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@Pinocchio You are mistaken. You should listen to him more carefully and to more of his material. He talks about many things, but he talks about no-self a lot and he's certainly realized it himself many times over. His descriptions of the activity of somethingness arising out of Nothingness are profound and clearly come from direct experience. He's actually gone far deeper, I would guess, than most other enlightened folk like Jed. Because 40 years of mindfulness practice will develop in you a resolving power that no ordinary enlightened person will have. Not only will you realize no-self, but you will actually go much deeper, seeing how form arises out of Nothingness on a micro, moment-by-moment level.

Because you can study the esoteric core of every religious tradition, from Judaism to Christianity to Islam and you clearly see mystics describing the EXACT same phenomena of enlightenment, spirit, consciousness, no-self, God, Nothingness, and divine love. The convergence is uncanny. Christian and Jewish mystics describe God as Nothingness, just like Buddhists do. Old school prayer = contemplation = merging with God = Samadhi = enlightenment

Thank you @Natasha, great thoughts. I should learn more about mindfulness. Could you point me to Leo's video about nothingness? I think I might've missed it.

I used to have a fear of abandonment until I got awakened. That is when I saw through the illusion of 'self', there was no one to be abandoned. That fear is conditioned and everything that is created by your mind is an illusion - thoughts, concepts, memories, etc. When you get awakened, you recognize reality as it is, no labels, no filters, no thoughts, just a play of forms/ energy. Your body is a form, so are your thoughts. Also, recognize the other people as such. They are, as Leo calls it, 'nothingness' as well as you are and 'nothingness' cannot abandon 'nothingness', because it's one and the same.

Awareness is Nothingness. It's what you actually are. An empty, formless, infinite transparent field. It cannot be seen or thought. It is the empty space within which reality occurs and your body/mind exist in. Awareness = consciousness = spirit = God = you To get a real clear taste of it requires an enlightenment experience. In that moment you see everything as made out of awareness.

@Saitama looking/awareness is the only path, but asking can be of use because it can set things in perspective to each other. If you hear a pointing, check it for yourself. Truth is the nothingness that holds the polarities together. Don't try and understand.. sense it.

"Enlightenment" is even beyond nothingness, it's everything and nothing at the same time, I heard one Zen master say: "I love paradoxes" I embrace them. So that became my focus. Reality is all these different Qualities of experience that we are aware of. The ultimate truth is beyond these qualities and yet it enables these qualities to exist. So the general direction that one should pursue is the "letting go" of control (the nothingness) and being aware of all the qualities that one can be aware of, even the "bad" ones (existence arising from the nothingness). And also take nothing I say as true, see for yourself. Namaste.

It's a lot simpler to just assume that there is no reason for nothingness to "create" existence -- without falling into the trap of nihilism (i.e. avoid the "OMG, everything is meaningless. I feel empty and depressed." at any cost) Looking for meaning is a series of big hairballs, best to just cough them all out . At this point, I'm perfectly happy with words such as "isness" or suchness" , "thisness." There doesn't have to be a reason for existence - it's a bad assumption to think there must be a reason. It's also a bad assumption to think that there was a beginning to all this.

That is very much possible,and yogis have achieved this for centuries.The ego wants you to believe that it is not possible so as to protect its own existence.Part of what this guy said is really good,but at one point he made the mistake of thinking the ego to be the animation software.But we are infact not the hardware,the OS or the program but total nothingness.What is there is really the hardware which is not what we are.I am not my body.Infact I am just nothingness that came out of nothingness to interact with other nothingness.Pretty abstract and indescribable unless we experience it ourselves

It does involve deconstruction and unwiring, but the actual enlightenment itself is being. You become what you actually are, rather than what you presently believe you are. You are an infinite field of awareness within which all of life occurs. This field cannot be seen. It is not an object. It has no shape. It has no location. It is self-aware Nothingness. And you are it.

This is a quote from leo: Seems that this state of enlightenment can be achieved (after lots of hard work) even in our normal day to day life. Meaning when your hanging out with a friend you can realize that you and him/her are really one. You are both nothingness you are both one with reality etc etc. I think the goal its to achieve these really high states of awareness and then live with that awareness in our everyday lives...when we eat, talk with friends, have sex, write on the leo forum, when we crack our knuckles...we can all strive to live with this higher state of awareness even when we are doing every day normal things. BAM!

The following is a quote from Leo's video "All religions explained in one video" I think this is a really awesome idea. I want to start this thread to really expand on this idea. Specially that this "nothingness" which encompasses all of reality, is the source of all reality. Or like Leo put it "this nothingness is a unity, it’s a One" So if we take that as the ultimate truth, then that means everything in the universe (apples, clouds, water, the ocean, mars, bubbles, fingernails, fire, wind, protons, thoughts, ideas, desire/will etc etc etc) all came from this nothingness. "He" (the nothingness) is the source of all those things. Ok, now lets think about this. That means that this nothingness created all these things (everything in existence). That means every enjoyable experience that you've ever had and will have in this world and everything you see in this world is all unity with this nothingness and sourced in this nothingness. So given all of that as absolute truth. I guess we can ask "why did he do it?" Obviously if this nothingness is the source of all reality, he must of had a reason for doing it. Think about it...image you had the ability to create an entire universe and an entire reality with trees and planets and humans etc etc (what if God was one of us...just a stranger on a bus....) why would you do it? Just for fun? Why would you create these little humans with brains and eyes and tastebuds and genitals and the entire universe etc etc...WHY DID "HE" (the nothingness) DO IT? Before I start postulating ideas as to why he did it, (And again i'm assuming that there IS a reason) let's realize that whatever the reason issss, it wasn't made known to us. Meaning, this nothingness never "communicated" with us and told us why "he" decided to be the source of all of reality. So we'll also have to examine why it's been kept a a secret from us. Ok, now for what I think it the reason. I think the reason for "him" having "created" all of reality (including "all of us") was in order to give us "humans" pleasure. Think about it. Look around the world. There's this thing called food. Theres lots of different types of food. Hundreds of different species of fruits and veggies and tins of different flavors and spices and meats and fish and chicken and duck and thousands of ways of preparing all of them. Isn't it awesome? Don't we all really enjoy eating good things? Now image that the world as we know it had no food. No apples, no oranges, no fruit smoothies in the morning, no veggies, no meat, chicken fish or any spices....nothing! And in order to stay alive, all we had to do was eat this weird type of rock which tasted like dirt, but gave us ALL the nutrients we needed to be healthy and function great. That means three times a day (or once a day...whatever) every person would just eat this rock and that would be all he would need to ingest for the day to be completely 200% healthy. If you've imagined this, now snap back into reality. Realize that reality could have easily been like that. If we're taking it as absolute truth that this nothingness is the source of all reality. Then that includes food and all of their delicious flavors. Ok back to the point. Why did "He" (this nothingness) "create" all of reality. So it makes sense to me to suggest that he did it in order to give us "humans" pleasure. We can see this from the very fact that in our reality exists this thing called food with its many flavors and "He" could have just have easily created reality with thos little rocks. The same ideas holds for SEX. Obviously ONE of the purposes of sex is the continuation of our species. If no one had sex for 100 years...bye bye humans. But we can again go ahead and imagine that sex wasn't pleasureful (or much less pleasureful). This "nothingness" obviously "has some desire" to give us pleasure from the fact that he "created" this reality with so many ways for us to achieve high levels of pleasure. Now, first of all i apologize for the long post. Thank you, if you've read this far. Ok for all of you who do meditation and all that good stuff. Maybe try this: The next time you eat something. Right before you put it in your mouth, just think for a second or two that the pleasure your'e about to experience is a direct result of the fact that this "nothingness" "decided" to create a reality where you should constantly achieve high levels of pleasure throughout the day. Also try during the actual chewing to continue to "meditate" this fact. This should bring all of our minds very close to "becoming one" with this nothingness. I think that doing this is a good way to achieve enlightenment. Again this is all based upon this absolute truth that this "nothingness" is the source of EVERYTHING and ALL OF REALITY....everything. Thank you for reading!

@Ramu I am no expert and I haven't "opened it" I would say that it would be good for you to read about it, my dad knows a great deal on yogic meditation, he says that the chakra connects us to our guru, and I tend to believe so too. But I think that's just a metaphor (I think the guru is just the "real self", wholeness or as Leo would put it "nothingness"(or at least a real guru would try to make us see that)) either way, just focus on perceiving reality, feel that location for what it really is, without worrying or trying to get to a goal, that would be the real approach to me. But still, I'm no expert, if you want deeper insights, I would suggest for you to read Swami Satyananda, or Niranjananda approach to chakras.

6th day on pure water. Tonight I got hungry. I have read so many words.. what is the meaning of all this talk? The books, the quotes, the enlightenment.... the minds spinning, the versatility, the cockiness.. the ME... and the You.. and the They.. and the Us.. Seems so out this world. My world. Mind doesn't want to linger in the past anymore. Mind doesn't want more words. Mind is playing around silly... The nothingness ...the emptiness, the I am... being trashed by fingers typing on a piece of plastic.. I love this play. I love these people. I love you God Thank you I love you

Hey Guys, So nice to read you and realize that I am not the one asking all these questions :). IMHO, yes, that is hard to verify the Truth. We can speculate about it over and over again, but it would be just another mind game. Pondering about it for so many years, actually, did not take me anywhere. My questions are exhausted now. What am I? Really, I guess NOTHING. Nothing is just a word, label. Probably not even that. Leo, I really loved your words in one video, you said: " Everything couched into Nothingness" This is my favorite phrase, I always keep these words in my mind, trying to contemplate them deeper.

Thoughts arise from the nothingness and turn into nothingness. It might look like a certain "environment" puts thoughts into your head but you really need to question that belief. It goes far deeper than that. You can be in a slum with kids with no education and you will still have magnitude of thoughts running in your head.

"In nothingness reveals infinity" - actually. Made this one up to remember the 4 letters on Jesus's cross INRI. I'm an atheist but I just like to know things. " This above all to thine own self be true" - Polonius in Hamlet. the supposed true meaning of this quote is not as eloquent as it sounds, but I like how it sounds anyways. and my favorite " Time is the school in which we learn, time is the fire in which we burn" -Delmore Schwartz

Science (scientific method) is not by any mean the absolute way of life. It is a tool created by humans, an imperfect way to explain and help us understand the world and life around us. It isn't the life itself. Try to explain nothingness and it will become a concept. We created the code, the words and numbers to conceptualize and discover the applicable laws and relations between them. Yes they work. Yes, we can evaluate our comprehension and cognition through them. But the limit is the code itself.

good points @Ayla @Arik Because I think alot about the purpose of it all, and to be honest I dont see any purpose to life more than just the being. All other purposes are ego thinking, man made. But on the other hand we have this that I call "the human protocol", we gotta have that built into us. How to act human, i mean, a lion gotta have its protocol to act the way its supposed to do. or am I wrong on that? Then im thinking,, if all comes from this "nothingness" and we cant control it the way we want. why bother? Thoughts come from nothingness so our realisation about enlightment and all must come naturally beacause thats the new step of evolution. Its getting us where we need to go. Sometimes I get so scared thinking about where we actually are, like really, where are we? and where am i going? If not on this earth for example then where? Those thoughts has scared me since i was very young. I remember first time, i got so scared I just fell to the floor, trying to grip my mind togheter. It happend in just a few seconds then it was like my ego came back and "saved" me. I have had this a few more times after that, but I really have to go meta on it. we think we humans are special in a way more than other species but we are not, its just the ego telling us. Hope you have my bad english in consideration when reading this (:

I do breathing exercises and then meditate for a short time. The moment I focus on my breath , I am in present. If at all thoughts come, I don't resist. Ultimately I reach a stage where a dot kind of a thing leads me forward into nothingness. Thereafter I feel as if I am watching myself meditate. Do share your experiences as well. Thank you!

So I'm thinking basically that what you need to do to reach your higher self is think about nothing for a very long time without the "nothingness" being interrupted?

Attempting to find that magic pill to get me to be enlightened and at the same time recognizing that there isn't one. Wanting to understand Leo's take on things with regard to love. If there is not love, how can anything be real? When I explore Who am I? and others ponders of "going meta" I have a conflict that comes up. I am not religious, although I have been in and out of church's and currently seeking a spiritual understanding. Is that a story in the abstract? Is it not real the overwhelmingly impressive feeling of love? I had an encounter, something different than our traditional story encounters. This was unique. It was undeniable, and felt more real than almost anything! Although I recognize my inner voices tried to hush it, and downgrade it etc. This experience is very hard to describe with in the confines of words. It was an extremely strong feeling of love, this was nothing like the worldly love I have felt throughout my life, like love of family, husband/ wife love, not like that. More unconditional, and BIGGER. It was also an experience of understanding. IT was a HUGE reality that everything is in fact perfect. I also understood that I am simply able to not see it outside of this experience I had and I even understood that is was currently impossible for me to understand it, even though I was blessed (sorry don't have another word here) to have the glimpse of it. If it is not spiritual than what is it? I got the sense I have a mission, a time sensitive one at that. That I choose to be here. Not me- the essence of me, I actually knew what I was getting myself into. All these questions, all this suffering. Ok- so I AM seeking the truth. This will be an outlet of my discoveries, if I am so allowed to do so freely.

Let me clear something up for you. I think you're under the impression that enlightenment is some sort of fleeting experience. Upon realizing Truth ("nothingness"), you may experience bliss, heavenly feelings, kundalini, joy, gratitude, full enjoyment of the present moment, still mind, and a bunch of other side effects. But those experiences are not Truth itself. How could Truth feel like heaven if it's nothing at all? The Truth itself is very very subtle. It's also not an experience, because all experiences are fleeting, and Truth is eternal. You don't have to "extend the time of being in such a state" to abide in Truth if you're fully enlightened. I'd rather not go into full detail on the "how-to get enlightened" - you may want to buy Leo's book list or watch his videos to help you with that. What's so heaven-inducing about Truth is that at that moment, you realize you are not the body, the ego, or any other ephemeral things in your experience. What a friggin' relief! How do you know when or if enlightenment happens? I can only give you a crappy analogy. How do you know if you've orgasmed during sex? You just know.

I had a lot of experiences where the mind was still, so no monkey mind during that time. And sometimes it kind of feels like you are enlightend (you enjoy the present moment fully and dont think about anything else). But Leo once said that "Nothingness" feels like heaven. And I can´t remember feeling that good. It always feels nice to be fully present but not THAT good. My question: Did I have temporary enlightenment experiences? It is no permanent state for me yet, but how does one know when or if enlightenment happens? Is it just the absence of monkey mind and enjoying the moment, or is there more to it? Because that I had a lot, and even people who know nothing about this topic have it all the time. For example when they are having fun with their friends, starring in the eyes of you loved one and so on. I thought this was it, but I am not sure if there is more to discover, or if I just have to extend the time of being in such a state. Thanks for answering and have a great moment

When you say "nothing is supernatural" what do you mean? Nothingness ou no-thing. anyways, I like your point of view. It shows a deep look into life. Maybe we should go deeper!