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@Aldo Marchand this is a REAL trap!!! You assume there is a YOU living life. That is incorrect! You are NOT LIVING life!!!! You ARE LIFE being lived by a "concoction of elements" that your person-hood is imagining currently of being "you" That right there is the big issue.... There is [insert concept*] living you, breathing you, walking you, speaking you... that imagined you * concept has been named: God, emptiness, nothingness, Higher Self, etc

We are the same thing: An empty space (Nothingness) where everything occurs (Everythingness).

Here's exactly how: Step #1: Have an enlightenment experience on Who am I? Step #2: Have an enlightenment experience on What am I? Step #3: Have an enlightenment experience on What is another? By the end of that process, you will have realized that you are nothing, and so is everyone else. You = Other = Nothingness Figure yourself out first before trying to unravel the puzzle of Another.

One of the great poins about enlightenment for me is feeling more responsable for the other people rather than carrying only about yourself. Reality is about Us not about me. Nothingness opens the door to everything as you are not only centered inside of your ego. The true self is about breaking the cage of animal mode and going to the scientific/spiritual discoveries through alot of observation and serious inspired work. For real improvements you need inspiration and faith in the future.@Pinocchio @Galyna @Emerald Wilkins @Kini @Ramu @Leo Gura (My little contribution here --> But i have alot of doubts about no freewill beacuse i'm a composer and creativity flows here, so i believe you have the true freedom of choice when you create unique things for all !)

There is one huge misconception that is concluded from that video that is easily made. Nothingness is still existing with the fact that everyone has their own unique expression. Personality is of the soul ~ Matt Kahn. The fact that we live as a whole seeing to look trough the eyes of a seperated being is a gift. It is not about getting rid of the personality but to transition to being emptiness in his own unique expression. Only you do not have different personalities, but only your authentic one. All enlightened persons have a personality. It would not be a healthy thing if everyone was the same, don't you think? This is is a really vital question you posted on this forum.

Personally, I think you are confused about this Enlightenment. In fact, we are all incarnated in body and we all gonna die, so this is not matter of choice. You are a chimp, whether you want it or not :). So you can forget all concepts about Enlightenment, Power of Now, "getting in touch with the nothingness" and the like. Spiritual awakening absolutely doesn't exclude working, achieving goals or just enjoying your daily life experiences. It has nothing to do with giving up your personal life to become a "spiritual person" whoever it may be. You can include for beginning Mindfulness practice in your life to become self-aware chimp and take very practical benefits of it, without making any exaggerated metaphysical/existential claims on nature of cosmos or life&death. "The quality of mind cultivated in vipassana is almost always referred to as “mindfulness,” and the literature on its psychological benefits is now substantial. There is nothing spooky about mindfulness. It is simply a state of clear, nonjudgmental, and undistracted attention to the contents of consciousness, whether pleasant or unpleasant. Cultivating this quality of mind has been shown to reduce pain, anxiety, and depression; improve cognitive function; and even produce changes in gray matter density in regions of the brain related to learning and memory, emotional regulation, and self-awareness."

Hello @Neuroticon You can be multi-talented and master many fields. Don't worry about that. You need to learn to align your talents, skills and abilities with your purposes. Step back and see the big picture of all your interests. Contemplate about it. Make a list of interests that are most dear to you. Does one stick up more than the others? Self-improvement is always an improvement of something substantial that you consider part of you (or an extension of yourself). (When self is "nothingness", than there is no sense in improving it, right? So we improve and manage all the things we are creating, are connected to or surrounded by :-)) When you have a dream or a life purpose, you will know which of those parts you want to utilize, what you need to upgrade and master. You should commit to a purpose, so all your talents and abilities are focused. Then you will improve as you go. This doesn't mean that you should shut your eyes to new possibilities. You can also upgrade your dreams, goals and purposes. Spmetimes a new door opens and changes a whole lot of our previous outlook. Just don't lose yourself in too many tasks at one given time. Master the pieces one at a time. That's the way masterpieces are born. ;-) Chris

Hi everyone, I just had some questions on Leo's most recent video "The Enlightened Self - A Description Of Your Existential Nature." I'd love to hear any ideas, and any points I make I would love to be proved wrong in! First up, how can we say that we are the "nothingness"? I can perhaps understand there is something outside what I can ever experience, but I would say that I am still experience. I reckon (or reckoned before the video at least) that experience is derived from the "nothingness", but how can someone say, "I am the nothingness". Are we not a small derivative part of the "nothingness"? It seems to me like an ant saying "I am the colony" when instead he is a small part of the colony (which consists of other ants, but also the eggs, also the ground, also the tunnels, etc). I would perhaps argue that there is more to us than our experience sure, and this is almost certainly outside time, but I wouldn't say it is accurate to call ourselves "it" - but instead we are a result of "it". When I die, surely I am dead, and the universe just continues on without me entirely? No part of me, not even my "true self" can survive a gun shot to the brain right? As another example, when I am doing work and I am in a state of flow, "I" do not exist for hours and there is no consciousness as such - but whatever does exist there will end after a gunshot to the head right; that would suggest the "true self" still exists in the brain? And the last example here, if someone is meditating and in a TOTAL state of enlightenment, would he remain after a gunshot to the head? Or would that "nothingness" and the "true self" still exist? [Sorry for the gun shot to the head example the whole time, but it's useful in this thought experiment] Second, why the choice of the word "nothingness"? Words are all about definitions, and isn't nothingness by definition nothing and non existant (non existant from any perspective)? Wouldn't a better choice of words be a "singularity" (a point outside space and time) or the "no concept" (outside concepts)? Does anyone know any other words or phrases that you prefer? Third, why do people who are people who experienced enlightenment so sure they are correct? Why do they think that their new insight isn't just another illusion? Or if not an illusion, isn't the experience still in the mind? Or is the enlightenment "experience" actually escaping experience and the brain itself, and thus totally outside the brain? Would a MRI of the brain for instance show the enlightenment experience, or does the whole process of enlightenment actually occur outside the neurochemistry of the brain? Last up I would actually like to say I found the huge similarities to what Leo was saying with quantum physics hugely impressive. The below channel on YouTube attempts to provide a visualization of it. If anyone has a few spare hours it's very interesting. There are themes of the singularity = 0 = infinity, deeper levels of reality, and the ultimate illusion of our lives. In my interpretation though, it would suggest we are fundamentally trapped in our existance of 3D snapshots of a 4D spacetime worldline, and we are not the singularity as such, but rather we are a derivative of it.

@Pinocchio I define Nirvana as Nothingness.

Exactly how vast is this nothingess, and where does it end? What is beyond the nothingness? That space suit analogy help me disidentify with the body for a a moment.

You assume there are "other persons." You may want to re-examine that assumption in your direct experience. No, you won't be able to experience. Experience is unique to your particular mind and body. The Truth (nothingness, as you and Leo call it) is not unique. It's the substratum behind experience that's always been there for eternity. It's just not any particular quality. I have an analogy that may help. You experience the world through a space suit that comes with various attributes: height, weight, looks, intelligence, personality... Sorry to say, but one day, that space suit will cease to function, and it will break down. What remains? Just plain old space. You currently identify with your space suit instead of the space, what you've been for eternity. While it may seem like you lose something when the space suit breaks down, you never lost anything. You were always the space pervading the space suit. Enlightenment work is the process of dis-identifying with the space suit and remembering that you're space. Again, re-examine your assumption of there being "others". What if your experience was all the experience there ever was?

Religion or rather Mythology is a great language to use if you understand it and don't just go by the dogmatic version. The best part about it is that the symbols go straight to the subconscious mind, no scientific or psychological description or explanation of things will ever do that no matter how well told it is, so if you for example listen to Leos videos your left brain might start to grasp what he's saying really well but you will still be hold back in every aspect by your subconscious mind. This is probably one of the biggest reasons why meditation is so damn important but if you smash the pillars of Religion and Science together you'd probably only need half the meditation to reach the same level of enlightenment (or something to that effect). Rituals is the best shit ever if you want to change your subconscious btw, haven't tried it myself yet but it's pretty obvious, I've been told to read "kabbalah magic and the great work of self-transformation" by a guy who seam to really understand shit on youtube so if anyone is interested check it out. If you say that you will live your life by nothingness and try to explain that to your red brain you gonna fail, if you say that you will live as a Brother or Sister of Christ and become a born again christian, you gonna fail, if you use all of those symbols and understand the meaning behind them you will progress even if it still take some time you will move forward because your subconscious understand that shit far better than your red, left brain do. On the top of the blue pillar on the Kabbalistic tree of life lies Chokmah - Wisdom, this is to see the reflection of the Christ which is the Hidden one - The Nothingness that you are in everything and everyone around you (as strange at that sound seeing how it's nothing but you'll probably understand what I mean one day if you keep at it, it's the "shining light on things" meaning that Leo talked about in the latest video). The blue pillar is the sub-conscious that see everything as one and there's no time or space in that part of the mind. PS. The Book of Enoch say that the Elect will one day come down even on Mount Sinai which is the moon or human consciousness, that is the true enlightenment The Demiurge https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g89tzZq98tw

The idea is that you are everything, and you do experience everything. The issue is that you don't realize your assumption that you are a small person in an infinitely vast universe. You take for granted that you are a small element in a larger existence. This is getting caught up in the illusion. But it is equally likely that your perceptions in the present moment are existence itself. So you have the content of your thoughts and the content of your five senses. These occur in the field of awareness that is nothingness. Imagine that there is nothing more than what you perceive right now in the present moment. Past is just a thought. Future is just a thought.

That is very relatable. I'm bought into the idea of nothingness (which is already a thing if You make an idea of it) from OSHO's books and every time at the beginning of meditating session (strong determination sitting if You will) my mind is like a part of an atom, constantly moving in all directions, I have all that concepts of my ankles touching the ground inducing very painful, uncomfrotable feeling I can sense even before starting. I have a concept about what will happen to my body, what I will feel and how big Resistance I will feel against it. The more I sit, the harder those thoughts are hitting me until I reach a point of submission, letting go of an idea that I AM, I FEEL, I HAVE A MIND AND THOUGHTS. There is noone to feel the pain. There is no mind to start thought process. What happens I cannot fully describe. Think of it as "I" no longer exists. The mind is off. Thoughts are off. That kind of insight is short in terms of time, but is like a touch of the eternity. Plus after the session going back into normal standing possition takes me good 3 minutes, because of the pain I feel, but how hard I laugh doing it is remarkable - I have no idea why I'm laughing, someone please tell me

@Akim great points, I am very interested in seeing a reply. @Ramu The ego is definitely a construct of the mind (and so is my concept of my brain), but after killing off the ego entirely there is still experience/awareness. So I don't think losing your ego makes you understand nothingness; I think that is another step in enlightenment. "nothingness" seems to be outside experience too (that's what Leo indicates in his videos) and I agree there must be something outside our experience. We can call it the "universe" or "nothingness". BUT, I see no indication why we are the entire nothingness then, why can't we be an epiphenomenon of the "nothingness", just like mass is a phenomenon of no-mass lightspeed particles? Or we could be a finite part of the infinite nothingness. To me we seem to be derived from the nothingness, or to be a very small part of the nothingness. I would love insight as to why my perspective is incomplete or flawed however

@Leo Gura Let me express my doubts, I think it will be beneficial and I don't necessarily think that you are wrong, I just want to look at it from other perspective. But what is wrong with phenomena of the world, like experiences, smells, thoughts, concepts, how are they a prison? There would not be anything like that after death. This flower only exist as a brain activity, this smell or thought is only exist as a brain activity. So you are saying that after death there would not be "nothing", instead there would be a timeless subtle "nothingness" that exist now but we are distracted by phenomena? What if that "nothingness-awareness" is just a small feature of reality that lead to interesting things in human brain, because human brain integrates tons of information but there are also other examples of "nothingness-awareness" that are boring and featureless, and our human existence is very rare and lucky in some sense? What if concepts of self and things are good and useful? What if good enlightened people are in some sense build on foundation of concepts with more subtle and developed processes above them and not build on removal of all concepts, may be they just go unconscious? What if "nothingness-awareness" is not a source but just a product of the brain or something else? What if reality is much more complex than space, time, existence, phenomena? We conceptualized even quantum mechanics with invented mathematical language and built wonderful things. What if we can conceptualize enlightenment, why not? What if probability of ultimately breaking something in your psyche is much greater that developing it? What if that process of self inquiry and meditation is dangerous and can lead to mental problems in some people? There are examples http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/features/meditation-is-touted-as-a-cure-for-mental-instability-but-can-it-actually-be-bad-for-you-10268291.html http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2016/jan/23/is-mindfulness-making-us-ill#comment-67355752 What if you need a good teacher for doing this work? How can you find a good teacher and be sure that he is not delusional himself and subconsciously or even consciously motivated by ulterior motives? What if it is all just delusions and enlightened people just have delusions more pleasant to experience? What if enlightenment doesn't exist, it is a delusion and the most dangerous and persistent one in the world, because it promises more than anything else in the world, to end suffering, which gives mind infinite reasons to defend it?

I like your idea of a fractal, but why do you think this is the case? "you can't be the experience without being the nothingness" - my point was aren't we a part of the nothingness then, we are not all of the infinite nothingness itself. "Can't subdivide infinity" why not? humans don't understand infinity, so we cannot make claims either way? "mathematicians are clueless" - I'm not sure about that, and don't think mathemiticians are claiming you can subdivide infinity either... in fact I've heard many mathemeticians admit the existance of infinity is totally philosophical and it is used more as a tool in maths than a hard fact. BUT infinity does have finite parts to it, that is fact. all numbers from 0 to infinity include the set of numbers from 0 - 5 (even though there infinite real numbers between 0 and 5, plus we're not even considering imaginary numbers yet!) "To be the result of something else is to be in the illusion of finiteness and duality." What is the illusion of finiteness and duality? How do we know there isn't the illusion of infiniteness and non-duality? And why do you think this statement is true? "You can know this to be strictly illusory and having no independent existence at all because it is logically absurd." What is "this"? finiteness and duality? Again, why do you think so? The gun, brains, time and space could all be finite, but why does that mean they are not real? [I understand the concept of the brain only exists in my reality as a concept, but that doesn't mean there isn't something out there corresponding to my concept of the gun] "There is only absolute infinity? Why do you think that? Maybe for all we know something else exists, not finite, not infinite, but something else (ie. a singularity). Sorry if I come across as critisizing. I'm just trying to understand rather than just believing anyone's word for it. Belief won't help one understand a concept as we all know.

I guess when "you" die, you automatically become what you've always been. Realizing that there is no true separation between life and death (speaking from your true existential nature) is what enlightenment really is. That's why enlightened people aren't afraid of death. It's like realizing that everything you know and everything you experience right now in existence is actually just formed into the nothingness, which exists when you die. That's how I see it ...

Thoughts appear randomly, so does that mean they are my thoughts? They seem to come out of nowhere, which is odd, I can deliberately however think of a thought over and over which makes me believe that I have some control over my thoughts, but according to Leo I have no control over my thoughts. It seems like that is not so, but I am open to the possibility of me being wrong as usual, after all, this wouldn't be the first time. Like Leo has said a thought appears and internally disappears, for me at least, but for everybody else does it work this way? I don't know... Perhaps it does perhaps it doesn't, but for me a thought appears and than returns into the "nothingness" unless I conjure it up by thinking of it purposely. It is eerie to me to think that my thoughts are not my own however due to it appearing out of no where, they just happen sometimes out of a reaction of fear, and what not. I think my thoughts are a product of feelings perhaps. I first feel than I think it would seem with fear, now I am wondering whether or not that goes for any one emotion I think. I am curious as if someone can feel a mixture of emotions, like fear and anger at the same time...maybe emotions are like a cocktail of some sort, I think that would seem to be the case, or maybe I feel one emotion after another I'm not sure because I'm not the emotional guy, but anyways about thoughts... So if I believe my thoughts are a product of my feelings, than what produced those feelings? ......I read a book that said that feelings are the truth but that the feelings get deluded by thought and are masqueraded as a feeling, however, I am thinking that this is not so because, I have dis attached my thoughts and feelings to myself I think to a certain degree. Either way I have concluded from writing this that feelings have a source of some sort perhaps, but what is that source possibly? I am thinking that this source has to have a point to where it started, where else could it derive from? Where it all began... Maybe.. Nothing was unaware of itself, like we were when we were young, and was born of non existence, but how can something exist without something existing? Perhaps the need to exist because not existing. I have heard life has no beginning and no end, but I guess in order for something to exist forever must have no beginning or end, for if there is a beginning for something, it must have an end and not exist. UNLESS... this one theory I heard was correct...That the universe is evolving to become God as a singular being. Maybe god is made in our image and instead of his. Along the lines of god didn't create the universe, the universe created god. Maybe God has a beginning and an end for God is created by the universe, and God is finite, but powerful in this universe. Maybe God isn't the ultimate source of all.... anyways..I tire of this...just wanted to get some of this off my head and wanted to share some of my thoughts to sort out my thoughts, and it ended up in a big circle...lol..PHILOSOPHY FOR YAH Cya

Consider this: when the brain is totally destroyed, what remains? "Nothingness" yes? Fine. But wouldn't that indicate that the true self is derivative and lives "inside" the nothingness, rather than that we are the nothingness itself? In the same way that one would say, experience isn't the brain - but it lives inside the brain and it is created by the brain?

You want to know the absolute truth about Good and Evil that is not up for debate? Well it exist but "I can only show you the door, you'll have to go through it yourself". It's all in the original Sin, how we ate from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil and divided the light so we could only see everything and anything as either "good" or "evil" but that's not how the world actually work. If you ever read any religious texts and especially the bible (mainly the old testament) this is what the entire book is all about. It's the Jewis Law and everything, it's putting one pillar against another, it's not looking at any of the causes but ever only focus on the result, it's to constantly lie to yourself and everyone else in order to seam "good" in the eyes of others, it's to always seek "pleasures" and avoid "pain" it is the ego itself. Leo have made a great video on Karma and that's really what it comes down to, that Evil = Lying to oneself. That's not the version that the law give you, the law tell you to constantly hide yourself from yourself and all others, for example if you see a hot girl you're not allowed to look at her and if you feel bad you need to put up a smile and when you feel mad (or excited or whatever) you're not allowed to curse and when you walk around among the zombies on the street your not allowed to talk openly with anyone like they are all part of the same "nothingness" or whatever like you and we're all one and when someone is lying to themselves you need to make sure not to hurt their ego... The list goes on and on but this is the evil of the world that we all simply have to "put up with", it can be sickening but this is what we got right now. It's also where all of our fears come from - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BJWcrMdzMLs&list=PLAzuNEPIFEpysV8i818Kz3dKcQ_WGJOVp&index=33

The goal of this journal is to write exactly how the experience with the unknown was from my point of view and I will try to keep it as simple as possible. It all started about one year ago when after yet another break up everything changed. Before this I was a happy go lucky alcohol/sex/drugs addicted with almost no notion about spirituality and in total denial of it. My life was all about partying, clubs, alcohol, soft core drugs, sex, and running away from committed relationships, which was my way of living for the past 18 to 20 years. Getting back to one year ago; during that time I’ve started reading about Dialectical Behavior Therapy and mindfulness meditation looking for a fix for the bad feelings that come up after a break up. First I’ve tried to stay still and watch the thoughts but they were too fast and I was getting lost in them almost instantly so no good, then I read somewhere about staying relaxed and noticing the feelings that arise and just watching them without trying to judge. So I started doing that and it was working, it got me hooked. I remember I was coming home from work and staying watching what arises in the body for hours every day. It was a mix of fear, shame, anger, sexual energy and lots of emotional pain. I was practicing this for a couple of months when one morning I was in such emotional pain that I remember saying in my mind I surrender, I give up and then something strange happened, a energy out of nowhere started moving in my head mostly in the right part and the front of the head. I remember I had some panic attacks about it because my mind didn’t know what was happening until I read about kundalini energy and I’ve calmed down when I saw it was described somehow how I was experiencing mine. I’ve started observing this energy and how it was growing, from my head it expanded to the heart area and then the gut area. The mix of feelings became just pain; I was feeling pain in the heart area and gut area and this pain stayed for another 8 months roughly and then it stopped but the energy remained. During all this time the mind chattered away story after story and I was getting lost in them often but I didn’t try to stop it, I just let it do its thing. What kept me sane during all this time was a sense of blind trust that all is for my own good and listening to Eckhart Tolle and Sadhguru. About 3 or 4 months ago the thoughts started slowing down naturally to the point where now is very easy not to get lost in them. During the past 3 months I’ve started going to acupuncture weekly to help with the process. About 1 week ago I’ve got the experience of nothingness for about 5 minutes and it scared the shit out of me. No body, no mind, no sensation just a watcher of what is outside.

Essentially, stabilizing the seeing through the practice of "headlessness". "Now the "hard" part begins, which is the repetition of this seeing-into-Nothingness till the seeing becomes quite natural and nothing special at all ; till, whatever one is doing, it's clear that nobody's here doing it. In other words, till one's whole life is structured round the double-barbed arrow of attention, simultaneously pointing in at the Void and out at what fills it. Such is the essential meditation of this Way." On Having No Head, p.50

I tried this, and at first I wanted to say, that what remains in such case - are only experience and awareness. There is experience and there is some emptiness, which is lack of experience. But then I noticed, that the lack of experience is an experience also. There is no awareness. There is no true emptiness. What happens - is constant experience after experience after experience. Also, the question "Who or what am I out of monkey mind?" is kind of wrong. The question "Who or what percieves?" is kind of wrong too. There is only experience. Nothingness or awareness - they are not "there". I kind of feel that there is no sense in trying to find them. Find what? Another experience? Experience is the only thing you can find (searching, finding, not finding, realization, etc. - all are experiences which have same equal value). You can make a conclusion that if you are not experience, then you are nothing. But this will be just another experience (in whatever form it manifests - intellectial conclusion or "divine realization"). You can think about it, or again, you can even exprience some "divine realization", but still this is not it. You cannot find nothingness (= True self, Truth, Awareness, etc.). You also cannot experience it. Find what? Eperience what? That, what is not "something"? Finding, realizing and experiencing can only occur to what is "something". Can emptiness experience itself? I don't know. Now I think that I don't know anything about enlightenment or nothingness. I cannot imagine what it is. I am not skeptical. On the contrary, I feel some kind of progress. I want to continue doing all the practices, searching and reading. Hm. Right now I feel lost and disappointed. I am not sure in anything. I am not sure in this message and in all that "I have understood" for the last couple of years.

We have some kind of beliefs that we call knowledge, being this way most close possible to what we call truth Contemplating the nothingness is crucial to reorganize some data we acquire along life. I agree that we try to organize our vague beliefs planting them in the sand of our ego. Investing on the self is like sowing seeds into the abysmn.