-somethingness and emptiness-fullness recognizing it for the flawed mind concept it really is. Not letting the constant repetition of this dogmatic rhetoric from spiritualists distract us from just being present without labeling and conceptualizing can be challenging for sure. @Annetta

To become a nothingness is the door to truth. The moment you are nothing, you become a door - a door to the divine, a door to yourself, a door that leads to your home, a door that connects you back to your intrinsic nature. And man's intrinsic nature is blissful.

Mmm, no the teachings don't bother me because I understand what they are trying to say, what bothers me is the emptiness or the nothingness, or letting-go-ness or whatever. What can you expect afterwards? Nothing. I need to know. I need to be in control, so that things won't go wrong. But it feels better not to be. I'm angry, too. Let's go break some stuff.

@phoenix666 You can respond to boredom in two ways. one is what is ordinarily done: escape from it, avoid it, don't look eye to eye into it, don't encounter it. Keep it at your back; and run away; run into things which can occupy you, which can become obsessions; which take you so far away from the realities of life that you never see boredom arising again. The other response is to face it, to meditate on it, to be with it, to be it. That's what Buddha was doing under the Bodhi Tree - that's what all Zen people have been doing down the ages. What exactly is meditation? Facing boredom is meditation. What does a meditator go on doing? Sitting silently, looking at his own navel, or watching his breathing, do you think he is being entertained by these things? He is utterly bored! The whole effort in meditation is this: be bored but don't escape from it; and keep alert, because if you fall asleep you have escaped. Keep alert! Watch it, witness it. If it is there, then it is there. It has to be looked into, to the very core of it. If you go on looking into boredom without escaping the explosion comes. One day, suddenly, looking deep into boredom, you penetrate your own nothingness. Boredom is just the cover, the container in which is contained your inner nothingness.

@Paintballer well, yeah, actually, it is a shocker. It was at least possible that as one recognizes nothingness they would enter an ultra-calm state similar to what's experienced during meditation. I had originally expected a graph similar to the deep calm state meditation except where it's even lower to the point of looking like I flatlined. One cannot take anything for granted.

Hi Guys! I became more of a reader than a writer in this little community, but the experience I had while combining these two psychedelics was extremely unexpected and remarkable. I need to communicate this to you. Please keep an open mind while reading this, i promise to keep it as short as possible. What did I take? 5 gramms cracker -dry shrooms (regular cubensis), a nice dose by itself 5 gramms of syrian rue seeds, made into a tea, one hour before the shrooms. This is a legal plant you can buy everywhere. Psychoactive by itself, natural anti-depressant, MAO-Inhibitor (Please google that stuff before trying anything! Research is a must here). Previous experiences: I did this combination before, 3 gramms of shrooms + 3 gramms of rue. It was roughly comparable to a "regular" shrooms trip, a bit more mellow and clear, but came in "shockwaves" of mind boggling intensity which left me laughting, screaming and speechless at the same time, basically an insane rollercoaster ride of insights, feelings, emotions, love. A great experience overall which lasted 12 hours total, and much stronger than a regular 3 gramm dose of shrooms would have been (tried it, same batch). Actual report: Ambitiously, i upped the dose to 5gr/5gr. Online reports suggested that all hell would brake loose on me. The come-up was totally normal, the energy boiled up in me, everything was as you would expect it to be at the beginning of a heavy dose. I was meditating as always, exited and a little scared, ready to face the first crushing wave of psychedelic mindfuck, or whatever the shrooms wanted me to see. My mind was going increasingly wild, lots of visuals etc. Then, Nothingness happend. I went back to baseline. The usual effects of the drugs almost completely disappeared, and my mind was totally silent. I felt complete! bliss and peacefulness, but not in a drug-induced way, but one that was unmistakably grounded in reality. PLEASE notice: I was able to think perfectly straight, pretty much acted and felt like a sober person, but all that monkey-mind was utterly crushed. I was super aware of everything that was going on. All my concepts and ideologies where thrown out of the window, for good, I was unable to even access them. This was awesome beyond belief, and I instinctively knew: Iam enlightended! Please, dont get me wrong: This was not a conceptual idea, I did not even think about enlightenment for days before this experience. I just knew that this is the real deal. I kept on meditating for 5 hours straight, only going to the toilet once in a while, feeling totally in sync with the universe. I looked up into the sky the whole time, feeling the connection and closeness to... everything. I was physically unable to create deeper concepts and forced to live in the now. The next five hours, I wandered trough a huge, beautiful graveyard with my tripsitter. It was... heartbreaking. You cant imagine the beauty of nature if you are unable to make concepts of it! I felt in love with the beauty of trees in the sunset, my tripsitter, and myself, over and over again. We had deep and insightful conversations, with complete ego-less talk, at least on my side. What a difference! I was here. in the now, with a direct connection to "God" (=nothingness), with no signs of a regular "Trip" at all. Aftermath To keep it short, the drugs wore off (sure they did), but I still feel the effects today (Two weeks after), truly life-changing stuff. I finally know what it physically feels like to be "Awake" and in the now. I keep practicing this state, especially when surrounded by people, chaos, and life. This is the real work! Meditating when going on with daily life was never more possible for me. I no longer feel that I am this person writing here, and totally fine with it. I "chase" after every little glimpse of this enlightened state, whenever I can. Monkey Mind is back, but life has become a lot better (while staying the same, curiously). This description does not give credit to the experience. At all. But sharing seemed appropriate. Have a wonderful weekend guys.

@sjonesartist Wondering how your going with this.. I just watched a vid from Earhart tolle. outlining how we like to replace that whole in our life with more stuff.. i.e. when we should probably justy deal with being comfortable with the whole.. Runs along same lines of what leo said a few weeks back about being lonely.. When you look at the whole closely the feeling of emptiness.. many ways to do this.. You realise its very similar to who we really are which is why we try to maintain and cling to our physical selves and try to keep busy.. a good example of how to see the nothingness and or the emptiness.. is.. reflect on before you where born., what did that feel like.. reflect on what you think death is like.. reflect on what it was like when something was stolen from you.. that feeling of loss or emptiness.. they all seem to be earilly similar.. I think something you said about getting bussier and meeting new and more wider experiences is great on one respect as long as you at the same time deal with and face the issue of emptiness.. what do you think??

I have been pursuing this work for some time now. Enlightenment is a topic that spellbinds me, and I have been adamant about practicing it. So when I ran into the pastor at my former Church (I used to be a Christian) I couldn't help but ask him about just that. I asked him about Jesus being enlightened. He basically said that Jesus was God's True son, and that we are all simply God's apex of creation. He went into how traditional Zen and Buddhist methods of consciousness work will lead you away from Jesus, therefore leaving you an empty atheist. I disagreed and stated that I am indeed not an atheist, nor have I ever been, and I loosely explained the "nothingness" and "ego-death" concepts to him. I stated that I do know there is a God, and that God is all of us reduced to the most certain and True form, nothingness. He disagreed with me. Nonetheless, I questioned him on weather Jesus was merely an enlightened man who shared his ideologies and thus (perhaps even unintentionally) sparked the Christian faith, and mentioned Ibn Battuta and The Buddha as other examples of people who kindled religions with their concepts. He basically said again that Jesus was God in the flesh, and these other guys may have had some high degree of spirituality, but didn't embody the Truth. If you are familiar with Western religion, this should ring a bell. I was simply wondering about people's tenets on the situation. I was deeply conversed with a man I have known for many years, and couldn't help but notice his hortatory towards his own faith (duh!). This bothered me, and I seek other opinions about the matter. Does anyone have any thoughts on religions? Perhaps this plays in part to default positions (me being raised Catholic/ other people brought up to believe a certain doctrine)?

For you there is no going back, others may stay in denial a while longer and that is perfectly fine too. Many people have had these experiences without ever touching psychedelics. Blaming the drugs is a good way to stay in denial for a little longer. It works (for a while)! Creating existence and denying ones own essence is the amusement part of Nothingness. Just imagine you are the infinitively creative nothingness (which we are) wouldn't we create any experience, be it good or bad, when we knew it wouldn't change us in any way? How do humans behave while playing GTA? Does it get boring quicker when you have all the cheats and power in the world? Just be aware that your path is (probably) not finished yet. Enlightenment is not having "experienced" the absolute. A better pointer is accepting everything as it is on a moment to moment basis. Just be brutally honest with yourself. When we allow everything to be as it is we are as close as possible to our true nature while immersed in the human experience. Nothingness allows everything to be as it is. Everything is as it is. Look around, everything is as it is. But for now, just enjoy the moment.

@Prabhaker thank you. I alwayz thought yoga is to prepare your body for meditation but Today while doing yoga i realized its not like that and Yoga itself is Meditation. Whole slow movments makes you aware of your body and nothingness,today i felt like i was meditating doing every posture.

@Leo Gura I just got through watching Day 9 of your solo retreat. Basically, you were saying that there is no end goal - that you're not going to find happiness when you retire or when you're rushing through work toward some goal - the moment of happiness is in the here and now - in the meditative / contemplative state in whatever you're doing. This is the best time to do self-inquiry too - when your thoughts are coming from the nothingness and not distracted from the hustle and bustle of everyday life. This increases the creativeness within. So, my question for you is, are you able to apply what you learned here in your everyday life - at least some of it?

@Pure Imagination Yep yep yep. I have had glimpses that cannot be unseen in the past couple months. It has been pretty uncomfortable but I'm starting to come around to just loving it, there is no other way. The monkey mind won't shut up about it haha. I haven't been doing inquiry enough I admit but when I do it can go deep... Basically who the fuck am I!?!?!?!? I had a pretty good glimpse of nothingness the other night when I was listening to Leo's guided inquiry. I need to start inquiring every day but I'm just a lazy mofo still. @Dodo For real though, why do we all project the struggle game so much... Haha

Nothingness also doesn't exist, but it's real! Also the magic moments are the ordinary moments!!! And thank you that you are so sorry to break it to us.