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I think there is a reason for why this kind of thought-pattern, or paradigm, has not survived and become an established religion. It is because, if you take the road to non-duality, or enlightenment, before having taken the road to love and compassion, one is destined to manifest into complete absence of action. In a way, it's quite like evolution. Those who were enlightened and loved, spread their enlightenment, because they indeed did not belief everything to be pointless. They have engineered their psyche in a way, that despite facing absolute nothingness, they could still operate from love. From that, actions of love took place, revolutionizing the world in the process. Now, everyone who was enlightened and did not take the path of love, did take another path nonetheless. That path simply lead to them not do anything. Their enlighenment showed them that the world is illusion, and even love was illusion. They had no reason to love anyone or anything. They had no reason to relief other beings of suffering, because after all, other beings don't exist. See, both paths are equally valid. The zen devil just as much as the enlightened buddhist. There is no reason not to love, just as much as there is no reason to love. Whether you will love or not completely depends on the leftovers of your psyche. The structures of your psyche will decide the actions you will take. And make no mistake, because even the absence of tradition will lead you to one set of actions over the other. How your mind interpretes "enlightenment" completely depends on your psyche. And ironically, any interpretation is illusion. Yet, the interpretation always happens. I choose the path of love now, not only so that it gives me strength to actually take this path to the end, but also because I want to act out of love if I ever am "enlightened". And if enlighenment was my only goal, I'd simply jump off a building. That would make short shrift of my ignorance. The true question is why not meddle with it? The avoidance of action, after all, is an action in itself.

@Leo Gura On the scale of a lifetime i have understood like 10% of what spirituality is all about ! ? So the absolute is really far from me but you're video on paradigm completely revolutionise my way of questionning reality and i was like : "because every experience is paradigmic ( i'll create this word ) than enlightement is non different than that !" But beyond the experiences of Nothingness and Emptiness i really wasn't knowing what was enlightement and i still don't know but now i know why enlightement is the absence of paradigm and why nothingness creates the absence of paradigm. Nothingness ultimately lead to the No-Self and the No-Self leads to Enlightement and Enlightement leads to the absolute, and the absolute leads to No paradigm. Keep on what you're doing. I'll love to follow .

I was going to wait until completing my self-imposed retreat, but I'm high on insight right now and need to share before this leaves me. The following was realized from 12 hours of consciousness work, not even that intensely focused, mostly monkey mind, but still deeper than what I've done in the past. I'm amazed at the difference between 12 hours of isolated work and the sloppy 10 hour session I did a few months back. Holy shit. Holy shit. I've been asleep. I didn't even come close to realizing how quickly continuous practice would bring up my inner demons. I've been working hard on trying to create better external life-circumstances for myself while having consciousness work play second fiddle, but today I got a deep feeling that what I'm doing is TOTAL BULLSHIT. I'm just afraid of giving up the remaining materialistic tendencies because I AM SO FUCKING AFRAID OF THIS WORK. It was easy when I'd just do an hour or two per day while spending the rest of my life grasping for illusions, pretending like I was chasing anything worthwhile. I should have noticed that after months of letting go of my old ways, the ego was coming back even harder. I could outwardly acknowledge how superficial and unfulfilling such pursuits were, but that attitude was incongruent with my inner reality. I've become, in some ways, a shallow, shallow person who won't be pleased until he has better material conditions than anyone else. I became aware of the fact that I was just chasing this fantasy that would always demand more and more, subjugating myself to the hedonic treadmill while recognizing it's folly on a conceptual level. I wouldn't say I had a no-self experience, but I experienced my "self" my life story, that thing that I am trying to serve as just a series of sensations and thoughts (which are also just sensations). I wasn't quite able to identify as nothingness, but I at some level became aware of the ego not really being there in the obvious, undeniable way I thought it was. Everything I'm chasing in life is a lie. This work is important, and I'm afraid of the Truth. I just want to distract myself with fantasies of this body having it's ideal circumstances, and immortal body that instantly gratifies all of it's material desires. When I sit down and see them for what they are, I just find lies. All lies. I'm so, so terrified. I've kept using the excuse, that I'd be materialistic now and be a serious sage later, but when I do the work, I can see how stupid that is to serve the ego. I'm not sure what the alternative is (conceptually I do, but not in my direct experience), but I have to choose it. But I'm afraid. I'm so fucking afraid of what I'm going to find I don't even know how to express it. It's unfathomable that I could experience such terror by just sitting and doing nothing. Sorry if this comes across as melodramatic, but I really wanted to capture my state today while it was still fresh. I know I'm not even doing serious non-duality yet. That being said, I'm going to keep going and see where this takes me. Call it masochistic, but I'm sort of enjoying the mind-fuck. I'll update this thread as my consciousness work continues. Updates: Day 2: Was restless all day. Afraid of pushing farther. I see the benefit of being in a formal setting. Accountability is huge, but I'm doing the best with what I've got at the moment. The mind does weird things when it's isolated and without stimulus. I just need to keep at the work and have faith in the process. The benefits others have derived is clear. I need to remember that when I try to talk myself out of it by saying that I'm just some crazy person wasting my life on this stuff. Day 3: Super fidgety and unfocused. Tried making excuses but ultimately kept pulling myself back. Low quality work was done but I'm making progress in facing the fear of going deep. If this is my hero's journey, the existential terror is my threshold guardian. I became somewhat conscious of the ego's deepest desire: To be God. It wants to control everything and satiate all desire.

@The Universe all paradigms happen inside emptiness/nothingness/consciousness. The "thing" where the paradigms are playing on is therefore not itself a paradigm. there are many different movies, but the movie screen itself is unaffected by them, it allows them to exist.

This is some thinking on the topic of paradigm of naive realism/physicalsim/nothing being behind the scenes/ one of the major paradigms in this weeks vid. This is based on the topic Well, real is that what is. Atoms do not exist - they are not real. But consciousness does - it is real. Consciousness is an oneness of everything, but each of us is a piece of this oneness, which became ignorant to the fact of oneness. My example is the following: 5 year old watches TV for the first time. I switch it off in a basement. Then switch on. For a 5 year old it stopped existing, then resumed. But me switching IS THE STUFF BEHIND THE SCENES for him - I am an example of finite hidden mechanism. But if everything is oneness and each of us is a pocket - than if we lift all the pocketing at once - there is nothing behind the scene because there is nothing but this self aware oneness. Now literally - is there a man who can tell how he experiences oneness without being on drugs at the moment? Can he know my thoughts? My thoughts are absolutely real - I hear them. If there is nothing hidden - guess my thoughts. If there is nothing hidden - guess my thought behind the writing in an unknown language. This text is just an explicit pointer to an explicit audio signal with explicit semantic. You can't guess my thoughts - they are hidden from you - how can you tell there is nothing else hidden but the feelings of others? Someone tells an example of math line. From here see two thoughts: - Infinite regress can bring you the answer just like infinite zero size points give you a line. - Math (and scienece) is something more than feelings. A scientist predicts reality at the same moment when usual human fails. What is it if not a hidden strucutre? Any lawfull prediction is a pointer at a hidden structure. If I cannot experience true oneness than there would always be the stuff behind the scenes for me. If everything is one, but I obviously experience it in other way, there is a mechanism for that narrowing - this mechanism is the stuff behind the scenes as well. Is it ego? But ego is described to be a fact of a semantic feeling, carrying the payload of us being this body, brain and whatnot. I do not really buy that this simplictic feeling can shut down my life feed with oneness, do you? If so - then why is it so easily shut? There should be a mechanism behind it. So than we do not even know what really is stopping us from being enlightened. But maybe concsiousness and oneness do not exist - maybe it is nothingness. But nothing is nothing. No thing. Here we have all this feelings, everchanging. So it is everythingness rather than nothingness. Do you call it nothingness to underline it's not being based off anything? Why everythingness can not be not based off anything? Sounds like thermodynamics paradigm talking in your naming conventions. If one (Like Leo just for example) reaches everythingness and stays there, wouldn't he merge all of us into it, elevate the universe? Have we had any fully realised humans? If so, they should've been omnipotent? Why we are not all elevated than? What is the behind the scenes mechanism which kept fully realised humans in the past from elevating the whole universe back into full nothingness? Okay, maybe it is the state-of-the-universe - maybe it is unchangeble, maybe there is nothing which could be changed at "will". If there is nothing changed at all by that people, than what is the worth of reaching that place? Maybe I should just reach unconditional happiness in a simple enlightenment and stop there? If we say success is not for true actualization. Then we say full realisation do not change anything. Why do it? If I'm happy unconditionally, I do not need happiness from this realisation, it won't bring me anything. Am I wrong somewhere in this strip? Where to go? Is this all just an in-logic paradigm masturbation, or does this have merit? Non euclidian geometry is still very much rational and logical. What exactly is post rationality? How can we judge if we are not toying ourselves when we lose probabilistic logical models of argument about axioms? What I mean here is very simple: human can break free from ego paradigm - and he becomes serene. We can see such people on youtube, even skype with them. But how do we judge our way is good when we talk higher things like this metaphysics? Is it a game of chance and daring of the spirit? Is it for the better? Leo has another video on loving the questions and getting couple of them through life. He tells us that living trying to answer them gives fulfillment. But isn't fulfillment useless under unconditional happiness? Btw, yesterday I've at least chipped a large chunk off my fear of death, so I now have a period of high motivation for actualization hence this text )=

Death=Nothingness is Perfection indeed. That's one of my top theorems on the spiritual path in exploration of truth. The theorem is proven to myself, but it won't be satisfactory proof for you. Only you can prove that theorem to yourself, and you will, in due time, like everyone else.

Entry 83 | Death Theory: Death is the most severe form of adversity in this existence. Willingness to accept it and embrace it requires inner strength that comes from beyond the Ego. Applying it: When the news arises that a loved one has died or is facing death in the near future, remain present with your feelings. Rather than denying them, bring your emotions into your immediate awareness and feel their beauty. Today I made a trip home to visit my uncle who has cancer. A few days ago, he was suffering so badly that he had to be taken into a hospice to be cared for. But as of yesterday, he's been back at home and is feeling alright again. It is looking unlikely that he will be around for much longer. All I could do is to embrace his company for around an hour with my mum. We don't really talk to each other that much usually, but there is still a loving connection there. I didn't necessarily want to ask him lots of questions when I got to see him. Just being able to look at him and share the moment together was enough. As the present moment stands, he is relatively well and happy. Of course, there is that doubt in everybody's mind as to how long he will continue to be around. But as of right now, the matter is irrelevant. It will only become relevant when death does occur. For now, the most relevant thing for everyone to be doing in our family is to be appreciating the fact that he is still with us. It's interesting to think how easily we take other people for granted in our life. Only when the matter of death arises do we feel it necessary to appreciate that persons existence! Surely it would be a much better world if we could learn to appreciate the people who are alive right now? That doesn't mean to say we should forget about the legacy of the dead. But there should be no reason why we appreciate both the dead and the living as equally important. I remember when I discovered that the guitarist Michael Hedges died in a car accident in 1999. My whole perception of the guy changed. He wasn't just any old guitarist to me any more. He was a genius who was taken from this world too soon, as it were. Of course, that was my opinion at the time. I've since learned that everything happens the way it is supposed to and, hence, Michael's death was always meant to be. Especially in light of the words he speaks in the video below. Now I contemplate my own demise. One could say I'm in my prime as far as my whole life is concerned. My physical fitness is great, my guitar skills are the best they have ever been, my confidence is at an all-time high, and I've reached a point of self-acceptance where I can look in the mirror and love what I see. I've not felt that way in a LONG time. Whilst all of this is great because it's in the present moment, the inevitable crumbling of these things will happen. These things will eventually disappear into nothingness. On a deep level, I can appreciate that death is just the permanent passing from the conscious realm into the unconscious realm which is formless and timeless. Yet I still feel it to be a great shame that this conscious life can't last forever. Then on the other hand, I do not need life to last forever in order to feel fulfilled by it. If I can learn to truly appreciate what the present moment has to offer with each passing day, then I will reach my death bed knowing that not a day was wasted. Maybe my uncle has learned to accept this truth. Although he may not be the richest or most successful man in the world, he has created a wonderful family to have around him in the form of four daughters and 4 grandchildren. With each day that comes along, he can take solace in his contribution to the world in the form of his family. He can truly appreciate their existence and his own in light of the present circumstances. Maybe then, death can be used as a tool to focus on what the present moment has to offer. Perhaps every morning when arising out of bed, I should remind myself that I could've very easily died in my sleep and I could well do so when I return to sleep. There are moments throughout my day where I openly express to myself how much I love life right now. Everything about my body and my mental attitude just feels wonderful. It feels so good to look in the mirror and consider myself as being "good-looking." But so long as I don't start developing an attachment or an identity with what the present moment is now, I will be able to remain grounded throughout the duration of my life. Because ultimately, what I truly am is far beyond mind and body. Death is nothing to be afraid of. We all experience the unconsciousness of death when we fall asleep. There are no fiery pits of hell, but there are no heavens in the clouds either. It just is what it is: the yin to the yang. One cannot truly appreciate life without there being death. Pick of the day:

I would say that in my opinion a description of enlightenment is a perspective. But actual enlightenment which reveals what reality is is NOT a perspective. I have listened to dozens of videos and red many books on enlightenment and the existential fact that these sources point to in my experience is true. But the language that is used to communicate these spiritual truths such as reality is nothingness, you are god, god is nothing, thoughts are illusions. All this is observable and discoverable through enlightenment work. I have gotten taste of these experiences so from my little view, I can arrogantly say that what is communicated between the lines in enlightenment teachings are literal facts. But I just don't know if I'm in deep delusion or on to something. I can with 99,9% certainty say that the ego is false. But is that still a paradigm if that insight was realized based of an empirical investigation? Are metaphysicsal truths supposed to be placeres in a different category than paradigms? I don't know. Hope I'm making sense here, shit this stuff is nuanced.

I don't even feel like this is a special expirience. It's just so obvious. I think whenever I meditated previously, I was always trying to do something. Even when I was pretending not to want something, I simply was. It's like I was trying to focus in on awareness, not realizing that I have always been focused on awareness. I was so caught up with trying to find out what that "awareness" might be, that I couldn't simply expirience it, as I was all the time. It's so strange how the feeling of past and future is so fragile. Right now, it seems like there has been no past, everything that happened always happened in the now, and all that I thought the past to be was merely a feeling and memories, that all still happened (happen) in the now. Even describing now as now is kind of silly, because there is nothing else than now, so there is no word needed to describe it. It literally is everything that exists. Even using present tense is strange, as if there was something else than presence. I don't know how to describe this feeling, but it feels like the nothingness before death was just part of the moment right now, as everything else I have ever "expirienced". If I had to put it into words, it's like awareness is the moment, and the moment never, ever changed. And somehow, the content just became a resonance of that fact. So, even if the content changes, even if I go unconscious tomorrow, it will not matter at all, because I am part of content. The moment will not change no matter how much the content will change, even if tomorrow the content is death. I don't even feel like my own suffering is bad right now. It's strange, because I do care about my suffering when I am wanting to do something. But the condition I am in is giving me such a great certainity that suffering is completely irrelevant, that I don't even care about caring about suffering in the "future". Everything is the moment, every single thought I have, every single concept. I don't see a difference between being with the concepts and thought, and being purely with whatever else is there. Both are content, no matter how "chaotic" the content is, the moment is always completely still and calm. Having monkey mind is just as much of being "in the moment" as every other state is. Even the most unconscious state is "being in the moment", because there literally is nothing else than that. Not wanting monkey mind is the content trying to be a certain content. Wanting to be "enlightent" is a state of content. Whether the content aligns with the moment or not does not matter at all. The content will never have influence on the moment. Wether the ego exists within content or not does not matter either. Isn't it the ego itself that wants the ego to disappear? Because, what else is there to want anything? The moment itself doesn't want anything, it's just there. And if the moment is the only permanent thing there is, why even bother? The moment always has everything it wants, because it doesn't want anything. It is beyond wanting. Wanting to understand and become the moment is the contents desperate attempt to change itself, isn't it?

Religion is not ritual. It is not something that you do. It is something that you become. So there is always a possibility of a false religion existing somewhere in the society. False religion is when the inner transformation has been substituted by outer ritual. Then you go on doing things and those things will become a deep-rooted habit with you, but nothing is achieved. People go to the church and the temple, and they repeat the same prayers again and again. Nothing is happening to them. Somewhere on the way they have missed; somewhere on the way they have lost the real coin — and they have substituted it by a false coin. Remember this, that the real, authentic religion is concerned with the being, not with the doing. It has nothing to do with your outer way of life. It has something to do with your center. Of course, when the center changes, the periphery follows; your outer life also changes. But the reverse is not true: you can change the periphery — the center will not change. And you win live the life of a hypocrite, a life of hypocrisy. You will have a different periphery from the center, not only different but just the opposite, the very contrary. And you will be split in two. Religion is not ritual. Remember that. Religion is an inner consciousness, an inner awakening. Many things on the surface will change, but the change must occur within you first. The true religion is existential. Buddha lived it, Jesus lived it -- but remember, Jesus was not a Christian and Buddha was not a Buddhist, he had never heard of the word. The truly religious people have been simply religious, they have not been dogmatic. It has always happened to only a few people and then it disappears from the earth because the intellectuals immediately grab it and they start making beautiful ideologies out of it -- neat and clean, logical. In that very effort they destroy its beauty. They create philosophies, and religion disappears. ISIS talks about Jihad. It is very easy to die for religion but very difficult to live for it. Actually, it is always easy to die for some cause. All that is needed is a kind of madness. Dying happens in a moment, so even a single moment of insanity is quite enough. But to live, awareness and wakefulness are essential. Only those who live for religion know religion. Those who martyr themselves for religion do not know it at all. You cannot understand Jesus through a priest. He himself has not known. He has read, he has thought, he has contemplated, he has speculated, philosophized. Yes, he has a very cultivated mind, he knows the scripture; but to know the scripture is not to know Jesus. To know Jesus you will have to know your innermost nothingness. Without knowing it you cannot make anybody else acquainted with Jesus. Repressing your desires and destroying your desires is not the way of celibacy, because if you repress your desires you will remain hung-up with them. Repression can never bring freedom. Repression makes you a slave. Repress anything, and that will become your master. So the so-called celibates in the monasteries are continuously obsessed with sex.

I haven't had pure DMT in a long time almost a year now and i know 5-meo is different as they say but based on my experiences and all the things i have read as well as others experiences i believe its quite possible to reach the same states of consciousness (if you will). The description in that infinite state quite similar to what i experienced after all the visuals and when i came to the realization that all these visuals, fractals, vibrations, entities, higher selves ect.. is ultimately me guiding myself to reach my infinite/creator self or oneness again and in that moment they all just vanished and ceased to exist and i was put into this infinite void or space of nothingness yet experiencing everything in creation all at once 100% capacity. Pure presence, pure awareness nothing else. Its so strange that you can experience through everything in existence, every eyes, every sense that exists all at once even for a split second this will change you forever. What interests me is that they say the highest state of the universe is unconditional love, but i experienced that in the lower stages but when i was at this state it was beyond that. It was just pure consciousness, no feeling, no love, no fear, no thought, absolutely nothingness yet everything. Maybe i just cant remember it well but that experience when i entered that final infinite state lasted about 15-30 seconds real-time but it felt like in was always there forever and ever. So is 5-meo is a direct connection to that state? I feel N'N-DMT may be easier for some people because all the illusions and fractals/sacred geometry, visuals ect.. have a powerful hypnotizing effect and once you surrender and allow to what you are experiencing you go beyond all of that and into the heart of existence.

Yes, silence is always normal. If you are the calmest motherf* in the room, other's judgements just fall off you like dust. Judgements others make of you, as being not normal or crazy, they all just dissolve and burn in the fire of the eternal nothingness or Atman. Everything is so small and shallow it loses all significance.

Hi, Deep My personal experience is that spirituality, or stripping away the onion of Ego and roles, gives me a dimension of safety during daily life, because I can always centre myself in nothingness. It allows me to accept things with open arms and judge less a situation as good or bad and just try to instead "surf" the situation by observing my inner state and deep breathing. Remembering the Atman in daily living is like an amazing tool that lets you live through things in absolute peace, rather than make you incredibly stressed and unhappy, if you believed yourself to be the persona in the dream.

I @Visionary I like your point.it makes sense. Whatever we experience in this moment is through the realm of thought and experience. How else can we know anything. We may try hard but we may not be able to lose the true nature of our selves. I mean I understand there has to be something going on at the back of our minds. Whatever realizations we have they are ultimately the product our thought process and experience. It's all experiential. If there is absolutely nothing behind the scenes, even existence becomes purposeless. I get the idea that there can be nothingness. But we don't live in that paradigm. Then how can it apply to us. We live in the consciousness that makes us who we are. To be aligned to an alternative consciousness will be like committing a blunder. How can we blind ourselves from that which is real and essential. So in my opinion there is something going on behind the scenes and in fleeting moments we get to experience some tidbits of that consciousness that we are rarely aware of.

I want to stress that the entireroom turned to this transperancy, the colour of space became goldish in colour, I was expecting to actually trully dissolve into nothingness while fully conscious and looking at my Ego (body) in waking reality. Now that would have been like the most shocking thing that I can honestly say I have trouble believing is possible. I will definitely try this meditation more intensely next time and report

HI Actualized.org Family! I wanted your input on this recent experience I've been having. As many of you know on here I practice Reiki Energy Healing so when I meditate I usually send reiki to myself and to other people usually via a prayer journal that I've created. To experience Reiki energy healing you don't have to be physically present to experience it's benefits. It can be sent distance wise, and can also bypass space and time and be sent into the past and into the future. It can also be sent to words on a piece of paper and the spiritual consciousness of the reiki energy sends healing to whatever you would like to focus on. If there is no specific intent on sending the energy, it will go where it is need the most whether physically, mentally, or spiritually. I decided to try a new meditation technique. Something completely new. So instead of sending healing energy to certain specific people, I send energy to the Earth and the entire Universe! Usually when I send out energy I get what I give out, and feel really calm and relaxed. This time it felt incredibly different. I imagine the Earth literally sitting in the palm of my hands and send energy to the Earth, but I also imagine the energy emanating from my body and just stretching out every where to everything. When I started to send energy to everything, without bias I felt this overwhelming sense of calmness and peace. In fact it was so strong that I was feeling unconditional LOVE and a sense of awww. I could feel my roles and my identity dropping, and my mind was completely wiped and empty. I just felt like this nothingness, a sense of just being, but it felt really good and I wanted to be there. I just wanted to MERGE with God/absolute infinity. I wanted to be the sea foam on the ocean, and the rain drops in a cloud. I've done this about 3 times already. The more I do this, the stronger it gets. It got so strong this time, I started feeling like I would literally give my life up for it! Like I would die for the universe because I love God so much. I don't know what is happening to me but I LOVE it!

The colour white doesn't exist, white is just a really intense black, but black nothing is the only thing that is real - everything else is projecting movies on top of movies. Even our shallow as shit forum posts. Everything is so small compared to the nothingness, it's eye-opening, and it's always there, right behind your back

@Leo GuraWhat about watching yourself in the mirror, it can become pretty trippy experience of self reflection if one looks long enough. I think it raises my wakefulness level and I become more aware of the nothingness, which is everything we know.... Then I snap my fingers, and create sound and continue exploring existence, while with open eyes, because there is no outside us, which means extroverts are just as introverted as introverts like me . I guess what I'm saying is self enquiry in front of the mirror can be pretty intense experience of reality!

Well, now that my ego is dead, the glimpses I had were spot on. It feels strange and I never thought for one moment that ego death would, in effect, make me become nothingness and empty. In buildings, I see the objects and I'm not there, just pure awareness. I'm now this blank presence that goes here and there seemingly with some person. I look down and see the phenomenon of a body that I used to identify as Eric. Now its just sort of coming out of nothing. To summarize: its completely turned everything 180 degrees. Holy crap! By the way, if my words don't express it, I'm blown away and there's no turning back. Even though five days ago I wasn't where I am now... its orders of magnitude different.

I have always been a person who pursues self-improvement and that will never change. And I find Leo's work and similar videos inspiring, and will continue to both practice mindfulness, self-reflection, and youtube as a resource, for increasing my capabilities in life. But I don't find there to be much merit in the pursuit of direct meditation habit, searching for enlightenment, nonduality, or Leo's idea of authenticity and self-actualization, not for me. I'm looking for some people to respond to my thought on it. Basically, I've found a loss of meaning in what is done - whether I find enlightenment many ways, or am a person who is trapped in the lower self, nothing about the universe or existence itself changes in anyway. it is only a change in perspective - and this change in perspective is not something I really want. it's nice Leo's video of the 10 things you want but don't know it - but I just don't really find much meaning in "Wanting" or "desires" and whenever I say that I "want" a thing it is always just a decision. I want to relax, aka, I will now take the day off. Sure there are emotional drives that I notice - but in the end I always am making a conscious decision in these acts. What I intend to pursue regarding those is cultivating my focus and my mindfulness in the moment. Some times I may meditate as a way to increase these, but the habit I will form regarding meditation is mindfulness in the moment, or short breaks of self-observation or meditation, or a short break of a kind of intuitive release. something in a video I saw about allowing the mind to wander. so I will be using meditation as-needed, not as a habit. most often I will just lay down and nap, or if I'm on the work, take a walk outside. these are not "meditation" lol! but there is a way to make them like meditation, and that's what I'd be working on. The thing about nonduality and the authentic self - chasing that accomplishes what, enlightenment? I trust that enlightenment would be a great thing, and maybe later in life I will pursue it. but now - there are more pressing things in my life - and that is the thing. even in nonduality there is duality. (and even in duality there is nonduality) I was thinking about this before, and I've self-observed minimally, the other day. And as I sat in self-observation this morning I noticed a curious thing - when my eyes are open I see rich imagery, and when my eyes are closed I see no imagery at all. I do not fabricate images when my eyes are closed. this is something I always knew but - the point is, even if I find the enlightened perspective of how I really understand how all things are as one, infinity, nothingness, however you wish to call it. We go on living life as normal, just with a new perspective. Pursuing that is necessarily an endeavor of ego and duality! and even if we had a perfectly nondual perspective, there is necessarily a vibration of energy however way we theorize it which creates the illusions of duality and that won't change. I will not in my life find a situation where I'm a monk meditating all day in order to be as authentic as possible - in fact if I wished to be as authentic as possible I would just decopose as quickly as possible - but I do not do that because the splash of dual existence is nothing in comparison to infinity, that the true authentic path is to allow my splash to naturally unfold. our duality is itself the authentic nature of existence. and my splash does not follow a path towards monk-dom, and now I find it does not seek enlightenment. I do not really know what the ego is - in my perspective, ego and duality are one and the same. after all, all things are nondual in the end - the duality is just the illusion - right? but even that cannot be known. it's advised that nonduality can be directly experienced and witnessed - but so can the duality. I heard recently a person say, "what is "Real" in meaning? it is just an honorary title." and he said something about how in quantum mechanics, we call one thing or the other thing real but both realities are equally valid. This falls the same with duality v nonduality. both are valid. and if I were to fully pursue nonduality to be as nondual as possible - I would be discarding the dual existence that it so convincing. as I've mentioned before in this post - my perspective at hand is that in infinity my splash on the "consciousness field" so to speak is irrelevant - the perspective shifts create flow and being - and I can work on those without needing to dump my efforts into nonduality and enlightenment. through mindfulness, and being. It is not necessary for me to sit and contemplate enlightenment and nonduality, in order to exercise my ability to be present and aware. and in my limited life I will not reach the level of enlightenment of a monk - I will have significant dual existence, and it is more to my merit to work on making my dual existence one in the present moment, strategic, and aware. Sometimes I will meditate. sometimes I will self-observe. sometimes I will contemplate existence. but mostly I will practice mindfulness in the active moments. I will work on flow and focus and strategy, and work on negotiating my emotions so that they are no more than an experience, and not a tide which consumes my being. I will work on my practical skills beyond these - my skills of cooking, minimal lifestyle, employment. not in the immediate moment and future, but I will find life purpose both in work and in casual pursuit - maybe they will even tie into each other or be one and the same - but right now my "life purpose" is becoming self-sustainable within the next five years - not a 20-year goal - but it is what motivates me. I may be focusing my current efforts on picking myself out of my chair. walking to a new place. laying my hands upon some object. and manipulating in. this is what I've found to get me moving in an effective way - along with the various paradigm shifts which allowed me to focus on my work in this way. but by no means is this an enlightened decision. by no means is this "the final shift" by no means do I think I will stop self-improving, and self-actualization completely, just because I found a certain perspective that leads to this decision. But the path I am following is not the path of enlightenment and nonduality. it is a path of duality. and this is the path I follow. I feel that I have always been more in touch with intuition than the others around me. I do not know for sure what "intuition" means or how to truly tell that my ideas come from intuition instead of logic. and IMO - intuition and logic are like yin and yang - one cannot exist without the other. but I feel as if I am following intuition on several levels. and I know that logic is a part of my decision. But I do not feel that this is a decision of Ego. well - like I said - it is because ego is really just all of duality. but I have in the past been strongly swayed by my ego, but in this moment - I am swayed by intuition. maybe it is an intuitive response to a logical clinging onto duality. but I cannot just up and discard my duality - which means I will have restricted resources, or even wither away and die, if I try to focus on nonduality in my present life situation. I need to improve my dual existence first before it can even be worth pursuing enlightenment and nonduality - and I won't even pretend to carry on the assumption that that "will" happen later - that would be holding onto ego Thank you for allowing me to type this out. speaking and righting is another form of thinking and processing. I also look forward to any and all responses to my expressions here. and while I will minimize my forum use both here and elsewhere in the future - they consume me with ego, forums. I find it too distracting and too much of an influence on my emotional consumption -which is something I am working to minimize. so be it. but I will not kill my forum use outright - after all, expressing is a form of thinking, and the dual experience of the Other is an extension of my self that I must not sever off

So a brief disclaimer here I would have put in my signature but evidently you aren't allowed one without a significant number of topics under your belt. I am taking the role of Adam Watts here, there is nothing to say about enlightenment, there is nothing to say about spirituality or Zen, you have to be it not hear it in words. Thus anything I say should be taken for it's entertainment value only and any insight it grants should be considered but a bonus. I wish to point out an interesting insight for those who have witnessed source, or who understand that existentially the only thing that is real and permanent is nothing at all. This is not to poke fun at religion (Leo has done enough of that for all of us), but because this is a very useful insight into the existential nature of your godhood, and if you're going to ever truly control your perceptions (which I have found to be possible) it's a fun exercise to experience and an invaluable insight which will chop away your moral high horse a bit or at least make you realize you're absolutely completely full of shit and that is unavoidable. So take your favorite psychedelic, sit back and contemplate the following. (Kinda guided but you can skip to the end to just take the intellectual riddle) God or Lord God is generally accepted to be everything (every thing), so if you are able to perceive things tune your awareness to the point that all perceptions merge. Where you see that audio, visual, tactile are all converging on one sensory point, we will call this your present point of view. If your eyes are open it likely appears to be a room of some sort but try and get in touch with the oneness where the room ceases to be a room and simply is a perception of a single canvas or painting with no objects unless you choose to focus on one. Now get in touch with your humanity, with every concept you've ever learned, and all your rational memory and you get what Don Juan referred to as the Tonal point of view. The thing sitting in-front of you represent God or at least your present understanding of God as a human being. Basically the sum of everything you have ever experienced is God as there is nothing outside of your own experiences that you can say is real. Notice the change to the sensory input as you breathe, taking breaths in through your nose especially helps and you'll see that the whole scene changes it's tone as you breathe in and out. The monkey mind is likely hard at work donating thoughts, if you can or are sufficiently tripped out watch those thoughts rise and fall. Where do they come from? Where do they go? If you watch one slowly enough try and give it a coordinate, just like an object in the room. Should you give it focus a thought will feel like it is coming from a specific point in your awareness. Watch that point and you will see no thought-thought- no thought. Or No Thing - Some Thing - No Thing. Now close your eyes and take in the void, if you're sufficiently tripped out notice the colors and the beautiful gallery of infinity before you. Try and have a full experience of no self while still being in control (Ie don't leave for 2 hours, just experience ego death for a few minutes). Merge with the void and let the monkey mind talk a bit more, watch again as some random spacial coordinate goes from No thing -> Some Thing -> No Thing again. The No Thing is of special interest because it is the only constant, if you're enlightened you already know that. So here is where it gets really fun. The No Thingness is what Don Juan refers to as the Nagual. The opposite side to having a self it is your existential nature as nothing at all. Just an empty vessel with some random swirl of perceptions within you. Let me propose to you that the Nagual is NOT god, because it is not composed of everything (every thing) as god is, and has no construction whatsoever. The Nothingness is very unique in that it is existentially being without any conscious ability to guide or change what you are experiencing. In order to consciously guide yourself you must first lie to yourself. If you are sufficiently tripped out or simply far enough along in your consciousness work you will notice a distinct change from when you move from the void or ego-death back to consensus reality. Just reaching for a glass of water requires that subtle change. So I want you to do that, go to complete ego death, and then VERY SLOWLY force yourself to open your eyes and interact with anything in the environment. You will notice that any sort of interaction with the environment, even if you're just guiding your meditation requires an original very specific lie. You have to tell yourself that you in fact have a self and you're so used to that particular lie it may take you a few months to actually watch it happen. If you did not believe you had a self with the utmost faith you would not be able to reach for the glass of water or think a specific thought. You would very much be at the mercy of whatever perception played upon your being. Now you have found what I am getting at, the very first lie that God tells himself, is that he is God. Without the lie that he is God there can be no interaction and no creativity. In order to create you require a vessel and that vessel is your first lie, for you know in reality you have no vessel and no reality within which to create anything at all. Thus you are now confronted with a very stark and difficult truth. Lord God lies to himself first and tells himself that he is Lord God, the rest of his universe is made from that first lie for from the self comes the lie that I am the one in my experience and there are others to interact with me who I call the many. Thus Lord God is actually the Father of Lies himself. Why is this important? Because you believe yourself to be the one in your experience, but your goal should be to be God in your experience. They're your perceptions and even if you support the scientific model you should know your entire experience of the universe happens inside your brain, thus there is no reason you can't say to hell with it and leave consensus reality and mold your own perceptions. But you can't do that if you think you're telling the truth when you're not. My point is if God is really the Devil then you should realize that in your reality you are God, you choose where you go and what you do. If you have choice then the choice is yours. If you think you're being truthful when you're lying to yourself then that is a very large trap you have fallen into, the self element is a complete lie, there is nothing wrong with it, but accept that you are a lie and thus anything you say, do, or think, is also by extension a lie. It can be a contextual truth, but it will never be an existential truth. Only when you truly get in touch with that insight will you be free. So unleash your inner devil and enjoy freedom. On a side note it does make the idealization of God as a very honest figure full of truth and benevolence kind of amusing. As every church you see is in actuality a temple to the Devil. All hail the father of lies, for we are the very lies which he has spewed. Oooooops. By contrast you will also notice that God has a master, God is a concept, and bound by the laws that all concepts must follow. It is a thing. Only the Nagual, is truly free for the Nagual may be nothing at all whenever it so chooses or more aptly stops choosing to be. Yours Truly Lord God. Signature: I call myself Lord God because there is absolutely no reason to externalize such an entity. If there is a Lord God then in my experience I surely am him for who else would I leave the mastery of my destiny to? If I am not Lord God then show him to me that I might laugh at the perception before my eyes for I am the Nagual and serve none.

How about this life purpose: - To witness my grandchildren get enlightened. Which is why to reach the greatest heights requires shedding egoic material, or purification to the point of nothingness or spirit. The word "spirit" connotes lightness of mechanism, and this is a good pointer of what you should be working towards. To be conscious, it to be able to see how a mechanism truly works, and its backfire potential.

I've just been heavily involved in the last year or two on the studies, meditation and practices of attaining the perspective of "not-self" and more recently "non-duality", which seem to be highly inter-linked from my understanding. I have learnt to apply a more sharper and heightened definition of the word "integrity" which seems to be a kind of glue to the concepts that can be directly applied to the practice to make the direct experience of 'not-self' and in particular 'non-duality' all the more real. So firstly, given the breadth of each of these subjects, let me outline what I mean to be clear by giving a short definition of what I'm specifically referring to, then it would be interested to hearing your thoughts: 1. not-self: the very fact that our awareness and perceptions within our awareness is an also all that makes us up human experience. Perceptions come and go and are continuously changing. Also, that we are neither an independent object of our awareness and perceptions. So, we are a bundle of experience that is not us but that we can't seperate from. 2. non-duality: our individual subjective experience is everything, yet nothing at the same time. Awareness is all encompassing for the 'self' but for awareness to exist, then outside awareness needs to exist, which is 'nothing'. This oneness with our perceptions, and the duality between a unified subjective experience and the 'nothingness' behind the scene, is the connection point that we all seem to share. It's impossible for unity or duality to explain the whole picture but taken in balance of egoic self referential agenda and the all pervasive nothingness that all of our awarenesses are embedded in, then we arrive at a complete picture. 3. Integrity: is an alignment between our "internal" and "external" world. If the divide between our internal and external world doesn't really exist given the existential framework of nothingness that it resides within and the fact that not-self asserts that there is really no external 'self' viewing the external world in the first place. So the one single reality exists for all of us must be aligned to satisfy both not-self and non-duality, given that there is a hard assertion that there isn't a divide in the first place! As a clearer example, this is clearly experienced when one practices 'mindfulness' or 'presence', when they concentrate on an object and then their inner world drops and they are just there with the object as one, but neither seperate or believing they are the object they are considering. So the reason as to why I see integrity as an important playing card in applying this approach, is because if you don't consider a private world to exist and there is complete harmony between one's perceived internal and external world, then one is more honest and at no disharmony with themselves and their environment, including others.

Can use other labels too, im only labeling for the sake of the conversation. Lets call it the nothingness out of which all arises.

Enlightenment is only the beginning. There is infinity…to go far. Enlightenment is only a door, and then there is an unending existence, an unending evolution, expansion. The people who are unconscious, for them enlightenment is the goal; but they are not aware of the fact that enlightenment is only a door. Once you have reached it, then a new kind of pilgrimage starts. Up to this door you were an entity; beyond this door you will not be an entity, you will be just pure consciousness without a body, without a mind. You will be just a fragrance which will go on spreading all over existence. And the fragrance is luminous. It is full of awareness. It knows itself and it knows the whole existence around it – not as separate but part, a kind of at-one-ment. It is the universe and the universe is it; there is no division, no duality. Now the observer becomes the observed, the seer becomes the seen. He is both. Just as you enter beyond enlightenment into nothingness, there must be a possibility of coming out of nothingness back into form, back into existence—renewed, refreshed, luminous—on a totally different plane. In the East we have a conception of circles of existence and non-existence, just like day and night. Creation is followed by de-creation, everything goes into nothingness, just as day is followed by night and everything goes into darkness. And the period is going to be the same: as long as the creation is, so is the resting period going to be; and again there will be a creation of a higher order. And this will go on from eternity to eternity — creation, de-creation, creation, again de-creation—but each time the morning is more beautiful. Each dawn is more colorful, more alive; the birds are singing better, the flowers are bigger, with more fragrance. And the East has a tremendous courage of accepting the idea that this will go on forever and forever. There has never been any beginning, and there will be no end. It can be out of body experience near death, death means connection between body and consciousness is broken, you can not enter in same body again after death, it no longer remains suitable.