Search the Community

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.

@TruthSeeker I'm quite aware that this is my ego talking, but truthfully I'm pretty sure my "spiritual" journey has gone full circle. I've got over 25 years of experience in searching for "truth" and I'm pretty sure I've figured it out (in my reality anyway). The only thing left for me nowadays is share my insight with those that care to listen and perhaps attempt to get these sensations of "nothingness" that others have received when meditating. For some reason I've never felt this to be necessary for me. I guess I have enough patients to wait until the train stops rather than jumping on while it's still moving. Fortunately for me I've discovered complete contentment and peace within my life and that's all I've ever really desired.

My head hurts. Maybe it's true that the true self is nothingness, but on a practical level, we live in this world. I do have drives and desires to live in a certain way, and they are faced with real consequences. I'm not even talking about being labeled as weird, which I can handle, but flat out ostracized, arrested, attacked or killed. Consider homosexuals from the less accepting 1960s. They had internal drives to live a certain lifestyle. These people were hated, physically assaulted, arrested, and killed. So far what I'm getting from this conversation is that a: people that pretended to be straight and hid their homosexual desires were catering solely to their ego's social desires to be admired; b: nothing bad can really happen if they were truly gay and lived as such; and c: they're not really gay, as that was just an identity illusion - their real problem is that they were not aligned with reality. Is reality the true self? Society? Or a third yet unnamed thing? I respect all of these answers you've given, and I feel like there's truth in them, but I am as of yet completely confused. Consider this post a plea for clarification.

@brianman3 The true point here is that each person can have a different image of ourselves. We live in falsehood where the ego is and empty identity that we present to others. I discovered that the trulself is nothingness, so all authentic selfs touch each other at this point.

Ok...lets clarify something. If I wanted to right now lets say fly or split the ocean in half and make there be dry land in the middle so I can walk through or do anything else that can alter nature in crazy ways...I am NOT able to do that. The field of infinite nothingness that we're calling God IS able to do anything. If he wanted he could make the sun stay out for 48 hours or do any of the stuff I just mentioned before. If you say that he CANT do those things then he's not infinite, he has limitations...infinite means no limitations. I have limitations. When we say that "I" am "God" there is some truth in that, but its not the whole picture. The real God, the true infinite "nothingness" (somehow) has willed it that there should be this physical world with humans who have some limitations. We are only God in the sense that God is infinite so we sort of "Overlap" with him (in a spiritual way) But we are NOT him 100%. Again because if we were him we wouldnt have limitations. God has NO limitations. God has no limitations!!! Period . I am not talking about a guy in the sky with a beard or crazy stuff like that. Do you agree that if God (how ever you define that word...me, you, infinite nothingness) wanted to right now, he could turn every piece of wood in the world right now into Gold? Yes or no?

Lol, man, you ask some silly questions. God is a field of infinite Nothingness. This Nothingness exists always. And you are that Nothingness. Hence not only is God immortal, you are immortal cause you're "him". Before any humans existed, did God not exist?

Here's a paradox for ya... You actually DO exist (as Nothingness) and you ARE the source and creator of all reality, so in this sense you control and will everything into being! Of course, this is a very different "YOU" that we're talking about than the present you you believe you are. We are now talking about you as God. And "God's" will is a very different sort of thing than your personal will (which is basically just monkey mind imitating God).

@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.

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!

"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!

@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