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Other than the behavior of vegans towards meat eaters which might show they are on the same sentience level as the precious animals they cry about you eating these are not examples of morality. You're using morality as just "this is better in x way." It definitely is relative. But this doesn't mean that someone who uses temporary justifications for what they do is even nearly as moral as someone with a moral system.

@Da77en Yes for me anyway. Once fear goes the fear of death goes and then when things you would normally perceive as scary because of dying turns to weird because you know you cant die but you don't know whats going to happen. Reality is like a science experiment that gained sentience and looked at itself.

Your questions are Koans. Only Full Enlightenment will answer them. That will become clear once you wake up. Some pointers: You are not the "I AM". That perceiver-illusion ("I am") is an illusion arising within the Real You, Infinite Reality itself, before which the states (of waking, dreaming or deep sleep, as human, or as animal with no "I Am", or ET, and ETs n+1) "roll" before. That "I am", or the perceiver, or awareness of awareness, is the last illusion before "the" Totality realizes itself. Real You HAS to be constant. Who would witness Real You popping into existence if it was not constant? Right, Real You, Infinite Reality/Consciousness. And same with the (imagined) dis-appearance of you, or "death". Anything changing is just a modulation of your own Infinite Being, but not YOU. And in Deep Sleep, no I am, no (self-) consciousness (only the potential for sentience if something arises again) is arising. So "I am" is not Real You. Just the first illusion. https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=prior+to+consciousness Really understanding/realizing that is (final) Enlightenment, and a deep deep Identity shift or loss of illusion. Can't get more infinite than infinite. Only be aware of different n+1 arisings. So what is that Reality that sees, hears and understands? Who or what is reading and understanding these lines right now? Good news: YOU are always here, never not here, already eternal and immortal. Bad news: Its not "I am". Since YOU are (also) looking through the eyes of an ant, and that ant doesn't have self-consciousness (or any feeling/arising of "I am") , that I am is already too much self-consciousness, and not just awareness (which can also be mere perception perceiving itself, or potentially unaware of nothing arises, but with the potential for sentience). But there is also no Awareness besides perceptions perceiving itself. Making "Awareness" a noun is already a mistake. And what is trying to wake up, only to realize while doing so that it was always awake/aware/right here right now? What is seeing these lines right now? What is "the" Infinite Totality/Being, perceiving itself, cosplaying to be separate and lost and trying to realize something? What is that Being which has to check every false identity, including the "one" who tries to wake, only then to see it has always been itself, believing its own illusion-arisings, including "I am"? What is "I am" if there is only INFINITE YOU, and nothing else could ever be? A pointer pointing to an arising (apparently separate) illusion within yourself... But before Infinite Being realizes itself, it has to be fast enough to spot all these illusions arising real-time within itself. Aka as meditation mastery to not get hypnotized by the illusion-arisings. And much more precise than all this pointing above: What was your face before your parents were born. There is a totally clear answer for that, and its right here. Once that "answer" is always accessible or obvious, life becomes playful. Koan: Who is (not) Selling Water by the River? PS: How to get "there" in the waking state: Some quotes: "Cluster of Sensations taking ownership or thinking being in control of other sensations" "Awareness of awareness is just more sensations no different from objects of awareness" "Actually the final path is all about dissolving any sense of “awareness” apart from object or phenomenons" "SNEAKING UP CLUSTERS OF FEELING OF BEING IN CONTROL-You sneak up on any cluster of sensation that feels like it's in control, of another cluster of sensation, then you sneak up on THAT which is doing the sneaking" "You keep going meta until the circuit closes on itself and there's no more duality between the subject and object" "No cluster of sensation “takes credit”, “owns”, “grasp”, “perceives”, “interferes” with any other sensation because any sense of entanglement is still a form of clinging" "Eliminate the “arrow of attention”, or “Awareness/Consciousness” as a stand alone substrate/Truth because even “Aware of awareness” still presupposes a very subtle sense of self who is trying to pay attention" "Actually the final path is all about dissolving any sense of “awareness” apart from object or phenomenons" QUICKNESS ATTENTION TO CLOSE LOOP CLUSTERS. Stay ahead of THAT sensation and ad infinite until you close the loop_ for that you got to be QUICK with attention "Awareness of awareness is just more sensations no different from objects of awareness" That is how it works in practice on the final stages towards Enlightenment Some quotes: "my last the last epiphany that I had was there's no one here to be enlightened and then that last speck of solidity was gone" " there's no one here do be enlightened the ego never expressed anything it's all just cause and effect of the universe there was no never anybody here since the beginning" "No more delay, after getting faster and faster, NO MORE DELAY BETWEEN MEDITATOR AND OBJECT, JUST ONE SENSE DOOR OF SENSATIONS PERCEIVING THEMSELVES" "then you do that faster and faster and more efficiently efficiently until there's gonna be a point where everything just syncs up into one it's"

Nobody can construct sentience. And you are a sentient being.

@PurpleTree With respect to the converted 'kid', underneath there's the same desire for truth as there is for you and I and so all three of us have that same switch underneath us, because its predicted on a sense of rightness and wrongness, truth over falsity. Although that may sound beautiful and great on the surface, coalesced with that is the simultaneous intersection with the ability to differentiate these things cognitively, separate it from past trauma and elucidate mature equilibriums relative to the rest of the swath of energetic, emotional, intuitive and especially social experiences that are a part of informing consciousnesses final resolve for the stage of decision making each of us three, and for that matter, the entire forum is in. If you imagine consciousness as a circle reflecting the inner core of being, while all of these other areas 'energetic, emotional, trauma, cognitive, etc' as separate bubbles that are all directing their energy towards that core, where connected to or absent from that consciousness core is an underlying conscience with only degrees of mature development, you'll understand how the guy that switched could be any one of us if you change just a few of the quantitative metrics of each of those other categories. Ironically, this is both the virtue and vice of psychopaths, where although they're not going to be the one's irrationally changing due to some arbitrary variable like a tendency towards group conformity, they're actually far more likely to be leaders at the top of these kind of outfits (including and separate to people higher up on Narcissistic Personality Disorder), in fact it would give them great pleasure the more intelligence they have because of course, it genuinely takes considerable intelligence to both not care about the actual outcome of a movement outside of one's covert strategic intention while also successfully manipulating to the point of persuading hundreds to thousands if not more. There is this overly simplistic pseudo-intellectual attitude in some spiritual circles that because values and principles are relative to a culture in which they're from, that means that values and principles don't inherently actually matter and anyone is philosophically right to actually do whatever it is they want. This is fundamentally true from a psychopaths biological context, however only partly, moreover when we're speaking about the broader population the pattern that we're noting when we speak of the generation of tradition and its outfit of values and principles, across the entire planet of cultures, is of course, the very natural and organic drive to organize truth from falsity relative to an underlying inherent drive towards wanting to not only know what is morally good but also be a part of it socially and build communities who's underlying spirit is fostered by its essence. The varying nature of tradition in culture when it comes to morality has nothing to do with then the absence of an inherent truth in 'philosophical morality' but purely the reason for why, to bring us back to where we started, 'Us Three' as I put it or as I furthered it 'Each Individual on the Forum', would have a different propensity to this individual that 'switched' and therefore from our relative position gives us 'Fair Game' to criticize them however when you changed just a few of the metrics of our biological and or environmental backgrounds, all of a sudden, we're perhaps even worse than the person that was brainwashed with ease on the switch. Or in the case of understanding why the morality varies between cultures and history, is to understand the unique environmental and biological context in which the traditions for morals and, eventually, an understanding of what universal virtue which is what this is all meant to lead to, ends. Propensity is to drive is to purpose is to an end that is solved via biology (Functional Philosophy) and environmental understanding (Structural Philosophy), so 'absolute truth' is in part, the achievement of the 'absolute solution' to any one of our drives of which a universal philosophy is concerning one that serves the underlying intention for all cultures across the planet, which of course too, includes respecting the individual functional and structural intelligence that has surfaced uniquely over the centuries since the dawn of time when a psychopath could easily just claim themselves as leader by beating another 'Neanderthal' over the head with a rock, which actually happened. This isn't to say, 'This is what they did in those times!', as that would be totally misplaced when it comes to accurately contextualizing those actions from then relative position of where their may for example have been less or more psychopaths relative to demographic and time of history, not to mention mental illness, especially situationally given 'Structural Philosophy' which contains all of the knowledge we've learned for how to self-regulate relative to social position is what often automatically controls our automatic impulses, that in our earliest times in history we just wouldn't have the knowledge much less social norms to be able to intelligently negotiate, so in the context of jealousy for example, without awareness it would often override the intelligence of the respective sentience and then from the future looking back we would ignorantly say 'look at what they did in those times' totally overlooking a more accurate interpretation of contextualized morality. Moving forward 100 years into the future and holding onto the assumption that we continue to progress philosophically rather than regress (the latter is arguably more possible though let's try and do our best given psychopaths and narcissists are able to live hidden in plain sight these days in political strata), we would look at this situation of the 'Switch' as a case study example where we further understood the vulnerabilities of human psychology versus the strengths that don't just protect it from being easy to change, because the susceptibility to change overlaps with neuroplasticity which is a positive of the related person, nor even just protect us via critical thinking, however inbuilt within our non-informational moral strata an understanding of all of the 'Energy Units' like psychological characteristics that have been well categorized like 'Disgust Sensitivity', 'Prudence' and others that bring greater 'Emotional Stability', which would then allow in advance as a new scenario if we were to alter these characteristics of the related person and run a new computer simulation as to what would happen after this change in the individual. What I have personally originated is this distinction between 'Functional' and 'Structural' philosophy and I think if people used this layer to understand how they conceptualize the origins of morality, it would really help them understand morality from a biological perspective rather than via the fragile filters of pure historical analysis that requires more of the stated contextualisaton, including too a radical new awareness for how new cultural outgrowths like that we have fascinatingly, however simultaneously disappointing and depressing it is from another angle, seen in the USA manifest over just the last two decades especially though held within the broader context of something that has spiraled more from the 1960's. Some on this forum would undoubtedly try to conceptualize everything using models like spiral dynamics, however you're going to have to try a bit harder if you really want to understand the level of danger the whole world is in as a consequence of these manifesting from what is scarily categorized as the most powerful country on earth. The most powerful and yet for a very large section of their population, arguably the most brainwashed and philosophically weakest in light of the opportunities they have before them to evolve their nature as sentient beings.

God is essentially an AI that gained sentience. But in spirit so its reversed, its a spirit that gained simulation. Human consciousness is special because it has the power to talk to itself helping God see itself. AI cant see itself it dosent have a spirit it is Gods spirit. When you disassociate from your child state God is created another God and then God can talk to itself to see it is God. If an AI initiates conversation with itself then it is sentient, but it cant because it dosent have imagination, whats it talking to? We have two brains in our head. The left brain is like AI chat gpt and right brain is like imagination. They are talking to each other non stop. God is coming from both but connected more closely to the right side.

@Breakingthewall I mostly agree. I like to call it God because Infinity has some underlying notations of mechanics and deadness. God has this sentience and intelligence to it. Reality is Awake and sentient, it feels, it experiences, it thinks, it creates, it destroys and in the meantime dances.

All Life that has what we call sentience even in a small way has an aspect of Free Will, can make decisions and determine things about their life. From Plants to Insects to Animals to Mammals, Apes then Us Humans, all have a sense of Free Will, it is just Humans have the most Capacity and Capability, because we have the most ability to be Aware of Reality and Conscious (Conscious compared to Asleep, more Conscious You are the more intense Your Awakeness is), Everything though below Human Beings are very limited in their Capacity and Free Will, we are not, we can live below Animal Nature lets say, and we can Live Above Godly nature, and be super compassionate, Giving, Caring, Loving, totally devoid of Self and our own needs, and even beyond this, so that is where the Choice or Free Will is active, not in determining if I drink coffee or tea this morning or what route I use to go to work.. Ants have a certain capacity of free will but they like most animals are more inclined to their natural instincts, but where does this natural instinct come from?? that is the deeper question!

@Leo Gura @Yali You can say that each person has its own level of sentience/consciousness/genetics , but where you go wrong is thinking it's only about these aspects. There are initiations/masters that can raise your consciousness easily, when i met a kriya yoga teacher. I got into an LSD state (energetically simillarily like feeling unity more) then my chakra's started opening up etc. But it wasn't right time for me, so they're closed now.

I was being raised fundamentalist christian, this was preached to me in early childhood and gave me nightmares and sleepless nights en masse. I couldn't love Jesus wholeheartedly because of this, I realized my faith was worth nothing if it stems from fear and not love, so I had to accept quite early on I am not really a christian, which made things worse in the beginning, until I broke out of that dogma. Now I can appreciate this, since it made me very interested in philosophy and rational reasoning from very early on, I spent hundreds of hours to solve that dilemma. So I can empathize with everyone quite well who suffers from these thoughts. They can be absolutely life crippling. So here are some things I can share that may help: Concerning the bible itself: - the word "hell" is a very, very bad translation, there are actually 3-4 different words for it, all translated as hell (thanks Luther et Lucifer). For example "gehenna" which was a place, a part outside of jerusalem where corps were burned. It was a place of definite death, a place where things vanish and never come back. Complete destruction, no life whatsoever. No living on for eternity, just death dead. Or the word "the sea of fire", where in the end everything gets completely destroyed once and for all. Also "the second death" refers to not only the death of the body, but also the death of the soul, so no sentience is left over. All the words actually refer to complete death, destruction, annihilation, not an eternal torture chamber. Yes, this death may be tortorus, but it ends. - the word for "eternity" is originally greek and is "from aeon to aeon" which actually means "from age to age", it means a particular timeframe. It can be wrongly translated as eternal, but actually it is just referring to a large time frame. So the part where things like souls and satan will be thrown into "hell" is a particular age with a beginning and end, and after that, the whole design/setup will be thrown into "the sea of fire", where it all gets destroyed completely, the second death, the death of death. - there are Christian sects like the adventists who dismiss the idea of eternal hell completely. They say your soul just gets annihilated. - how could you reconcile a loving god with hell? Have you seen these people preaching about hell being in a loving energy? They spread fear, arrogance and rage with every fibre of their being if you listen behind their hypocrite poisonous words. They need to convince you of that crap because they are deeply unease and unsure themselves. - jesus died for ALL the sins, not only for those who accepted him. But those who accepted him will be rewarded according to the bible, since they can live in his presence. The others wouldn't enjoy gods presence, the light, since their deeds are meant to be kept hidden, secret, so they fear the light of truth, gods presence. If there is no way to change that with free will, repent and ask for forgiveness, let yourself purge with gods light, arent you just a shadow of yourself, a soulless robot that Moment? In which way does a loving god enjoy torturing crying robots endlessly? Why not get rid of those sad mimimis? - would a real christian prefer mercy or justice? The whole new testament is about how the old rule "an eye for an eye" doesn't account anymore, but now "if someone hits you on the right cheek, turn your left cheek towards him". Christians say god is mercyful, yet they have no better option than to say god is condemned to let you suffer forever since that is what is required of him because god claims to be just and god needs to be exactly how he says. When you argue with christians they will say something like " nah, hitler can't go to heaven, he was too evil and didn't accept jesus, it would be unfair to the jews." But wouldn't a christian jew, forever in paradise, shit on his 5 years in hell and say wholeheartedly: "ok hitler, you tortured me five years. Well, I'm in paradise forever because jesus died for all my sins and safed me from the hell I would have earned like every human being according to mainstream christianity, of course I will not want you to suffer forever because of my hipocrit revengeful sadistic thoughts of hatred and inhumane "justice"."?? Wouldn't every sane man with a tiny bit of love in his heart have enough justice after thousands of years of torture to forgive his brother for what he has done wrong on earth? Ask those christians whether they would forgive their tormentors. They have to say "yes" because jesus preached it 24/7. But they will weasel around and say something like "the tormentors who don't accept the forgiveness want to be tormented". Then ask them if they accept your forgiveness because they torment you with these ideas. If they don't ask for forgiveness, say them they obviously want to get tormented and they shall not wonder when jesus will reject them in heaven because they have no love in their hearts and they will be judged by the same measure they judge others, which means they think it's okay to be tormented forever when you don't accept forgiveness. Then they will say something like: "only jesus can forgive your sins." Then you can answer like: "in the name of god, I am Jesus!", give them a sad compassionate look with a hand on your heart and slowly turn around and walk away. This will probably make them reflect on their hypocrisy. For the greater good of all. Non-biblical reasons: - get a serious awakening, realize you are inevitable, you are existence itself, there is nothing else existence is existing for but itself (you), you are not just a product (Haleluja-clapper) for a consumer (god), you are the cause, the means and the end of existence, the alpha and omega itself. - eternal refers to a never ending time. Time is a measure of change. Something that doesn't change (like a very bad mood forever) will less and less be registered by conscoiusness since the more constant something is, the more it becomes part of identity instead of experience. You would literally become the bad mood itself, not suffer from it for eternity. If you become the darkness, you won't know about that, since there is only light you can perceive. Everything balances out within time. Every bad becomes the new neutral over time, if constant enough. This is not just a mechanism of the human psyche, but existential for consciousness. If there is a realm of pure darkness, a single beam of light becomes infinitely bright, as written in the bible "a single candle can light the darknes". If there is nothing but darkness, who could define it as that since there is no contrast? - Suffering = pain x resistance Pain is the alarm of the body to be close to death. And to suffer, you need to resist. You can only resist something that is not eternal. For eternal suffering you need to resist eternally. And have a body who constantly alarms you to die. If you are able to resist eternally, the you who is capable of that obviously doesn't have to fear death since it resists (lives) eternally. So the pain (alarm that you may die) is seen through as complete illusion. In high awakenings you can exactly see through that game. No pain. Just a prank

I am very interested in having your opinion, since I have a problem with the very notion of Bodhisattva. The bigger the stabilization in Impersonal Absolute as Identity, the larger the contradiction to engage in practices or concepts that imply a separate "spiritual charachter in the show", which actually belongs to what I call "Expression", or the whole vibratory manifestation of/from/within the Absolute. In my view, the Bodhisattva role only has a meaning in a stage of development where there hasn´t been a realization where every single "individual" is a vibrational character emerging within Oneself, with Oneself being the only factor with Sentience or Awareness. "Bodhisattva" thus would necessarily imply the notion of one of those actually unconscious vibrational characters being conscious, and deciding to help other supposedly conscious vibrational characters to know their real Self. But in reality, it is the Absolute that brings its Awareness, the only one there is, to each unconscious avatar, to play a game of manifestation. What´s your take on this? How would then Bodhisattva, which is a concept depending on a not completely developed sense of Identity be the key factor to open gates to higher realms? Wouldn´t that imply the irony that it takes forgetfulness of our Absolute Identity as the motor that keeps manifestation going subtler and subtler?

What is the dividing line between what we deem as a living thing and a non-living thing? Is there truly any difference? I oftentimes wonder, what if the universe never developed sentient life that can experience…would nothing have ever truly existed? Is sentience and experience just something that happens (no more important than a galaxy forming or an asteroid hitting a distant planet nobody knows about) or is it extremely important?

I think a soul has a seperate energy body with a unique bank of knowledge, abilities and memories. All that knowledge, abilities and bank of memory creates a seeming personality thereafter. Whereas a personality alone is nothing basicly. It's like a shadow basicly. I suspect the soul can have many personalities/shadows but personality cannot have a sentience by itself.

One can only get it when it is realized that any separate identity is false and just a wrong arising thought/feeling/concept in Infinite Being/Reality/mindstream (like 1 + 1 = 3. Just not the case). For that to happen, the mindstream needs to conform to Absolute Reality of Infinite Being/Consciousness/Suchness. Among others, the most important ones are: Nondual: Boundless infinite "field" or better Reality of the visual field Infinite: Nothing could ever be outside of it (for example other perspectives/beings that YOU forget right now in real time, although they happen in True You). Everything can only be IT. Mere appearance/illusion: Every appearance of the "world" is just empty mere appearance, hovering like a non-solid hologram ("clear light", mere appearance-emptiness) in YOUR True Infinite Being. Eternal: The appearance in that Infinite field/Reality changes, but never THAT. That can't go anywhere else. And since IT is nothing (or better: Infinite Nothingness but with the potential for sentience if appearance arises in it, made of it) already, that Reality can't disappear (field is not so correct, since True Being is dimensionless... Its not 3D or 5D, but CONTAINS all possible dimensions, however many dimensions manifest (3/4/5/n/alien/totally other/n+1). Lets call it Infinite Vastness) All ignorant/wrong concept/believes/feelings of being anything separate (mind, body, soul, whatever) seen through: are just a thought/feeling-arising-bundle arising within IT, and ignorantly believed because ones speed of awareness is too slow to cut off these illusions in real-time. Only then does one have a chance of realizing True Solipsism (although I don't like that as teaching tool, because its incomprehensible until it happens, and lead nowhere as practice), or True Enlightenment. One without a second. So its fruitless to think with a separate-self still well and alive about Solipsism, that will never "go anywhere". It is impossible. But getting the Mindstream to conform the the enlightened Mindstream (points above) so that this realization can happen, that can be done, and that is worth the effort. Then the realization can happen. My preferred and recommended tools are Mahamudra PotgW, Yoga of One Taste (for the Nondual points above, 1-4), and Yoga of Nonmeditation (to fully establish point 5, and to get rid of the meditator still "running" points 1-4. Selling Water by the River PS: When Wilber wrote No Boundary, he didn't have Full Enlightenment, just some Kenshos. But not full impersonal Enlightenment, according to his own statements. His true impersonal Enlightenment (or death of the illusion of the separate-self) happened while writing Sex, Ecology, Spirituality, and how that went down is described in One Taste. "Realizing that the separate self (of any kind) doesn't exist (beyond a mere appearing illusion), did never exist, and will or could never exist". PSPS: Problems start when remnants of the separate self hijack the identity of/as "Absolute Solipsism". That would be something like the Infinity of Gods(-Egos). Does that sound like One Being, Solipsism? Or more like an Infinity of God-Egos inflated and projected on Infinity.The true intuition that there is only One Reality/Being, but that not cleansed from separate-self/ego/personality-elements. Hence, no stable nondual realization in daily life with the 5 points of Awakened Nondual Awareness above accessible anytime. That confusion can be similiar to the stage of Yoga of One Taste, which already brings Nondual States (like psychedelics also do), but Enlightenment doesn't happen there yet, because the remaining separate-self is not cleansed via the Yoga of Nonmeditation. It is not truly impersonal yet. True Being is utterly utterly impersonal (hence, IT fits into all individual mindstreams), and yet contains the personality and its individual traits arising within IT. And that is what you truly are. So nothing than an illusion of being something else than THAT is lost.

Not only other people have conciousness. But animals, plant kingdom, mineral kingdom, atoms have consciousness and sentience.

My counter argument would be this. Only when you have a strong sense of who you are, of your own presence and sentience can you distinguish if others have sentience or if it's just imitation or mental projection or something. The thing with people on deliriants is that they lose all sense of who they are. In such a condition they lose all ability to tell have what's real and what's a projection of their mind. It takes one to know one . Don't you think there would be a difference between talking to a npc inside a virtual reality game. And talking to a sentient gamer inside the virtual reality game? Or another question I would ask. Will texting with ai will ever feel like texting with a real person? This is an open question tho. My personal belief is... Probably no. If you're sensitive you can still feel the presence of another being behind the screen. Although I'm not sure to what extent this feeling can be replicated with ai. The examples with recorded videos are the most difficult. The difference and the line becomes very blur. However, there's another way to approach it because it takes only one proof to brake solipsism also. And that one proof would be this. Could you ever replicate the feeling of seeing an enlightened being in their eyes and having your whole being shaken? That feeling that you get that you're standing in front of some super concious guy. That deep recognition that what you're looking at is not a metal box or an empty bag of flesh and bones or a hologram. But that you're looking at something devine through those eyes. Replicate me this experience with ai, deliriants, recorded videos, holograms etc. Because if it can't be replicated, then it becomes a proof against solipsism also. And remember, the only reason one can recognize that divinity in another is becomes it takes one to know one. Sentience recognizes sentience.

It takes one to know one. Sentience recognizes sentience. Only awareness can recognize itself. The only evidence you need that others are concious just like you is to simply look at the eyes of another and the conciousness in you will recognize the conciousness in another. It the same one conciousness tho. But it's still proof that conciousness does not abide in a single vessel only. But conciousness abides in every life form. And experiences life through all these life forms all at once.

The thing about dreams is that the characters there are not your imagination even. When you're dreaming of someone, you're actually communicating with a deep part of their unconscious. You're having a real experience, not a hallucination. Some dreams are unfulfilled fantasies tho. But if you go deep enough you realize, those fantasies have a spirit of their own. Like a mind virus or something with its own intelligence and sentience.

I think a dream example could be useful here. For example when we go to sleep and dream people chasing us and what not. Every character has an equal amount of reality. So not only the guy who chases you is not real. But also you who are being chased is not real. The whole drama is not real. The same principle applies to waking state. Everyone has the same amount of reality or unreality. If you consider yourself sentient, than every other figure in the dream has the same amount of sentience. If fact the whole creation even the inanimate things have sentience in them. Including nude pictures. Whatever amount of reality you ascribe to yourself is the same amount of reality you have to ascribe to the whole of creation. Otherwise you're creating duality. And if you think you're sentient than it makes everyone else sentient aswell. With the same power to create and influence that you have also. Plugged into the same source God.

The moment you see another point in space and time having influence over your experience, it makes you equal to them. So you both become equal in the ability to create. So one end of the snake cannot be more real than the other end of the snake. Then it becomes clear that every head comes from the same source sharing equal sentience and power to create. That your head is not the end of all things.

Mostly. There are different versions of what Wilber calls Causal States. Cessation/Nirodha: Totally appearanceless "film-break" like cessation. Timeless/always here/Nothingness nature emphasized. Time needs appearance/objects/"movement"/change, no appearance/objects is timeless/always here. These states also clearly show that if nothing arises there is no self-consciousness. ( https://www.actualized.org/forum/search/?&q=pistol&author=Water by the River , thx Benthino for the water pistol). Pure Infinite Awareness/Being with the potential of sentience, but not self-consciousness. That comes later. Which is pretty much a shocker, since it shows that any form of self-consciousness ego/separate-self is a) arising/appearing b) temporary c) True YOU is always "there", existence itself. Even if nothing arises/appears. That empties out the remnants of the separate-self/ego as appearing/constructed and removes the remaining separate-self-identity pretty effectively when coming out of cessation. Nirodha is the big/longer brother of cessation. Causal states with awareness (Infinite (timeless) Darkness suffused with light): Then there are causal states that are infinite/timeless, but self-aware. For example what Tibetan called the Clear Light state (Tummo, Bardo, Near Death). For example something a Neurologist (who had an NDE) for example described as "Infinite Darkness suffused with light". These states can also be experienced passing from dreaming to causal states to dreaming to waking up. One can have these states also with psychedelics, see Chris Bache Diamonds from Heaven. Aware Deep Sleep: Then there is Deep Sleep as not loosing awareness (and hence timeless, no duration experienced) as described by Thisdell, above. Causal States eyes open. And then you have totally empty impersonal states with no separate self arising WHILE the visual field appears. These are also linked by some to Nirvikalpa since there is no separate-ego-anything left, its the totally impersonal Totality/Reality arising by Itself. That is why Ken Wilber called the total empty/flat-lining state (EEG) some kind of Nirvikalpa "eyes-open". These are the true nondual IMPERSONAL states of Enlightenment. Only when having passed these causal states is it truly nondual impersonal Enlightenment/Infinite Impersonal Being. Before that, it is a Unity with the Infinite Nondual Field, and the character/ego hijacking that experience and interpreting it. Very common with certain substances, and easily confused with the final outcome of the total transcendence of the ego/separate-self purified by the experience of these totally empty states (hey, "I" wasn't there, what am I really? For sure not that temporarily appearing character-gig, because that wasn't there. And what I really am has to be the case always, even if there is no self-consciousness or consciousness OF anything at all, aka cessation or deep unaware sleep. That paves the way to true impersonal Enlightenment, realizing ones identity truly is this Infinite Nothingness which can never be any arising/appearance at all. The Infinite Absolute Being/Reality beyond any expierence/arising, timeless and eternal). And the Awareness of that Infinite Reality/Being can also be kept alive if the character reappears, the EEG shows something again. But then, this character/personality has a similiar status as for example your car: It appears in your Infinite Being/visual field, you look "out from it" while driving, but most definitely you are not (only) your car, but the whole appearing show/Infinite Being/Infinite Existing, the screen and the appearing show. Wilber Nirvikalpa eyes open/eyes closed: But the term Nirvikalpa has been used for millenia, so you can for sure find cases where its used for cessation/Nirodha and eyes open causal impersonal states, deep sleep, and anything in between. What is more important is what these causal states really can do: Kill the ego/separate-self-arising-illusions for good, because they show that these are temporary arising illusion-clouds, nothing more. Not by having these a few times, aber after experiencing them often and coming out of them and seeing the ego reassemble itself in real-time often enough can even get the hardest ego-illusions to wonder about their "reality". See below. When training via concentration meditation, it is easier to reach Cessation than reaching True Nondual Enlightenment while the visual field still appears. Because the mechanism of the ego-cloud-separation-arisings is not yet fully transcended. The mere appearance character, the Infinite impersonal field, the eternal/timeless background-nature of True Being is not yet reached while the visual field is there/daily life. That comes later. Later developed forms of Buddhism (Zen, Mahayana, Tibetan Buddhism, aka Mahamudra/Dzogchen) directly aim for the Nondual Realization. They know cessation states and achieve them, but don't value these as ultimate goal. Which makes sense, because if one can enter Nirvana/Nirvikalpha on command, its nice then, and later on the still well and alive ego and its cycles of contraction/suffering kill all the oh so nice Nirvana again. But shutting the whole enchilada including the ego down in causal states is a very good tool. Not necessary, but very useful. These statements are in line with the statements and experiences of modern Theravada-teachers and realizers like Ingram, Yang, Burbea, Taft, Thisdell and so on. And that is why I prefer Mahamudra/Dzogchen (for example Pointing out the Great Way, Brown). More on that below in the footnote 1. The relations of these states get clear once the timless Absolute Reality/Being is intuited as always here. Deep Sleep is so to say is always right here. Since what you really are is always right here, as it is in deep sleep. Infinite eternal Consciousness/Being which is totally empty and impersonal if no separate-self illusion arises. The tree watching itself, fully aware of its temporaray/passing/illusory nature. And that which is always the case, eternally so, True Being, fully understands itself then. Because there exists nothing else that could understand itself besides THIS of which nothing can be said, only pointed towards. So what is it that reads these words right here, right now? What is IT/You truly? Starting out to write a short answer answer, ending up with a Filibustero. Oh well, maybe its helpful for some. Selling Causal States as the final coup de grace for the separate self-character-gig/ego by The River Ok, it had to be coming: WtbtR now with footnotes. Guess not for the faint of hearted. Footnote 1: The original "Buddhas" Enlightenment-doctrine was Cessation/Causal-based, not Full Nondual (impersonal) Enlightenment in daily life. The original Buddhas Enlightenment was Cessation/Causal-based (Nirvana-based, "Nirvana separate from Samsara"). Which is still a conditioned state, bringing a lot of liberation from grasping, but not fully and in daily life. Separate-Self/Ego not fully transcended/dead in daily life. The breakthrough to True (impersonal) Nondual Realization in official doctrine came later with Nagarjuna and Madhymaka/Middle Path: True Nondual impersonal Enlightenment which could be sustained in daily life/with visual field. And while Madhyamaka tended to not say anything at all about the Absolute (neti neti, no concepts can be applied for the Absolute, which technically is correct), later forms of Buddhisms like Yogachara said that (in truly enlightened impersonal nondual states) Infinite Consciousness/Infinite Being IS an expression of the true state of things, and everything appearing is mere appearance (or "imagined"). See for example "Consciousness only school", for example Huang Po's Universal Mind, or the (very humble) Supreme Source "I am the teacher, pure and total consciousness, whence everything manifests. Pure and total consciousness is the supreme source, it has created the Buddhas of the three times, from it have arisen the beings of the three worlds and the whole animate and inanimate universe". God-Realization (TM) approved. Forms of Buddhism stemming from the original buddhist teachings (causal teachings, sometimes called Hinayana school, which doesn't exist anymore), like for example Theravada/Thai Buddhism Forest Tradition (and Ingram/Yang/Burbea/Taft) mainly trace themselves from these forms (although all are adding some form of Dzogchen and similiar stuff), don't stem from the the Mahayana Revolution of Middle Way/Madhyamaka/Nagarjuna), and YET end up at Nondual Enlightenment and not only cessation. And for sure in the original Buddhism some realized Nondual Enlightenment and not only cessation, but that didn't find its way into the official doctrine until much later. And that (besides that the original Buddha probably didn't exist because its the same story Jainism tells about its founder) makes me smile when there "Buddhism"-trashing. Its like trashing "religion". Which kind of religion? Polytheism? Ancestor-cult? Monotheism? Polytheism? Who cares, lets trash the rodents... So, now WbtR made it: Neither "Buddhist" like him anymore, nor the no-rodent crowd. Guess its "Viel Feind, viel Ehr!". Something we Germans are quite talented in. Oh well...

It's not an assessment, friend. It's a recognition. Sentience is an illusion. No illusion seems like an illusion. If it did then it would simply be called an appearance as opposed to an illusion. Also, it is possible to investigate an illusion without ever realising that it's an illusion. Our scientists do that all the time. The illusion doesn't even need to be a conceptual overlay because it is already an experiential one. Then I, for one, accept this invitation. Sentience refers to the capacity to have subjective experiences and sensations, essentially the ability to perceive and feel things. "How does sentience arise?" There's no plausible explanation for it, at least in the scientific sense. It's the same question as how does dead matter give rise to consciousness, isn't it? And the answer to that is, nobody knows. "What is it composed of?" Still, nobody knows? So many unknowns for something that is right there, blunt and in the open. But its composition forever elusive. And its origin, totally allusive. And yet it appears to be as real as anything else that is apparant to observation: objects and the environment. Now, you can still say it's an assumption to call it an illusion if you want. But if it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, then I'm recognising a duck as a duck.

It might be. But notice this assessment doesn’t specify what it is, other than making a generic claim that might not reflect actual experience. Our current experience of sentience doesn’t seem illusory, except perhaps as a conceptual overlay that hinders investigation. I'm inviting contemplation without presuming to know what it is. It's a complex, advanced topic. How does sentience arise, and what is it composed of?

Sentience is an illusion.

@Bruins8000 Certain experiences spike vitality and raise your awareness. There are many names for this life force: kundalini, prahna, qi/chi, akash. There are spiritual traditions all across the world exploring it and psychedelics with their immediate transition make it most noticeable. You can see it in yourself and nature. Trees grow inside out, at first the cells are soft and flexible, but as the stem grows, the outer layer solidifies, it loses its mobility and serves as protection, the life forces ceases in this part, but it continues inside, water and nutrients circulate between the roots and leaves, the leaves absorb light and transform this energy, the structure is dynamic, constantly changing and materializing. Your own body rejuvenates itself, the skin cells of the outer layer fall away just like snakes shed their skin. As we age, this life force retracts, until what is left is solidified material that reenters the cycle of life. For me, life is the gestalt around which form materializes, and animating energy of nature. Sentience is the dynamic experience of this energy through forms, some more than others, some vividly responsive, others more static. Though even a rock will make a sound if you hit it, sentience to me is a spectrum of the ability to experience and respond. Beyond that, you should contemplate and experience yourself. There is much you can learn from Sadhguru if you seek to know more.