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That's more or less what I said. The 'form is formless, formlessness is form' realization is easily a deeper and inclusive of nothingness. Sometimes, teachings intending to help beginning meditators or seekers focus their minds less on the 'everyday' objects/objectives in which the left-brained intellect is constantly engaged, choppy, and in solid control, might try to get them to shift their attention. A lot of the approach you advocate is engaging that aspect of the mind, rather than the right-brain (which you allude to indirectly). Check out a TED video by Jill Bolte-Taylor in which she describes her stroke experience. It has some clues.

Nothingness is a limited realization because excludes the form, and nothingness is a wrong term because the absence of form is full of being, absolute potential and it's everything. Realizing the absolute, unlimited potential that you ultimately are and being able to access it is basic to spirituality, the most fundamental step. There you fully recognize yourself as the unlimited being. The point is to be able to access that reality at any moment, but this is not the end of the path, since form exists and unfolds in infinite interconnected dimensions. Denying form as "maya" is spiritual castration. Form is as real as formlessness. Thoughts are form, they are real energetic structures, and they unfold infinitely like any other form. True spirituality is recognizing form as the inevitable manifestation of limitlessness and delving into it to the fullest.

Reality is consciousness. This for me is the Awakening threshold. I don't subscribe to such a point, it is my ever-present experience. Experience is Consciousness, sight, sound, sensations, touch, space, state; functions of Consciousness. Of course, Consciousness is nothing. But nothingness does not fully encapsulate consciousness. The absence of sensations is but another sensation, another state of consciousness, experience of consciousness. See? Although, I have to say that by the way you talk I feel you lack direct mystical experience. This is independent on whether we agree or not. I disagree plenty with Breaking the Wall and he's clearly a seasoned mystic and like recognises like.

I'll eventually get around to listening to Ralston's expression more, but maybe there's a point to be made. Not sure if Ralston distinguishes this or not, but this mind might express that people are seeking a transcendent experience, and they may/may not follow it/them to its most trans-rational, trans-logical end... into the realization of the NOTHINGNESS you speak of. Yes, that is the realization of the formlessness. It is neither necessary, nor guaranteed, nor even likely that that 'penultimate goal' of seeking will emerge. Dunno. A lot of it depends on the existential necessity arising, or so it seems. Here's where @Breakingthewall feels the rub, and that's fine. Most 'teachers' in the various schools of unlearning, at least the one's worth listening to, are teaching to those that are seeking to transcend. The NOTHINGNESS is not the end all be all. In fact, when listening to certain teachers, one has to be aware of whether or not they get stuck and attached to nothingness, in which case the mind has taken credit for realization (as in, my seeking caused/succeeded in finding and now I'm gonna teach the only path, I'm special, everyone else is just dumb and blind... I alone hold the truth, so drink up). Breaking calls this 'limited', because it is. After the realization of NOTHINGNESS (i.e., infinite potentiality, fully pregnant as Beingness), things get even weirder as one grapples with the complexities of informing mind as one uses it to re-engage the world as it is unfolding. During that process, many/most will become enraptured by and attached to freedom itself. They get stuck in the returning phase. Only those that make it fully through this phase are said to be 'enightened'. Typically, there are certain nuances and qualities in the expression that can be intuited if one KNOWS how.

Many here ascribe to the notion that 'all is consciousness', including Ralston, the apparent teacher in question. So, any mention of 'more consciousness' would logically mean that they are lacking the 'needed consciousness' to understand the 'All'. The mind often reverts to amount, a quantity, rather than peel back into the layers of quality, all the way into the NOTHINGNESS to which is pointed. Once realized, only then can one begin to grapple with the mind's protests. You assume Ralston has never done psychedelics when it says on his webpage that he shacked up in Berkley, which is basically the Mecca of psychedlic studies in the US. So, there's that. Psychedelics can be useful for breaking down unconscious, misconceived barriers firmly entrenched in the mind, and these may be conducive to deep insights and profound experiences. No probs. But, they do not 'cause' Truth (or it's Realization), nor do they 'cause' enlightenment. Those are realized in the 'acausal' realm of/as existence. Sure, if you take them, you may experience profound states of consciousness, but that's just mind stuff. All good and fun/terrifying. Psychonauts, if caught up in their delusions, tend to get stuck there by the well, reaching into it again and again, looking for something they think they are missing.

Peter Ralston seems very wise. I believe one of the things he talks about is nothingness, the highest Buddhist attainment, which shows you the non-dual, formless nature of Self. I think Frank Yang talks about the same thing. When listening to Peter’s videos he just seems so grounded and clear. I haven’t attended Peter’s workshops nor I have been his apprentice nor have I done his online courses, but from the snippets online and the podcast episodes now available he seems to be the real deal.

Awakening is God's fractal touch of Consciousness eternally unfolding, touching and morphing upon its own Infinite Formless Selfless Self. Nothingness, Formlessness, No Self, No Mind, Emptiness, Shunyata. But don't forget Infinity, God Realization, Love and Truth. Do you gravitate towards thinking, philosophical existential and metaphysical inquiry, endless contemplation and having a deep thirst and movement for just wanting to understand Reality and Truth just for it's own sake or do you tend to prefer Silent Meditation, No Self, Nothingness, No mind, No philosophical mumbojumbo? There is Infinite Mind. The Mind of the Infinite, but there ain't just one infinite mind, there are an Infinity of minds. Then it's just one mind then, right? Yes, but no also. There isn't just one or many and it isn't so simple as saying, "then it's all non dual then since all and one are identical". You can lump all infinities into one absolute infinity, but notice that there isn't just one absolute infinity, there are infinite absolute infinities. If there are infinite absolute infinities, we can just lump them all into one absolute infinity. Yes but also notice that there are infinite infinite absolute infinites. Keep imagining, it will stretch your imagination. You are not an object, with awareness, perceiving the external world located somewhere, doesn't matter where you are. All of that is arising within your awareness is it not? You cannot deny the obvious. Well actually you can! You are not happening somewhere in a body, you are the substance of existence. You hold everything, but you aren't anything at all. It's wild, your not anything, and you are everything but you are not bound by anything, not even Nothing

Any answer anybody gives other than the Absolute nothingness that is, can appear however it wants because it is totally free to be so and this is total anarchy and doesn't make any sense, will be a story. All stories and made up shit. The answer is total freedom appearing, appearing as any and everything. We use the senses to make sense of what we think we're in relation to. There's no relation to anything and it's all immediate and without true cause and effect. There are no rules to this.

The ego has the substance of reality: infinite. It is not a floating illusion nor a mere accident of perception; it is composed of the entire unlimited relationship that reality is. Its existence, as form, is not independent, but neither is it nonexistent. It is an inevitable and legitimate effect of the infinite in motion. You cannot recognize its emptiness, but its total fullness. The so-called "emptiness" is merely a negative concept that points to the boundary of form when isolated. But when you understand that all form is the inevitable unfolding of infinite relationship, emptiness dissolves into fullness. Real freedom is not "letting go of all identification," as if one could dwell in a conceptual limbo without form or content. True freedom is the dissolution of boundaries, recognizing that the limits that seem to separate the self, form, or any structure are merely mental projections. Emptiness, understood as absolute absence or negation, is itself a boundary ,a restrictive concept. How could an ego, with its millions of nuances, its complexity, its interdependence, its real relational structure, be sustained by nothingness? That makes no sense. If you look from an unlimited perspective, everything is empty in terms of separate meaning, yet at the same time, everything is. Being is everything, implies absolute meaning, not absence of meaning, because being is total. Real openness is not found in taking refuge in the denial of form, but in seeing that all form , including the ego, is the direct, inevitable, and absolutely full expression of unlimited reality.

There's nothing left to reduce if I already allow myself to strive for nothingness. I don't need someone to push me into submission; that would have the opposite effect (being submissive seems boring/demanding to me most of the time). On the other hand, the other (the maya in general, not necessarily women) becomes something that will systematically narcissify me, that will prevent me from returning to my emptiness. So I must ensure that the objects I'm exposed to are submissive, to eliminate the separation. Dont know if i'm clear.

Definitely. "I" is the biggest illusion. Nightmares at night is a consequence of the brain. Nothingness is already the case. Mind creates the illusion that there is something.

Why do you dream of nightmares at night ? When you have a nightmare..aren't you yourself creating this bad experience for yourself ? Ultimately ..it's a philosophical question. Some philosophers argue against the problem of evil (why an all powerful all loving God creates suffering?) By saying existence is better than non-existence. And whatever ends up happening in life is better off than pure nothingness. I'm not sure if that's true under all conditions . Would you rather go to sleep and never wake up again? ..or go to sleep and drift off between endless dreams ..some of them are pinky and beautiful and some of them are horrific and painful?

"Pulse getting slower, breath more shallow, noises are starting to get inversely proportional to fading focus, Is this an OBE? Not yet, but what is death, or life anyway? So then I'd say my consciousness is slipping, but that's just a word, and what it mentions, incommunicable? No, it is, but that's... telepathy, always was... I see gestalts... shadows in my periphery, are they the afterglow of a deteriorating memory context and am I making them up, or are they beings from beyond? I suppose the difference is quite imaginary without an epistemically sound way to discern and prove the difference, but that means utilizing arbitrary constructs, I feel so light, and everything is so bright, not unlike I imagined it but so far removed from all my experience used to have access to. Am I still bound to this place, can paralysis demons show up at this point, I wonder what entities will show up, or whether I'll levitate in nothingness, I guess I would know if I cared to actually stop thinking and started actually perceiving whatever is going on right now, but I'm just so excited about epistemology. After all, I gotta be humble in the afterlife, right? I for sure don't wanna be incarnated again."

LOL did someone just say non duality is easy and non-threatening. There’s nothing casual about your existence being an illusion and there being only oneness/infinity/nothingness/everything. That is one of the most, if not the most, radical things to realize.

Ever find yourself staring into space for like a quick second; that's like a glimpse into nothingness. The sense of a person apparently came back, but not really because it's not really there. Ever talking to someone and lost your train of thought. It's not your thought, it's thought "thoughting" (already the case), but wasn't being claimed in that moment and it slipped by without a sense of a person claiming it. Nothing can be grasped or held unto and in that apparent moment, that was experienced. Something like a non-dual moment, but not really. No such thing as non-duality. We're just making shit up. No such thing as anything, really. Even Nothing is a made-up word by nothing. It likes to talk about itself and name itself. It's nameless. It's not a void or a black hole, it's nothing. What is nothing? Nothing. Hehe....being everything...which is still nothing....hahahehehoho...i love this shit. Won't be saying nothing when asked what's that hit upside the head.

In simple words, as consciousness goes on increasing, there are breakthroughs in that way. One of the first milestones is non-duality or oneness, which simply said is that the inner space and the outter space are merged into one, inside the body doesn't feel more me than outside the body, both are equally me, I'm in oneness, I'm connected with everything etc. There are many other Awakenings in the path as consciousness rises like no-self, boundless consciousness, eternity, nothingness, the I-AM, Truth, Love, strange-loops, solipsism, perfection, and a myriad of other facets etc. At the olympics of consciousness you reach Infinite Consciousness and God.

I dont know because im not enlightened but maybe there is a difference between you could realize non duality, and thats the same as realizing nothingness (because nothing has no border) but then what’s missing is that everythingness, so the next step is to realize everything, oneness. Maybe I’m wrong as I said I don’t know but I’ve heard something along those lines

Here’s a powerful secret meditation technique I learned: 1. Settle in and imagine an empty desert. In this quiet empty desert, visualize a pyramid made out of crystal. See it as vividly as you can. Any thought that captures you, return back to the pyramid. 2. Notice the pyramid fading away to nothingness, along with the desert. 3. Sit in the empty stillness for as long as possible. Any thought that’s come up, see them fading away like the pyramid. 4. As you sit in the stillness, just notice consciousness itself. Don’t try to do anything. Just notice what consciousness is doing. Ask the question: “What is consciousness? What am I?” Don’t try to answer it with more thought, just notice. The answer is a shift in consciousness. That is my secret meditation technique. Hope you enjoyed it.

There's no one to dissolve into nothingness. Nothingness is all there is.

Sounds like the third law of motion: "Each action has an equal and opposite Reaction" aka. Karma. Recent "spirituality" threads appear to converge upon "stop caring including caring about achieving that state and dissolve into nothingness (which mayn't be nothing, just mindless, thoughtless, (iterate)" or something.

When Leo talks about Reality on his blog, like in his most recent post about Math and Reality, and I look at it from the dream perspective and cognize it from that angle, it fits perfectly. It's like he's talking to the one that thinks it's a human being (the me). The separate self, the person, the separate energy that arose within the body and thinks it's separate from everything else. The dream itself. Experience itself. The mention of the words world and reality leads me to my world, my reality, my experience, my knowledge.....but without the my. It's like he's talking about how it was all formed, how it seemingly concurred. When I envision the mind part and the imagination part, I see it as Absolute nothingness being 'me' and how 'me' is dreaming up my life and everything around 'me' but not what the Absolute itself is being. I look at it as, what's appearing, is the Absolute being whatever is appearing, and that's real. What I'm dreaming about is all mind and imagination and that I'm the dream itself and also imagination itself (the ne), but the Absolute isn't a mind nor imagination. I also look at it as the Absolute being whatever is appearing through mind and imagination, but the latter can't be since the Absolute is everything there is. Meaning the Absolute/God isn't dreaming or imagining anything, I am. When I put myself in his words as the dream, as the experience, as separate from reality it fits perfectly but not in an Absolute way because the Absolute is the 'one' talking to itself, writing those words and being Leo himself. So, I see it as the Absolute/God talking to itself but referring to the 'me', the illusion. It fits perfectly then but not what the Absolute/God/Nothingness is actually being, but is also being but only seemingly and appearing to. For example, it is being a bird, but the me is seeing that bird separate from me and the dream is that which sees a separate bird because the dream is spacial but not really occurring. The sense of separateness and the dream and imagination are one but it's not really real since it's only a felt sense. Let me stop here as I think I'm confusing things a bit, not myself but the way I'm wording it to make it make sense. I'm fascinated with this exploration and will continue to explore more of this and will keep seeing if his words match up to this sense of separateness and if it resonates to the dream and illusory world and existence that i take myself to be in or is itself. I have to also keep in mind that Leo himself is also a 'me' that I see as a separate person, entity, being and how I relate to that energetically. Is he only there because I am (here), and I'm taking him to be someone actually trying to convey a message, or us he just a figment of the imaginary dream I've concocted up that I call Reality. I see the Reality he speaks about as the me's dreamlike reality that's not really there. I don't know, we'll see because I don't really see a reality, I see people, places, circumstances and objects(things), but there aren't any really since it's all nothing being everything and appearing as such and the stories and ideas about all that appears is the dream of separation. Dunno.

That’s a thoughtful post. Here’s a take on the points you’ve presented. 1- With respect to existential questions and the search for their answers, there are two interesting schools of life: the School of Necessity and the School of Futility. People will not seek to find an answer without the necessitated question at hand, which emerges within the mind and grabs the attention. Due to any number of biases, mostly cognitive and/or socio-cultural, one’s individuated consciousness is attenuated to projected likely ‘answers’, desired outcomes, or probabilities. 2- Inconsideration of the above, yes, most peeps’ world views are formed by the ‘outward’ environment, the appearing world. The cognitive and the socio-cultural biases inform one another until a certain stimulus necessitates the search for a ‘new answer’ and/or revision of a previous one. Therefore, if one has grown up in a culture (family, media, social circles, school. etc) that is dominated by say, the scientific-materialist paradigm, many or most of the so called acceptable ‘answers’ are going to appeal to that world view. All good….. Until it’s not. Rinse and repeat ad nauseum. 3- In culturo-linguistic fields, this is called immersion. And yes, the more one is immersed in a new paradigm, the more one is likely to get a sense for, adapt to, and accept the validity of said paradigm. That said, this all with respect to cognition, language, and social settings. This message board is an example of one such paradigm. Note: Some of what Leo is on and on about is learnable, so he considers himself a teacher of it. The material is all researchable on the web and subjectively valid and/or experienced, subject to prioritization, re-organizable, revisable, etc. As with all knowledge, it is impermanent, subject to entropy, and changes. When it comes to Truth, which he claims to have apprehended, one must understand that it is NOT teachable, as it is not learnable or cognizable. It is not a thing. It cannot be researched, revised, or restructured. IT must be Realized. Many will exhaust their mind’s faculties in the effort of seeking to learn more about it, and die, perhaps with some degree of knowledge of the metaphysical, high end physics or ‘spirituality’, and the like, but will never apprehend IT. With any luck, they will fall to their knees, and in that moment of surrender, get a glimpse of, or perhaps a full on apprehension of Truth will emerge, but no one knows when/if. This often takes the form of inquiry into the nature of reality and/or the nature of the self. Many others will go the other route of seeking to subdue or subvert the mind via meditation and other practices, or take drugs (some of them purddy wild, to be sure), and woo woo experiences abound. All of this is done in efforts to create different mind states in which one might get glimpses or experience transcendental states, which come and go. As with any practice or effort, there's always the potential for failure, and with Truth, it is actually quite high, because the mind is that quick and sneaky. After the oceanic feeling, mind-blowing experience, woo woo, or otherworldly event has subsided, the mind kicks in with all sorts of ‘new’ theories and/or expressions meant to clarify what was seen, experienced, or understood. Typically what happens is that the essence of any potential depth of ‘experience’ gets, shall we say, corrupted by the momentum of the dominant paradigm of one’s mind/thinking. As with all trial and error phases in life, many give up and/or find their own comfy spot. That's fine; it's just hasn't found what it was looking for. One rarely notices or fully realizes the Absence giving rise to the sense of presence, or the Nothingness giving rise to Everything, the Absolute that gives rise to the relative, etc. Lots of ways to express the journey and/or the clarity. As one immerses the attention in Truth, it continues to inform the mind of its limited capacity for which it is mostly a tool to be used in the world. But that’s the catch; states (which come and go) are always about mind, which changes. What comes and goes is NOT abiding non-dual Awareness of/as Truth: Peace, Freedom, Love, Beauty, the Good....right HERE, right NOW. And IT's ALL GOOD.

Yeah but enlightenment isnt the finish, it's a stepping stone to a new beginning. Most important thing to understand is that you cant experience everything because the nothingness/shakti/potential is what starts a new interaction with yourself. So shakti/potential is also conscious like yourself

@Leo Gura Exactly the point i was trying to make to that guy, with my understanding, it would be slightly hypocritical of you to supported either end, for what your teaching stand for, as being on partisan spectrum is 'something'. Since you understand what nothingness is than almost everyone here. I guess a 'non left' reply means a 'right supportive' reply(and vice versa) for a mind who is not aware of its own judgements. However in my personal opinion, these riots feel like an answer against the brutalities of ICE agents, not only their ways of catching someone, but their ways of keeping the people who they arrest. Separating mothers from their children, arresting students with a valid student visas and permits, etc. I think they is a better way to catch those who actually need to be tried and deported. I will say that it is very easy to fell in favor of these riots for a leftist, for the emotions it stirs, base green mindset probs.

@Carl-Richard @Inliytened1 Yes, others can see from their eyes and you can see through the eyes of others. There are others with a beating heart just like yours that are present in the ocean of consciousness. There is only presence no matter where you are, meaning others will be individualized consciousness forms that will reflect your consciousness back. Each individual will have their own path, their own reality because they're a tiny drop of consciousness in infinite ocean. The infinite ocean is like an infinite open channel, meaning all individual experiences are there but doesn't necessary mean that you were the one that had these experiences. How is this possible? Many people didn't have this realization yet, but it is because the creation is constantly interacting with potential/nothingness meaning new experiences are being created constantly. _____________________________________________________________________________ I wrote this recently in google, and it confirmed my realization about woman/energy in my past threads. As you can see shakti= the feminine aspect is the "foundational force". Meaning the feminine is the nothingness/potential that is in constant interaction with creation. When i am in meditation this shakti=feminine force always makes me orgasm first and it feels like this "shakti" force never has enough it always wants more and can go infinitely more. This is what woman are, creation is in the woman. When creation interacts with potential/shakti , "ego" is born and get individualized in the creation/ocean this is why it feels like we have no free will. Because you're getting individualized in a stable/creation that can be accessed by anyone that reached that level of understanding/truth