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It's is kinda shocking that he didn't understand this sooner. If he listened to me and took some "frog juice" he would have realized it, and stuff even beyond that which is still missing from his teachings. As I said, self-inquiry and contemplation will not be enough to fully awaken. That's the real lesson here. I have underscored this trap that nonduality people commonly make, where they identify Truth/Absolute as formlessness while marginalizing form. And Ralston is still missing that Truth = Love.

most people think that professionals and high level people have some extremely complex understanding of some area of reality...which can often be true, but also...high level masters in any area of life will tell you that the case is often far, far simpler than you actually make it in your mind. Think about nonduality for example, esteemed to be the highest and most powerful and greatest teaching...and yet what it actually teaches is the most basic, simplest thing imaginable: that one thing exists. notice the common ground simplicity and profundity share at times. in practical, every day life, dont try to be more skilled than you are. you do better to admit that you know nothing and start at level 1 again but correctly and just learn the basics. dont overcomplicate it, as this is often the source of confusion. I took leos entire life purpose course just to realise that what i wanted to do was starring me in the face since i was a teenager. be mindful that things that are blindingly obvious, can sometimes be missed on account of the fact that they are the only thing there (theres nothing to contrast them against) like this image...somewhere in this image there is a wall, study the image carefully until you have a breakthrough and see the wall:

Working with 5meo takes time, like at least 10-20 times to see the glimpse of nonduality and integrating it. You are good, meditation is good prior 5meo, it helps one to not freak out much Personally I started with 5meo alone, nasal And i continued to explore it on my own in rectal, it's been 81 times now

I have not been active in the forum for quite some time, but just wanted to drop by and share my experience. For +12 years I have been searching for SOMETHING missing, something not quite clicking, and explanation into why I find life so difficult and full of suffering. I made a huge bet into nonduality and was 100% convinced all my problems can be boiled down to ego related integration issues and lack of seeing clearly in metaphysical terms. I even achieved a few incredible transcendent experiences along the way, but they of course were short lived and ultimately did not help me. Eventually through taking time of and travelling for 6 months in nepal and india, giving me time to reflect and really look into my experience and connect the dots I realised: I’m a high masking/low support needs AuDHD (mix of autism and adhd) I wont do an exhaustive explanation on the aspects of what my life has looked like in the past, but I can tell you that EVERYTHING makes sense now. I really have so few questions left to ask. Only thing left is to try my best o align my life according to my fixation/special interest (electronic music and sound design) and thats pretty much it, my life is done. I will eventually get back to nonduality seeiously again (because of course there is an infinity yet unrealised) but right now embrasing my fixation gives me way more joy than the metaphysical. Its quite overwhelming (and sad at the same time, as I must embrace that my life will forever will be quite difficult in day to day basis). But im not looking for a fix/medicine anymore, there never was an illness or really a problem or fault, its just me. The amount of relief is incredible, i feel like bursting to tears all the time. The more i research the more seamless and fully explanatory everything is. Holy FUCK folks! All the best guis, good luck out there <3

Non duality from Africa. First time I have heard it from this source

Insights seemingly appear almost everyday. Most are not very important. And about beliefs and such. Or trying to untangle from beliefs. I mean on psychedelics "experienced" so much weird stuff (mostly visions) jesus, hindu, space, hell, god, enlightenment etc. stuff but it’s hard to grasp so i don’t know how important it is. Getting addicted to nonduality talks it resonated that there’s no one and no free will/doer. But i also don’t know if that’s important. If there’s no one how can anything be important? Important to whom? How can anything be more important than anything else if let’s say all is kind of one.

@Carl-Richard it's a waste of time arguing with Razard86. He just can't be wrong . Can there be two infinities? In math classes in high-school..did you study that infinity +infinity =infinity ? And infinity × infinity = infinity ? What is oneness ? What is nonduality ? What does it mean to say reality is made of the same substance? Is the thing that is aware of this present moment within me different from the thing that is present within you ?

There's also the opposite effect, thrashing around like an animal in the cage of your mind when you realize that's the only thing there is. Being 'somewhere' isn't quite the end of nonduality, more like a dissociative hole.

The Awareness, of being always aware of the nonduality at all times, that cannot be manifested or brought about directly, it has to be the residual result or consequence of setting up the "playing field" per say, you set the atmosphere up in your own system so that Awareness is naturally arising, for eg if You truly Realize we are all one, individual Bodies and Minds yes, but that is not what we are, in what we are we are all One, if that is truly realized then Awareness comes naturally..Once that is in place, no War is possible...

Why does practically no one care about the intersection between physics and spirituality? Leo, of course, has a very well prepared answer to this. The answer is that the modern scientific establishment, which is a giant mass of self validating authority, cannot move beyond its materialist paradigm and start to consider the importance of the observer as part of the physical systems they are studying. (Someone correct me if I didn't get this right). The trouble for me is that even given this explanation, there are no "wackos", no "fringe" or "pseudo" scientist, no internet conspiracy theorists, NO ONE who have both a deep understanding of spirituality and physics, and also have a humble respect for truth and epistemology. Of course, you have to exert zero effort to find someone who claims to be studying, or has found some theory of everything which ties together biology, consciousness, the standard model, GR, and God into one self consistent theory with a nice little bow on top. Whenever I find someone with this type of claim though, the theory will be either utter speculation (neither based on direct experience nor experimental observations), supper narrow in scope (for example, a mathematical framework to tie together QFT and GR), or a leap from some physical phenomenon to consciousness with absolutely no logic or critical thinking in between (for example, Roger Penrose positing that consciousness arises from quantum effects in the brain. Anyone who has perused spirituality deeply will know that this is definitely wrong, because consciousness does not arise from physical phenomena but instead is responsible for those phenomena. Penrose is about as academic establishment scientist as you can get though). So like, can we please find one person who for example: 1. Knows that they are god, and all of reality is part of their mind. In other words they have discovered absolute truth. 2. Understands the mathematics and logic behind physical theories like general relativity and quantum field theory. 3. Seeks to use their understanding of these two fields to build a cohesive model of the universe. Starting from the one absolute truth and from there deriving all the relative truths that we know and love today. I mean, this is definitely a big ask, but at the same time you would expect to see a couple people working on this. In reality though, there are NONE. I think someone might be able to to point out a couple contenders for people trying to work on this, such as Christopher Lanigan or maybe Joseph Campbell. But their theories are unsatisfactory to me. So I'm going to try to be as clear as possible as to what I'm looking for: I want an explanation of everything, nothing less. I want someone to be able to take the unopinionated ground truth of all of reality, which is nonduality, god, consciousness itself, or whatever you want to call it. I want the theory to start from 0. From nothing. From the point of total nothingness and ending in the exact nature of the reality which we see before our eyes today. A theory like this would be totally logical and be based on subjective experience of absolute truth at the most basic level. From this point, I want to be able to describe the nature of our conscious experience, and the objective reality which we seem to be experiencing living in. I want U(1)xSU(2)xSU(3) symmetry to be explained, and I want every physical phenomenon in the whole universe to be able to be explained. I don't really see anyone who has a really good understanding of the foundations of physics right now and at the same time has a really good understand of consciousness and absolute truth. Personally, I have what I would consider a surface level understanding of both of these things. I'm working on it myself, but I don't see anyone else who I would consider to be like me. I have spent some time at a Buddhist monastery so far, and I have bachelors in mathematics and physics, but I have waaay more work to do before I really even know the exact questions to ask. Anyway, all the theoretical physicists today are materialists and if they are talking about consciousness it's because they want to be trendy, but really they have no idea what they are talking about once they get away from physics. All mystics I know of who know about direct experience of absolute truth seem to not really care about physics, or have a very lazy understanding of it. So yeah this was just a rant let me know what you think.

I really like the back and forth of whether or not he loves "war" when he claims to want peace. Peace would require consciously knowing "every individual is only a version of you", and as we all know, fully consciously being aware of nonduality at all times is not exactly easy. Therefore, even if you do claim to want peace, it really will always be a surface level understanding of it. Being in duality will always technically mean being in love of war since others are separate from you, whether or not you like it.

A nice post from Frank Yang on Bernadette Roberts (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernadette_Roberts ). https://www.instagram.com/p/CsJMKS6uNZf/ True No-Self is not the No-Self of no Ego, or No-Person, not even the No-Self of the Unitive States, or "being" a Nondual/Unitive Infinite (mere appearance) Field (that still contains an awareness (a separate self with individuality is having, subject) of an infinite empty nondual field ("object"), for example induced temporarily by psychedelics). True No-Self is the final death (or transcendece) of any form of the separate self, crossing over to Infinite Fully Empty Impersonal Nothingness/Consciousness, or Full Enlightenment. "There is a reality. We are that reality. When you understand this, you see that you are nothing, and being nothing, you are everything. That is all". - Kalu Rinpoche True No-Self can not be understood before fully waking up, before Great or Final Enlightenment, where any reamaining separate self fully dies/gets transcended, Infinite Impersonal Consciousness unseparable of its appearances arising within in. That last deep identity change is not gradual, but sudden. Unexpected. And has nothing beyond it. The dropping of the separate self can not (by definition) be imagined or understood before it finally happening, see the yellow markings above. Because who would do the imagining? A separate self (in whatever version). Which has to be gone to fully wake up. So the separate self can't do the imagining how it "would be like" to be gone. It is the "thing" doing/being the imagining. "Incapable of conceiving its own non existence", see text above. When one walks down the unitive states road to the end, boosted by Psychedelics, one can end up with forms of solipsism, and even further with an Infinity of Gods. A confusion of that with the Absolute, or Fully Empty Impersonal Infinite Consciousness, certain separate self aspects still left untranscended. Which then kill the unitive and nondual state of this separate self/unity-state-identity/God within an Infinity of Gods/Alien/n+1 when coming out of the trip. Necessary for that confusion (some form of pre-trans confusion to use the wording of Ken Wilber) is, among other confusions, to misidentitfy True No-Self: not True No-Self (the death/transcendence of any and all separate self/Individuality arisings, resulting in fully empty IMPERSONAL Consciousness/Nothingness/Absolute) but with some lower forms of "No-Self", like No-Ego, No-Person, No-separate-body-mind (but nondual), No-Self of Unitive States up to a very subtle and empty transparent Witness (already nondual, being the nondual infinite field), but with some Individuality still left. The last dropping/transcending/-seeing as objects arising in ones True Self- of identity, center, localization, any forms of individuality-arisings, very very subtle feelings or awareness OF Emptiness, OF an infinite universe being seen, awareness OF being, awareness of anything is what finally brings this sudden crossing over to ones Real Identity. Waking up, Enlightenment, fully empty and impersonal Consciousness/Reality. And that is where there is nowhere further to go (no n+1, no new Awakenings), final peace and liberation are to be found. In ones True Identity. And that is why stopping short, and declaring that stopping short (New Awakening n+1) as higher as that crossing over to ones Real Identity (Nothingness), is a dangerous pre-trans-confusion, which doesn't lead to ones True Being and final liberation and the end of suffering, but a continued grasping and suffering for ever higher and newer "Awakenings" not into emptiness/Nothingness, but form/manifestation, and how the manifestation/imagining process is structured. And for those not even walking this (psychedelic-) path, but basking in proliferating mere (retold) concepts or stories about this path, ending in Solipsism and Infinity of Gods, it doesn't even deliver the transcendence and beauty that these unitive and infinite psychedelic states bring. But something on a spectrum ranging from suffering to madness. The spiritual path is the transcendence of the separate self, its death or letting go, once and for all. Neti Neti, until fully being everything, because one has become the real Nothing/ness. Not the blowing up of the separate-self to infinite God-like-solipsistic dimension. That would be the other direction, leading not to freedom and love, but to suffering and closing down. Directly into the cycle of merciless suffering and dissatisfaction, being caught in the prison of the claws of the separate self/ego/self-contraction. That is what makes this pre/trans-confusion (at least in the perspective of yours truly) very very dangerous. And now, for those disagreeing, the Bear-and-Empty-Mirror thing (signature link) please Selling Water by the River PS: And to end a bit "lighter": A Samsara/Lila consisting of separate selves necessarily needs continuing Illusion/Ignorance concerning ones True Identity. So for the fraction that will for sure not change its mind just because there is Water being sold at the River (posting above), and still prefers to continue with a certain solipsistic-messiah complex, yours truly would recommend considering doing it with style: Something like the very charming and apparently very attractive for the ladies - style of Russell Brand: Then, at least, its very charming . Less capital letters, less exclamation-marks, less angry criticism, blaming and calling names, but truck-loads of charm, (especially) with the opposite sex!

I remember Leo talking about how meditation and nonduality is not awakening. But I am wondering if this is one of the 10% of the false teachings? I mean think about it, what is the alternative? Just scrolling on TikTok and YouTube!!? That will never get you awake. Or is the alternative to plug DMT every day? That's not realistic either. What I have come to conclusion of is that meditation is all about increasing your awareness to the actuality of reality. You can take all the DMT you want, but if you aren't grounded in the actuality of the present moment, no amount of psychedelics will awaken you. There are plenty of people who take psychedelics more than me and maybe more than Leo but who are not awake. I think maybe Leo made a nuanced point in that no method is the awakening in the same way that the map is not the territory. Meditation is not awakening. Psychedelics is not a awakening. Contemplation is not awakening. Because all of these are activities and is not the same as state. It is confusing doing with being. Awakening is a state of BEING in which certain things that you can DO may bring about that state of BEING/REALIZATION. But the activities of meditation and psychedelics are not realization/being themselves. I think this may be the point he was making. I don't think Leo is discouraging people from meditating, but rather he is challenging people who are engaging in meditation filled with human Buddhist ideological nonsense. I get it. Chanting the Hare Krishna mantra over and over again probably won't get you to awakening. Awakening is too profound for such a simple dumb method like chanting Hare Krishna (no offense). There can be many deluded methods of meditation and psychedelics (i.e., such as chanting a religious mantra). But there can be more profound ways of meditation that can bring about mystical experiences and maybe even enlightenment. But the effectiveness of such a method would vary across different individuals. I am convinced though that there is no awakening/enlightenment without serious contemplation. You can quiet your mind, but if you don't know how to use your mind to think in nuanced ways, to avoid bias, then how could you be awake? How can you be awake if you would still vote for Trump and hold a lot of deluded stuff in your mind? So my point is that the method is not awakening, but this does not mean to stop meditating. It means to examine closely what you are doing and to make sure that you are meditating in ways that actually transform your consciousness. There may be limits on what meditation can do for some people, but what is the alternative? We just gonna scroll on social media!? No! We still engage in meditation and contemplation, but we aim to improve at it little by little. Meditation may not lead to the deepest levels of reality, but it is a practice that will transform your life for the better if done correctly. Meditation is a better alternative than chasing after money, fame, sex even if it doesn't ultimately lead to the highest levels. But that is still a big question mark of whether meditation can lead to the deepest levels or not. I think it all depends on how effective you are. You cannot be effective if your mind still clings to Buddhist, Spiritual nondual beliefs/ideology. If one thing Buddhism teaches you, it is that clinging is the root of all ignorance/suffering. Buddhism taken to the extreme deconstructs itself.

Its not duality, but its also not solipsism. Its nonduality. Its only duality if you still take awareness for an object, if you are awareness on intellectual level. Awareness is merged with all, no separation, no duality. A way I like to put it, awareness is nothing but is real, objects are something, but illusory. Something that is illusory really is nothing, in another aggregate form, if you think about it. Ice is water.

@Da77en It does not depend on what response you are getting on a specific topic such as Non-duality, Reality, or Truth but how much deeper you want to go into it. It will require work from you and whoever comes on this forum to search for it. Lately, nonduality has become a buzz word & everybody has their own POV. 99% of this view expressed anywhere on the internet is still a trap within the minds of people who are expressing it. How passionate are you about knowing the truth, and what are you bringing to the plate to know it? Otherwise, it will not take time for you to become a parrot as well. (99%, I have mentioned above.) For me, the eagerness when I have faced this question is to keep my life on the front line and be ready to die (if required) to know the reality. Even if you take the most powerful psychedelic on earth and are not ready to integrate the learning, deconstruct your mind, etc. You will end up with the majority facing mental issues triggered by it. Some rules to go forward (you can add your own) : - For a specific topic on this forum go to Google and search for a specific topic for example - site:https://www.actualized.org/forum/ "awareness". You can do this with any specific site. This will cut down your search to a minimum number you put. Now go and see the old topics on this forum or other sites. You will find some very good explanations on the topic you are searching for. Here is the link to get into a basic search on YT. There are many videos on the same topic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kzhbYoSZix4 - If you have started a topic and say for example 4 people have replied to it. Most probably out of 4. Only 1 or 2 people replies which resonate with you. You have to engage with them (elaborate on your query etc). It's ok if you are not engaging with 100 which doesn't answer your query. Other than this my POV here (Which may not be of yours or others) : You never arrive on this search. It keeps showing you new levels of understanding, and experience. The only thing you have to do is to keep yourself humble and surrender to it. Also, this journey is not for everybody (This is my POV) because it may land you with a nervous breakdown or mental illness. It is so direct that no thoughts or complex wording can define it. If you didn't find an answer here go somewhere else and search it. Never ever get discouraged because you are a unique POV out of approximately 8 billion Humans POV right now on Earth and an infinite alien POV out there.

The most Genius ones for me in no particular order: Leo Gura, Angelo DiLulo, Bentinho Massaro, Josh ("So awake" yt channel), Suzanne Chang (Suzanne Nonduality), Roger Thisdell

Those are more experientially-oriented terms while "philosophical" ones are more difficult to relate to. As an example, "me" and "I" were probably one of the first words you learned, while many people haven't even heard of nonduality, which is a term abstracted out from experience. (?) A spiritual term can be intellectually apprehended, yet highly abstract ones might in some ways preclude personal discovery. Abstraction is convenient for the mind because nothing or very little gets confronted within your self-experience--just notions being discussed, refuted, agreed upon, etc. In the context of enlightenment work is where this negation or mindset, if you will, comes in--I wasn't very clear about that from the beginning. About understanding and communication, it depends on what you are up to, but it is obviously needed and valuable. We would have to start by clarifying for ourselves what is being communicated and for what purpose.

I get what you mean and roughly agree but I would call that Nonduality/Enlightenment. Spirituality can be a less specific term that could involve all the other Consciousness Tricks like astral realms, insanity, aliens, exploration of exotic states of mind and so on. Clear Seeing that all of the above are just radiant constructs arising from the Unborn i would call Enlightenment Departament of Spirituality and I would tend to say its the most relevant for me and for humanity - but whos to say that Insanity Departament is less valid.

So I got into nonduality back in 2015. However, ever since I began doing therapy with my current therapist a year ago, as well as Leo calling out nonduality, I’ve been slowly chipping away beliefs and concepts I’ve gathered from it. One of the biggest traps that still controls me to a certain degree is the idea that since there’s no doer, I have no way to change the trajectory of my life and to make my life circumstances better for myself and others. Do any of you still believe this? It seems like this concept has been a major copout for why I shouldn’t make any effort to change. Edit: heh, this is my 420th post on this forum.

Yea i don’t know. Might also be some childhood trauma in the story but not sure. I mean we probably all have some anyway. A few months ago seemingly got quite addicted to watching nonduality videos and also seemingly have many bodily sensations and such but maybe it’s not related and just horse dung.

Remember when we used to assume that nonduality was the highest truth and enlightenment was the end goal?

Yea I coined the term nonduality nonsense i think. ( or maybe not who knows) There is a lot of nonsense in non duality but “radical” nonduality is probably still the least bs pathless path or direct pointing (for no one) that I’ve seen. But language automatically becomes nonsense seemingly.

Would you consider nonduality nonsense?

The subtitle for this sub forum says: “Includes topics like: New Age, Paranormal, Religion, Lucid Dreaming, Alternative Healing, etc” Nonduality can be considered under “etc”

I experienced firsthand that experiencing nonduality does not directly lead to being a genius in all affairs, lol. But in the context of nonduality, don't you find it interesting the world you come back to? Let's say I am being imagined in the mind of God. I, am an idea, a mentalization. My being is fundamentally mental, not fundamentally physical. Oh hey, I live in a country that is defined not just by a physical territory, but by a set of ideas. The idea of "America," and all that entails. It's quite a rich set of ideas. There are many empowering ideas and concepts embedded in the conceptual, moral, ethical, governmental, societal, entrepreneurial, and psychological make up of this country's national character. These ideas, such as the idea of self-determination, or the idea that all people are created equal, are just laying around. They wait for us to pick them up and see what we can do with them. Previous generations did the same for their time, and now it's our time. What I see at play in this election, from the lens of epistemology, is that questioning authority has always been a central theme in American thought. But too many people do it reflexively. Being charitable, it seems Donald benefits from this, somehow positioning himself as the outsider candidate. But from where I'm standing, it seems like since the 60s there has been this reflexive cynicism latent in American society that's so prevalent, people engage in this cynicism without questioning why. I say the real subversive act these days is believing that government can actually work for citizens rather than for capital or for the so-called "elites." What I see in Kamala is a candidate who's worked in public service her whole life, and like Biden, that makes her more qualified to run the government competently for the average citizen, not hopelessly bought out by special interests. I say we as citizens should try to be cynical of those who want us to believe that government can't work, and work harder to demand that our politicians work for us. Be more engaged with the political process as it actually stands in this country, rather than being so ready to take a sledgehammer to the whole thing out of frustration. I mean hello, the guy who's hobnobbing with billionaires like Elon Musk, and ready to sell out US foreign policy to the highest bidder is the one who's more beholden to special interests, no matter how he branded himself.