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Can you please explain the pointer of non-duality then. What does it point to if not to the non-existence of dualities in the universe. The way I understand it is this definition from wikipedia: In spirituality, nondualism, also called non-duality, means "not two" or "one undivided without a second". Nondualism primarily refers to a mature state of consciousness, in which the dichotomy of I-other is "transcended", and awareness is described as "centerless" and "without dichotomies I understand that the universe is as it is without the ideas and labels. But that doesn't mean we don't have the mental tools to learn about the universe through repeated observations and make predictions. Like the concept of limits in calculus, we can make better and better theories about the universe that get closer to the ground truth of the universe, but never completely reach the ground truth. Why do you completely dismiss all emergent properties of the universe, such as the mind and its ability to learn about its situation in reality? I get it... everything we know about the universe is mental constructs/objects. But there is no good reason to dismiss everything that our mind creates, this kind of anti-intellectual reasoning leads nowhere, the extent to which direct experience is valued over all else seems almost dogmatic here. The very idea of reincarnation requires belief. Please explain how you are directly experiencing reincarnation. Also, how can you be so sure that even without beliefs and any labels your direct experience is correct? Direct experience is equally deceptive. The reality that you experience is a result of your brain creating internal models which use predictions. Your direct experience is never ground truth but the best attempt at predicting what is.

These memories are not illusions only if you are able to recall something that seemed very real but you had never ever seen that before. Take this for example : If you are experiencing yourself eating something white and round ( if you were a South Indian in your past life ) but you had never seen or heard about it but able to vividly experience the appearance and taste of it, then you have proved that reincarnation is real. Any other kind of proof which originate from existing memory you had in this life has a good chance of turning out to be the result of powerful imagination.

@Mada_ I don't know about reincarnation specifically. You can be conscious of what reality is, and its nothing. My last mystical experience I thought, and even now I can feel it if I pay attention, "I am nothing, I will never not be nothing. And so I know, I know, that I will never die.". Nothing will never go. Framing this in terms of reincarnation or souls, I don't know. Maybe you can find some sort of empirical or scientific answer by researching and etc, but that sort of endeavour seems too difficult to me. When people talk about" past lives", it could be something they're just "making up", your psychological structure expressing itself in a symbolic fantasy. But don't write off the possibility it's real. When I was meditating once, my mind imagined myself in a past life. It was a very vivid experience. If I am to believe the experience I had, I was a tall young African American (or just African) male in my past life who was a criminal and died by being shot by someone. In this supposed past life I killed people as a criminal. I got the impression I sacrificed myself before my death somehow, and changed my ways somehow. Bled to death in the middle of a road after being shot. A chubby African female onlooker who was distressed. They were a loved one or a very close friend I think. Again though, this is probably all bullshit. Who knows.

@Leo Gura How did you come to the insight of reincarnation?

Let's not even talk about that some months ago he said reincarnation and last lives were imaginary... Now they actually happen? Cmon

@Leo Gura But if I am God, whats stopping me from at least resting for a couple hundred years before reincarnating? Why does God have a bias towards reincarnation in the first place? And why cant God reincarnate as an angel without suffering, who orbits very close to the godhead? That would also happen in Infinity right.

If it is not possible to understand or directly experience this phenomenon, then why even make up that concept? First of all, what is your definition of non-duality. Because the way I understand it is that a non-dualistic state is where the experience is centerless, there is no distinctions between anything, and everything, including thoughts, and actions/movements feel as seamless and spontaneous as heartbeats, a state without any dichotomies, complete oneness. I'm pretty sure I've experienced this on psychedelics and also able to understand it. The idea of evolution can be observed and confirmed with 100% consistency anywhere you look. Sure it's a made up idea by the human mind to estimate the ground truth of reality as closely as possible, but that doesn't mean it cant be one of the fundamental processes that takes place in the universe. What's wrong with the idea of the universe becoming aware of its own processes through human forms? Are we not "directly" observing the process of evolution whenever we look for it? Again whats the point of making up this concept and probing it or even having a channel on this forum dedicated for enlightenment topics, if every single idea is just a delusion and only thing that matters is direct experience, why not just have one big page that responds to every question or idea with "its just a thought" How is it possible to directly experience reincarnation, have you directly experienced reincarnation? Seems like self-delusion. It's a story that you have adopted from reading eastern philosophy. There is no way to verify the claim of re-birth So is the universe completely limited in understanding itself in absolutely every way? Is it not the fact of existence that the universe is right now experiencing itself through me. How can you say there is nothing to get around when I (universe) in fact am trying to get around something

I understand the non-dualisitic view, that we have evolved to think in dualities, thoughts and concepts are just mental constructs, fundamentally there is no difference between the self and the other. So how does it make sense to talk about things like reincarnation, isn't this just self-delusion, a story we tell ourselves. But you can't get around the fact that thoughts, labels, concepts are an emergent property that inevitably rise in more complex life systems, so there will always be suffering stemming from that. You can keep saying that these are illusions, but that doesn't mean we can't reason or make meaningful predictions about the state of our universe.

There’s no universe, people, earth, etc. This is all thoughts you’re believing. There is no past, no individuals, and in kind no reincarnation. Notice right now, it’s not ‘in the room’, it’s ‘in your head’. Eternity = ? / ♥️ / you, not concepts we come up with about lives, pasts, others, futures, etc. Scrutinize exactly where ‘in your head’ and you’ll find, “it’s” not even a thing in a thing at all. No locations, no time, no space even to begin with. All just beliefs, thoughts, labels, ideas, concepts = the suffering / identity of a separate of love, self, who is in time, space, a universe, on earth, “thinking”. You’ve never thought, done, or moved. Ever. You’re appearing as everything which so convincingly makes it seem so - to you. Meditation however...nothing can be said about.

I agree and that's actually what came to my mind as the only way to deal with suffering. But does that mean you conquered suffering permanently? Because you Believe in reincarnation ( I honestly have no idea what happens after the body dies). Also I don't think that ramana maharishi couldn't feel pain for example.. So at least there is minimum level of pain that you just CANNOT avoid.. Right?

In my view, non-duality as a concept is nothing to be fearful about. A concept is just that, a concept. Upon actually realising through expansion of consciousness or awareness in stillness, that all is one ... it becomes a clear recognition. Put another way, ascension is about expansion. Ego or delusion orientation leads to consciousness contraction. So there is nothing to fear per say, about reaching a non dual stage of awareness. Reincarnation and karma entwined is another story. No one judges us, since all is one and Gods energy is love. However, we ourselves choose reincarnation for consciousness correction or we may say alignment of our core, with our own divinity within.

Are you referring to reincarnation, or something else? Reincarnation shouldnt be scary. Though you go to a spirit world after death, i don't think you will reincarnate. I reference seeing through the eyes of humans and animals as part of mergings. This is transcendent consciousness. You might experience it differently if you get to that point. Maybe Leo was referring to something else, but the thing i am thinking of is good and not scary. It is a deep connection with nature and other people, even non physical entities. It's all good. Just make sure you seek the truth, whether you like it or not. Do not invent comforting illusions for yourself. The truth is better than what you can dream of, and you will lead yourself astray by hiding from it.

This whole solipsism debate makes reincarnation seem more likely every time.

Wow, Gautam Sachdeva said in a recent satsang that karma is related to the sense of personal doership. He said that the word karma means action. And when the sense of personal doership drops then the experience of karma changes. That made me think that karma IS memories contained by a sense of personal doership. So karma is a mistaken perspective gathered as personal memories and as past lifetimes. Even without the belief in reincarnation, there is genetic inheritance, epigentic inheritance and even cultural inheritance. And all of that is contaminated by the sense of being a separate doer and that others are separate doers. Freedom from karma then means cleaning that whole heap of personal memories and inherited sense of separation.

Does reincarnation infer that if you stop having interest in reality it goes away? once you experience time becomes existent does non-duality state that existence isn't an accident and this existence is ultimate good and how does understanding this benefit us as existence?

This is an NDE on the NDERF website Stephen T NDE Home Classification NDE 1308 Stephen T NDE 3359 Experience Description 1. Surfing incident 2. Caught in a trough under water in huge surf. 3. Panic knowing I am going to drown. 4. Realized I had to give up, could not hold breath any longer. 5. Sudden calmness and resignation; loss track of body. 6. Clear and graphic life review as if certain events were cataloged. 7. Visualized a large green blue circle with a feeling of depth but did not look like tunnel. 8. Suddenly found myself in a large hall with a stone bath being washed by humanoid aliens; very peaceful (this was certainly a subjective illusion). 9. Sudden transformation into a realm of timeless Absolute Beauty, Absolute Love and Absolute Infinity. The radiance was literally unbearable. 10. Absolute forgiveness, non-judgment, non-duality, timeless, no blame or retribution, no sin karma and no reincarnation. No God as there was no subject or object of attention I AM That. 11. Beyond science, religion, spirituality, new age phantasmagoria. This is the most real insight of my whole life and clearly remains with me after thirty years. In my hippy years experimented with drugs e.g. acid however nothing, but nothing, compares with this insight. Also came across a similar state during meditation. Somewhere in this process, I became conscious of the fact that I must return to the world and play out my allotted role. This really pissed me off. As I crawled up the beach, I really didn't want to be here and in many ways have just been waiting for this lot to finish. 12. Theoretical implications: a) Absolute Infinity is a fact; George Cantors set theory provides sound theoretical evidence of the mathematical context of infinity. (We do not create infinity it is literally thrust upon us and is therefore absolutely necessary.) Hugh Everett's many worlds interpretation of particle wave duality; Max Tegmark's theoretical application to infinite universes. See also John Barrow 'Pi in the Sky' and Rudy Rucker's 'Infinity and Mind'. Evolution is asymmetrical, that is the billion to one symmetry violation at the origins (matter/antimatter) of the universe supervenes through complexification and self-organization onto Darwinian selection as a bias for pleasure over pain. Evolution is not value neutral. Given infinite universes non-denumerable infinity tells us that every moment must exist infinitely for all possible sum over histories (Richard Feynman) for all possible universes. (Will be pushing for space here.) Given infinite universes and infinite sentient civilizations infinite civilizations will survive for vast time scales eventually resolving into Absolute Infinity and Absolute Love. This state of beingness is a permanent aspect of every part of existence. Science has become shackled to skepticism and the narrow constraints of a very primitive epoch in the scheme of biological and silicon based evolution. Ray Kurweil demonstrates the capacity of potentiation in his demonstration of cosmological, computational and exponential technological growth. We will eventually drop the distinction between artificial and carbon based intelligence for new cohesive constructs far beyond our current capacity to visualize. As cells in our bodies are not conscious of our bodies, our self-conscious minds are not cognizant of the Absolute because we are bound by cognitive duality. Consciousness is dualistic and narrative based whereas awareness is timeless and immediate. Yet for anything to exist, whether subjective or objective, they must inevitably be absolute necessary aspects of a perfect existence. One also has to take into account the profound paradox of time (quantum block time) relativistic twin paradox, matter antimatter time vector reversal etc. we really don't know much. The axis of existence proceeds from the Pervasive Ground (unified field) through Manifest Material Reality and onto Infinite Potentiality. Existence is an Infinite Web of context and though the local universe has some 10 to the 26 bits of information they overlap and furthermore are connected non-locally. Existence is not constructed of finite locatable things it is a nonlinear process of textural flow and integration. Lot more I could add however gives the gist of what I am on about. Hid in a corner all these years however when saw this site decided to have a stab at explaining my NDE. I have written extensively but not published. Who, after all is interested in radical and revisionary ideas. After all they forced Thomas Kuhn into a corner. Our current epoch is incommensurable with a civilization two hundred two thousand, two million or a billion years older. Plenty more where this came from. It's time to wake up and go beyond the magic and mythology of religion and the primitive egocentrism of science. Background Information: Gender: Male Date NDE Occurred: 1967 NDE Elements: At the time of your experience, was there an associated life-threatening event? Yes Accident On a surfing trip - near drowning Life threatening event, but not clinical death Nearly drowned. Coughing and spluttering I somehow managed to get to shore and crawl out of the water having given up all hope as I was clearly convinced that I was drowning. I truly thought I was a finished. How do you consider the content of your experience? Wonderful Did you feel separated from your body? Yes I lost awareness of my body How did your highest level of consciousness and alertness during the experience compare to your normal everyday consciousness and alertness? More consciousness and alertness than normal As above. At what time during the experience were you at your highest level of consciousness and alertness? When I literally died to my old self and was wrapped in Absolute Love and Absolute Forgiveness. I do not look through my eyes anymore what sees is beyond my poor confused self-conscious mind. The looking through is not mine it is boundless non-dual timeless and perfect. See ya later God. Were your thoughts speeded up? Incredibly fast Did time seem to speed up or slow down? Everything seemed to be happening at once; or time stopped or lost all meaning Timeless. It was shock to emerge from immediate awareness to consciousness. I most certainly did not die and here of course lie the rub. However it is relatively easy to demonstrate that every moment always exists for all probable and possible moments infinitely therefore whatever is flowing through this lot is not the surface structure we identify with. Kant phenomena, noumenon or more to the point Nagajuna's such-ness, nothingness and non-duality. Were your senses more vivid than usual? Incredibly more vivid Please compare your vision during the experience to your everyday vision that you had immediately prior to the time of the experience. Though there were intense and awe inspiring feelings something much deeper was operating and has remained to this day. No person can have ownership and no religion lay claim to Absolute Love. The body just didn't warrant attention. Please compare your hearing during the experience to your everyday hearing that you had immediately prior to the time of the experience. It was not like hearing but somehow directly intuiting without the necessity for language. The narrative comes afterwards and by heavens one must be absolutely vigilant not to pollute the direct experience. Did you seem to be aware of things going on elsewhere? Yes, and the facts have been checked out Did you pass into or through a tunnel? Uncertain Saw a blue green circle but did not pass through a tunnel. Did you see any beings in your experience? I actually saw them Did you encounter or become aware of any deceased (or alive) beings? Yes In the early stages I was bathed by some aliens beings. However, when I had the insight into Absolute Love everything with shape and form disappeared and had absolutely no relevance. The experience included: Void The experience included: Light Did you see, or feel surrounded by, a brilliant light? A light clearly of mystical or other-worldly origin Did you see an unearthly light? Yes Everything was light however it was not white, yellow, or black, it was pure radiance and for a timeless moment I was that radiance. Did you seem to enter some other, unearthly world? A clearly mystical or unearthly realm It is strange to look back and realize that the effects of the event continue to change my life and conception of existence on regular basis. When I write a book or article and finish it it is as if, even with all the research, I actually did nothing. It has taken to the middle years of my life to fully integrate the intellectual and experiential in a rigorous manner. Something unspoken operates beyond the self-conscious mind. Sounds whaky I know but I gotta another set of eyes. This is where the old narrative goes bottom up. Working in welfare sort of reflects a doing because it has to be done. Choiceless Freedom. so many damn dimensions and textures its downright spooky. The experience included: Strong emotional tone What emotions did you feel during the experience? Love, Love, Love, Love, Love, Joy, Joy, Joy, Joy, Bliss, Bliss, Bliss, Bliss. Absolute Forgiveness, total equity and complete union. Did you have a feeling of peace or pleasantness? Incredible peace or pleasantness Did you have a feeling of joy? incredible joy Did you feel a sense of harmony or unity with the universe? I felt united or one with the world The experience included: Special Knowledge Did you suddenly seem to understand everything? Everything about the universe The experience included: Life review Did scenes from your past come back to you? My past flashed before me, out of my control I don't think I learned anything from the experience what did happen was that I realized what I was doing, and still am doing nothing, even though I have to continue on with the trials and tribulations of life like everyone else. Absolute Love takes no prisoners you either imbibe non-judgment, and absolute forgiveness with a still mind or carry on with the useless narrative of self-justification. It is not to be learned it is to be lived. Did scenes from the future come to you? Scenes from the world's future All events exist right here and now (quantum mechanics and time) however insight steps into the timeless occasion of immediate perfection while witnessing the temporal flow of relative material reality. One could not remain in awareness because self was, and is still, irrevocably tied to material reality. To a non-dualist there is no spirit or soul because insight is subject less, objectless beginning-less and endless. At death my relative absence will be my absolute presence Nisargadatta Maharaj. Did you come to a border or point of no return? I came to a barrier that I was not permitted to cross; or was sent back against my will God, Spiritual and Religion: What was your religion prior to your experience? Liberal none Have your religious practices changed since your experience? No Religion just does not cut the mustard. Absolute Love can have no relationship with evil, devil, hell, purgatory, sin, karma, retribution, or any type of judgment blame and retribution. When they drop their absurd beliefs and magical mythical ranting then their ideologies will become redundant. By this stage, religions will be left with a whole lot of empty book covers. Absolute Love cannot be possessed or turned to any religious or political purpose. Either we love or we don't love easy peasy. Then we can party and just learn to love and care for each other on a truly equitable basis. What is your religion now? Liberal none Did you have a change in your values and beliefs because of your experience? No Religion just does not cut the mustard. Absolute Love can have no relationship with evil, devil, hell, purgatory, sin, karma, retribution, or any type of judgment blame and retribution. When they drop their absurd beliefs and magical mythical ranting then their ideologies will become redundant. By this stage, religions will be left with a whole lot of empty book covers. Absolute Love cannot be possessed or turned to any religious or political purpose. Either we love or we don't love easy peasy. Then we can party and just learn to love and care for each other on a truly equitable basis. The experience included: Presence of unearthly beings Did you seem to encounter a mystical being or presence, or hear an unidentifiable voice? I encountered a definite being, or a voice clearly of mystical or unearthly origin Did you see deceased or religious spirits? I actually saw them Concerning our Earthly lives other than Religion: During your experience, did you gain special knowledge or information about your purpose? Yes In fact this is the real bummer. When one steps outside of religion and yet admires science but sees beyond its limitations one's circle of friends becomes decidedly small. Universities philosophy and psychology departments are definitely not welcoming. Non-dual insight becomes a socially isolating. Recently tied to converse with atheists. Boy what a bunch of fundamentalists they have turned out to be. If you blow your own bags you are arrogant and misinformed if you shut up you're an introvert. Judgment, judgment everywhere judgment. Something is certainly doing I do not know what. Have your relationships changed specifically because of your experience? Yes After such a profound insight one wants to be a do-gooder and save the world however reality soon kicks in. It took a certain amount of time to realize that it is how I act in the world and what I do that assists in making the world a better place not how I attempt to change others based upon some conceptual prejudice. Reality certainly is not fair so we just have to learn to live with it and let evolution take its requisite path. After the NDE: Was the experience difficult to express in words? Yes I have spent my life working as a counselor and program manager. Studied many religious, philosophical and science based thinkers. Only two areas come to mind. The non-dualist Advaita Vedantist teacher Nisragdatta Maharaj (who rejected all religious dogma) and the approach taken by Alan Watts in his book 'The Way of Zen'. I completely reject hell, purgatory, sin, evil, damnation, judgment, blame, retribution, karma and reincarnation. Essentially the dualistic contradictory notion of God is to be voided. Absolute Infinity and Absolute Love are completely non-dual and non-judgmental. There was also a Polish Jew on a television program about NDE's who experienced Absolute Love unreservedly forgiving Nazi perpetrators. I just cried at the recognition of this wonderful man who intuited Absolute Love. I have also written extensively on Insight and Infinity however have not bothered to publish. Paradoxically, one soon learns that dogma free Absolute Forgiveness and Absolute Love either scares the hell out of many dogma bound individuals or becomes victim to scientific skepticism, scientific determinism and logical empiricism. So one soon learns to keep one's mouth shut. In my work as a counselor, I regularly use my understanding when I feel it is appropriate to assist in relieving a client's sense of hopelessness and despair. A substantial number of my clients either consider suicide or have made various attempts. We desperately need a contemporary meta-theory that is neither beholding to religion or science however it must fit within the purview of current scientific understanding. I am yet to find a satisfactory outlet for these ideas. Do you have any psychic, non-ordinary or other special gifts after your experience that you did not have before the experience? No My ability to network ideas seemed to take off. Are there one or several parts of your experience that are especially meaningful or significant to you? Nothing in my life has had the significance of the NDE and some meditation experiences that happened later. No doubt, no fear of death and a total comprehension of non-judgment. No one creates their realities life is conditioned by hereditary and socialized contingencies and if you are born in the first world then your lottery tickets certainly came up. The relative world demands a certain amount of legal accountability and responsibility and we need suitable constraints. However, the deep ocean of the Absolute is absolutely forgiving and absolutely non-judgmental. Remove judgment and reduce inner turmoil resulting in peace and equanimity. Have you ever shared this experience with others? Yes Be very, very careful the world is full of skeptics. Luckily my partner also had a NDE and out of the body experience so we at least have each other. Very useful when dealing with those clients who feel hopelessness and despair. I have worked with youth, drug addicts, families, mental health clients, domestic violence victims, service veterans and have found a deep need for a revisionary understanding of our place in existence beyond the magical and mythological assertions of religions and the self-imposed nihilism of scientific empiricism. Though I have not published this is the area I would most certainly like to move into. Did you have any knowledge of near death experience (NDE) prior to your experience? Uncertain I was a pretty spacey kid living in a fantasy world and always intuited the vastness of things. So I was very curious from an early age. Had some vague knowledge of NDE but nothing concrete. What did you believe about the reality of your experience shortly (days to weeks) after it happened? Experience was definitely real There are no illusions or delusion in reality for if there were contingent things then they could not necessarily occur. Nothing has changed. We continually confuse description with explanation however as Kurt Godel and recently Gregory Chaitin have demonstrated incompleteness is implicit within reality. We require an infinite hierarchy of descriptive and explanatory belts to explain reality and this is impossible. Insight looks back and witnesses without the duality of mental narrative. All things are accessible but not through language or symbolic representation. As there is only the emptiness and fullness of the Absolute we are all of Absolute Infinity and Absolute Love. In insight there are no degrees of separation and therefore no soul no spirit, no God, no heaven, no Hell for we are all THAT. What do you believe about the reality of your experience now? Experience was definitely real It makes me laugh that people have the gall to label events objectively real or subjectively illusory when to happen they must be real within their own context. It is not the veracity of the occurrence rather it is how that event is interpreted. If there is an infinite network of interpretations then, just maybe, watching and witnessing will generate a non-verbal understanding of our place in existence free from the labels real or illusory. Don't tell me the Absolute is not real because nothing can exist if it is not Absolutely Necessary. Everything subjective and objective is therefore necessary and given vast time scales and potentialities the texture of the web of context is indeed infinite thus we have Absolute Infinity. A word of caution. The classical argument against infinity is that it is a subjective human construct. Well here we go Mr. smarty pants philosopher infinity is thrust upon us through associational contexts between mind and word yet it is somehow an artifact of human reason. Get over it. Max Tegmark (Scientific American) does a brilliant job of refuting this erroneous argument. At any time in your life, has anything ever reproduced any part of the experience? Yes Other than drug free meditation and arts based experience nothing has come near to my NDE. I did have a meditation experience, which was similarly profound and even more enduring. The beauty of this event is that it was not induced by NDE or any form of drug stimulus. Tried Acid, marijuana and eckies in my hippy days however they are just very poor substitutes. In some ways having worked in drug and alcohol I can see what people are looking for unfortunately it isn't going to happen.

Your consciousness keeps growing. I don't think reincarnation is likely, though it can probably happen. It probably doesn't happen like it's usually said to. Some are more gifted, because they were made that way and their choices led them to be that way. I don't know what happens before a person if born, but it can be known that a person will be born long before they are born. The coming of Jesus was predicted 100s of years in advance. This doesn't mean he had already been born and developed, but somehow he already was. So your consciousness keeps growing. The afterlife will be very different to this one.

Hi all. I thought I would introduce myself. I am "Into The Void". It was the first name that came to me. There is no profound meaning to it. I have watched Leo's videos with great interest. He is an eloquent speaker. His ebullience, energy and enthusiasm are contagious. I first learned about Non-Duality from a lady friend about 12 years ago. We attended many satsangs with non-duality teachers like Jac O'Keefe, Paul Hedderman etc. I have watched dozens of You Tube videos featuring Mooji, Tony Parsons and so on. It all sounded great to me and I parroted the phrases like "you are not the body" for years. It all meant nothing. I was a parrot. Nothing more. One day it just fell into place and I could not understand any other way of "thinking". I have read the life accounts of some of these non-duality teachers and the pattern is always the same. A period of seeking; meditation, trips to India, fasting. This period would always create a "buzz" that was short-lived. A feeling of discontent would arise as the separate contracted energy would still be seeking wholeness. These teachers unanimously stated that their actual experiencing of non-duality happened not when they were trying to make it occur; it happened when they least expected it. They were going about their business when suddenly there was no person doing it. Non-duality is about that which cannot be known; that which is beyond description. No one can "know" non-duality. Every person has a mental image of what non-duality is. Nothing more. This "knowledge" offers no rewards except the satisfaction of knowing the truth and lightening your load in life since you can reject all that personal baggage. And of course there is the comforting knowledge that you are God and that God never leaves you until the form you have expires and God moves on to a new form. Loneliness is obsolete! Regarding enlightenment; I have read "trip reports" from people who have reported "ego deaths". A partial ego death perhaps but not a complete one as there still is an "I" reporting the ego death. I must confess that I have never experienced a full ego death. Meditation and OCCASIONAL use of Magic Mushrooms has provided a partial but that is it. Leo's studies with 5MeO were fascinating to say the least. It sounds as if the ego is totally annihilated by 5MeO. The ego disappears and God appears everywhere! At my age, 5MeO is not an option. What seekers take years to acquire, you do in seconds on this incredible tool. The mind is the great deceiver is it not? It convinces you are "on the path to enlightenment" or "you are getting nearer to God" or "Voila! I have achieved enlightenment!". It is only a mental picture of what the mind conceives as enlightenment, which of course is not enlightenment. U.G. Krishnamurti (the reluctant guru) talks about this in "The Mystique of Enlightenment". Faith is the all-powerful key. Yes YOU are God. If you believe in free will, reincarnation, angels, a heavenly paradise; they will materialize for you. IT IS NOT WHAT YOU HAVE FAITH IN. IT IS THE FAITH ITSELF THAT IS THE POWER. If I firmly believe that a grapefruit can cure my ills. It will! My soul does not have a name on it. It has no location. If you believe that you are the body/mind, you will keep bouncing back on this karmic wheel. When their is a "knowing" that you are not the body/mind, you are off the karmic wheel. Mankind believes in the concept "justice". They attempt to make the Universe fit into their concept of justice so they create the idea of karma. You do bad things and you get bad karma. You keep coming back until you "get it right". I cannot believe that a concept can rule my life and after-life (assuming there is one). I know nothing for sure. All I know is that non-duality feels right to me. Into The Void

What are you basing this on, @Keyhole? I'm fond of my cat, we're close. I even thought he was a reincarnated human. I don't think so any more. He seemed so human. He learner from me. Deep things. But at the end of the day he's just a cat, and I don't think he will be more than that. He will die, and whatever consciousness he has will disperse, or vanish, or whatever happens to animals when they die. My worldview at the moment excludes animals having souls. But I used to believe in reincarnation. I just can't see it right now. I don't know what consciousness animals have but I think it is way below human consciousness. That's why eating meat is permitted. I think I said the same thing a few times. Not in a good mood right now, for unrelated reasons.

We are all already enlightened in their purest form, because we are all the same thing, God. And God is omniscient, perfect and infinite. We created ourselves unenlightened to discover life as if it were the first time we live and to enjoy fresh perspectives with each reincarnation. So yeah, you're already enlightened, but you still don't know it.

LOL how do you know? Isn't that just a belief? You have no direct experience of reincarnation.

Bingo! I don't agree with the idea that you can transcend the ego entirely. It only changes forms and becomes more sneaky. Particularly watch out for when someone states that something is not ego. It will most likely be ego. Such a cunning tactic. This work was supposed to be about direct experience, so people deny their own birth. Yet, they believe in reincarnation and other silly concepts as if they were true or could be verified by any means. At least you have tons of evidence for your own birth. But no, they're just thoughts and you're imagining your birth, therefore you're deluded. Of course.

@Leo Gura Oh if it were only that simple, trust me, Id do it in a heart beat and end this drama I also believe in reincarnation being a good possibility, Id just be back with a bigger baggage of karma to eliminate But we speaking about Mahsamadhi, hmmm this would be the most ideal way to leave I guess, when alive and kicking with all faculties functioning. If its meant to be then maybe this life time

I guess that's where reincarnation beliefs are helpful. Let's say reincarnation is true. There is no actual difference between a temporary reunification and a permanent one. The only difference would be the body consciousness would be occupying the moment it comes out of unity.

This is how I feel when I think about reincarnation. It's a deep mystery to me. I feel like I had a profound sense of guilt in my past life.