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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.

Entry 151 | Psychedelic Dream Report Last night, I experienced a dream like no other. Although I've never taken drugs or psychedelics in my life, it seems as though I "tripped" in my dream last night in a monumental way. The specific meaning behind this dream remains a mystery for the time being as I'm bewildered by it completely. A good 95% of the dream was humanistic and believable in many ways. It was a hot day and I was chilling in the entrance to some sort of temple or old building with members of the Indian music ensemble. Although most dreams give the illusion of appearing realistic, this one felt unparalleled in that remark. The gorgeous heat of the sun beaming down on my skin, the appearance of my musician friends, the passage of time, even my state of consciousness within the dream felt completely real. My thoughts and emotions felt identical to what they do now. As far as I was concerned, it was real life with no question about it. Much of the dream occurred in this scenario, which felt really good but perhaps not as noteworthy as what happened right at the end of the dream. Remembering that it was a hot day with no clouds in the sky, I felt a spot of rain hit my skin. And then another. The sky began to darken and as I looked up, I saw the ash clouds of a gigantic explosion and a turquoise nebula shining through. I slowly came to realise that it must have been a meteor or something similar hitting the Earth, meaning the end of the world. As I spoke words along the lines of "is the world going to end?", time began to slow down before I managed to finish the sentence. The people around me, including myself, began to fall to the ground. The sound of my voice distorted like a record being slowed down. The colour schemes transformed from normal "everyday" colours to highly saturated, intense colours. My thoughts and emotions began to revolve around fear and terror. Instead of hitting the ground, I seemed to fall through it. The entire scenario, now in bright luminescent colours, began to zoom out of perspective until nothingness remained. My thoughts and emotions became the equivalent of that of a dying person. Once wrestling with life, now just peacefully letting it go. Remember that it felt like real life to me. It genuinely felt like death had finally come. All that remained of the nothingness was just pure awareness. It remained for a few more seconds before I "woke up" in bed to discover that it was all a dream. I checked my watch and I had only been asleep for 3 hours in all of that time. The most intriguing thing about this dream for me is the maintained awareness from the dream world to the awakened world. It left a great big question in my mind that can't be shaken off: what if I'm still dreaming? What if the dream never ended? I was so certain that the dream world was reality. Just like I have been so sure all of my life that the waking world is real. Now I really don't know. One thing is for sure: that was the most beautiful experience I can remember. Pick of the day:

Leo, after all the psychedelics do you still feel trapped in monkey mind during the day? A lot of what you said resonginated with my personal expeirences, however after serious inquiry while tripping last year there was a serious release of energy it felt like getting hit by lightening after that day I've felt pure nothingness inside my heart space and my mind is silent unless I engage it to do practical things. when I walk I can feel me consciousness as space like awareness, the body is just apparent if I push the awareness outward in everyday life I can not find myself as an object, Is this how it is for you? The thing I would say is wether you engage in material life or denounce it the one reality is still the same, it's a beautiful dynamic expression, our true self uses this body as a way of experiencing its self and realizing our selfs through forms is its highest joy. Thank-you for your time namaste.

I'm utterly overwhelmed by the nuances of all the different paths ,and I just want a direct experience before I get lost in concept. I already do a practice, but would just doubling down on self-inquiry be better to get me my first glimpse? I just want to know what's True so fucking badly, but I'm just totally lost. I self inquire, and I find nobody. I have no clue who I am. But I've got no experience of this abiding non-dual awareness/ Nothingness/ God/ no-self/True Self/ Ain Soph/ Brahman/ Absolute Infinity/Cinnamon Toast Crunch.

You can pursue things that are external. Just don't be attached to them. Do things you love and turn it into a life purpose. Your thoughts are coming from the nothingness - the oneness. It will tell you what you love to do when you do self-inquiry. Becoming a monk is not the only option. But, if that's what you want, go for it. If you tried being a temporary monk and don't like it, your life purpose is a backup, and not all monestaries are the same.

@Extreme Z7 This would help. He adresses the fear of nothingness. What you experienced is resistance from the ego. It's very normal. Just observe it, aknowledge it as being resistance and go forward. Fear is ok.

I used to be a massive video game addict and now I barely indulge in traditional entertainment bbut I still have other addiction though. But the main thing that got me to quit was two things. Life purpose and death Find something that just the mental image of achieving makes you cry, take Leo's life purpose course. Also realise the fact that your life is really short and there is literally barely any time left until it is ALL OVER. Complete nothingness in around 60 years... To me that's worrying so I make every second count, by doing the things that I ACTUALLY want to do. Leo had a video on this, but I'm on my phone so I can't link, just look up contemplating death and you might find it.

This might stem from a threatened ego, but I still need to do these readings for my school work (philosophy). It's hard for me to take or read about a really deep, profound concept, treat it objectively and work with it in my essays, like most academics do. Almost instantly I get emotionally triggered by the information and can't go on with it for a few minutes until I calm down. Concepts might include: the nature of the universe existence and nothingness itself the illusory nature of language etc. what is at the end of the universe Some readings sometimes throw me into mild psychosis or existential crises. Any tips? How do I treat all the information without emotional backlash? I try to treat the ideas as just ideas but it's very hard.

@Dan Arnautu Look at it this way Dan. When you play a song on your guitar, it's not only the audible notes that make the song, but the silence between the notes. And a silence put at the right moment can be very powerful in itself. Silence is like a canvas that you paint a picture on through music notes. Silence/stillness/nothingness is always around us. Nothing could exist without it, including a beautiful song.. BTW- I picked up a 3 string fretless cigar box. Tons of fun!

What I've always found interesting about Sam is that he understands the uncertainty principle, understands that the fabric of everything is also him and in this sense the ego is illusory, and he see's that this one thing is also him, but he does not connect that he is the uncertainty principle. If he did, it would, in turn, reveal his 'accurate understanding of the nothingness' to be a mere ignorance of his own collapsing.