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This will help us contemplating each of those mechanisms and noticing them in our lives. I am interested in those tricky mechanisms that prevent us from totally accepting nonduality, at least theorically. Examples: Self-righteousness Projection Ridiculing Distraction I am now more interested than ever contemplating these because I realized how much power and trickiness these mechanisms have. Please help me, much love for all of you ♥️♥️♥️

It’s a lovely post and I feel ya, & I hear ya. However, you have not realized Nonduality, and you’re simultaneously creating problems for yourself unnecessarily not only with respect to this (nonduality) forum, but likely in your life as well. To claim to be a disciple in the name of anyone or anything, is to speak via the method of unaccountability. When two people do it, wars are started in this manor. Say what you like, but as yourself, you will find you are entirely accountable as such in any and every case. If you are of nondual awareness, if the Bible has ‘decoded’ before you, please share from you, from your heart, rather than under any false pretenses. There are many passage where Jesus cautioned of this very thing. And you might also want to google Jerusalem to see what’s been going on there ever since.

Okay Isn't nothing like saying nonduality? There reason I can't look at a chair and see nothing, even in meditative states, is because I don't even have to imagine what that is for it to be apparent. Duality is apparent in consciousness, whether I recognise it or not. So I'm imagining that in nondual states, if I can call them that, there is no apparent difference between stuff and everything is one, with me included.

If it’s helpful, clarifying....Non-duality / advaita (not-duality), is the pointing of not-two. This pointing never implied “one” to begin with. Ajata “not even one”, is a misunderstanding of advaita. (An implication nonduality / advaita meant “one”.) Nothing, everything, anything, any thing, any no thing, no thing, self, no self, human self, no human self........and “illusion”....are the very “two” to which advaita points to as being, not-two. “Nothing matters”, and “it’s this”, are already the implication of, “two”.

@Leo Gura Leo why do you still teach us? Repeating the same things again and again, don't you get frustrated from us? It really takes a lot of love to do that. Thank you, much love ♥️♥️. Another question , why don't you make episodes reacting to other videos on YouTube or clips from movies explaining nonduality and spiral dynamics through them. I think this will be very effecient approach , what do you think?

Roger Castillo has this new video. He has sometimes quoted from ACIM in past videos. I haven't watched this new video yet but his teaching is about nonduality which as I see it is useful for removing even the feeling of fear.

You're actually correct. Not long ago I became aware that I have been holding back a lot of emotions, and it manifested itself as a tension in the gut area. I started to try to provoke emotional releases during my meditations, and after maybe only 2 months of doing that, I noticed the tension subsiding and I was becomming more "embodied" rather than numbed out. Sometimes meditation can make you totally disregard your emotions, and it's not healthy. Anyways, I was doing well, and then spring came and my energy levels naturally started to increase, and I was catapulted into non-dual states of awareness out of nowhere, and I responded in fear, because it feels like death, and I'm not ready for it. I believe the main tension that I was unconsciously holding onto all those years was the fear of death, and when I trained myself to become conscious of this tension, I reached a point where I can drop the tension at will, but then I would go into a process of dying. So basically, like I've explained in a topic I made 2 weeks ago, I've spent the last few weeks trying to consiously recreate some form of emotional tension in order to ground myself, because I don't want to let go into nonduality. It scares me, I feel like I'm not ready, that I have to grow as a person. These 3-4 years of daily meditation has totally shifted how I experience reality, and there is really no turning back, even though I'm trying my best. It's really idiotic if you ask me haha

@Prevailer I like what you said about the gap between thoughts. But I don't get why people in nonduality say that you are not your thoughts... I get it as a perspective to distance onself from self criticism and see the consistency of self-acceptance. But your thoughts are as you as your body and your car and possessions are... perhaps they are an expression and in that sense "not you" but nonetheless you are your thoughts and your feelings. Everything about you composes who you are. . . But I seem to have different perspective on metaphysics than most people here it's interesting!

Hi everyone Thought it would be a great idea to start a thread where people can genuinely help one another with this spiritual journey that we have all embarked on. The idea behind this thread is that people would share their insights and realisations with the aim of pointing out to those who have not yet had that awakening in the right direction. So we would sort of just be holding hands here and pulling one another in the path so that no ends up getting lost so to speak. For example, if you've had an awakening and you're directly aware of some truth which is overlooked by many then if you could.. you would post whatever ever that insight helped you realize as to shed some light on common misconceptions regarding reality. These pointers would then be sort of shifting perspectives in a way that if a person is holding a belief or some idea about reality which is preventing him/her from directly accessing it then this will help make that clear and help focus on what is actually going on, what is actually there. So if you, let's say, had an awakening to what love is and you're directly aware of what it is then your job would be to shed light on common ideas regarding love like how it's an emotion.. you would have to say why that isn't the case. But not just say so, actually help us notice why it isn't the case, point out the idea, expose the egotistic belief and what we're imagining, kinda like the way Leo does in his videos. I've titled this thread "Actually" because we would only be pointing out what is actually happening, things we've taken for granted. Like: "Hey, you know that thing we call an emotion that is triggered by electromagnetic chemicals? Well, actually it's not that at all because if you notice x y and z you'll understand that emotions are just imagination." So, this is not about getting other people to awaken to the thing that you've awakened to. That won't happen. That person would also have to put in some of the work you've put in in order to really get that awakening. Same way watching Leo's videos won't suddenly make you awake to whatever insight is being shared in the video. Here we're basically just all traveling while holding hands so that everyone has better chances of coming out into the light. I just figured that hey.. since we're all on the same path why don't we just hold hands and guide each other to the same destination. Rules: 1. Don't talk about it if you're not directly aware of it! I'm trying to prevent debates from happening. This is not 'the battle of the insights' thread. If you're directly aware of it then there would be no point in arguing because we all see that the grass is green. And if a person is not getting whatever that you're trying to point to and is just opposing in every direction then drop it. Clearly that person is not ready for that insight. 2. No dropping nondual A-bombs! Guys, we are trying to share radical insights from personal awakenings and we are trying to radically shift perspectives for the good of the path. But don't just show up heavy handed with it saying things like "Nothing exists". I mean come on! You're missing the point of this thread then. I mean if you're directly aware of nonduality then great for you, but show consideration for the guy who just started with this work. Me, I'm the guy who just started with this path and for me it sure as hell, clearly, seems like a lot of things exist. Alright, and those are the rules. Please, don't be stressful be helpful. If you get the impression that the other person is not feeling helped then immediately let it go. It's okay Okay then, I hope I've made things clear and that my post isn't that long. But most importantly I hope most you folks would be willing to help and share some insights with care and love. I'll start just so that everyone knows how I mean this. ?

Christianity is in itself a path to enlightenment, it's not necessarily a problem or a handicap although it might seem to be for most, it has nothing to do with the religion itself. Most relationships don't match up in the level of spiritual development, but since spiritual development is all a facade anyway, it doesn't matter. The beliefs we have about other people are what keep us from our own development. There is love and connection within us always, we don't need prerequisites for it. I was raised Christian and I remember a lot of discussions about whether you should date someone who is unsaved. Saying that you shouldn't felt wrong. Thinking MAYBE you can save (change) them by dating them felt a little better but also wrong. It strikes me as funny that this same exact question at its root is asked just as often by those seeking enlightenment. In the area of who we should date and marry, we want pure unconditional love and yet we allow ourselves to make our most harshest judgements in this area, and that's what makes romantic love so damn challenging. We often hold from ourselves what we want most in this area. But because we blame the other person, we don't see that we do this only to ourselves. I'd try to show her how Christianity is pointing to nonduality, ask if she really understands the meanings of the parables of Jesus. Read the gospel of Thomas, read what Eckhart Tolle has written about Christianity, study Gnostic Christianity and you'll be able to speak to her with her language she was raised with and you'll not come away unchanged yourself. I'd do this only if it seems fun, and not if it feels like you're doing it just for an end goal and have an agenda. The best relationships are curious and seek to learn, understand and fully experience one another, they are open and loving. Open-mindedness is curiosity and love itself, but... you're the only one who can experience having an open mind. When it is imposed as an ideal on another it immediately becomes closed mindedness.

Like I'm watching Leo's video on perception and it's not making sense. If there is no internal world, it is all external, and there is no bubble, it is all one big sponge, I am all of everything..... what do I do with this me stuff that remains? This body and these thoughts and this concious experience.... it doesn't go away just because I cease to believe in it. When ego dies there still remains an individual living a life with certain consious expereinces and not all of everything. I cannot suddenly become all of everything and leave this "body mind" thing. I'm limited and that won't go away until I literally die, and who knows what happens to that "soul" so if I'm nonduality itself, what happens to this me-ness? What am I supposed to do with it? It needs to eat and sleep and exercise and etc. I can't just stop being that - it hast to keep going - if it is an illusion what of it?

As weird as it sounds I've come across descriptions of the same kind of thing. Basically even spiritual energies are regarded/recognized/worshiped as dualities... because people and the mind create dualities, that's just what we do. It's easiest to think of it in this example, the Christian church recognizes one, wicca and witchcraft recognizes another. They even imply gender, the Heavenly Father and the Goddess. Each deny the Oneness or divinity of the other. Because of the imbalance, severe imbalance can manifest as intense charisma, such as in the case of Hitler with severe consequences. And having grown up in Christianity, I've seen the same smaller scale effect in many pastors and leaders. Outside of religion, with people who recognize oneness and nonduality, the same imbalances can manifest.

@Bluff You seem to have theoretical understanding of nonduality and are immersed in theoretical ruminations. There is nothing wrong with that and it can have practical value. Yet the theoretical ruminations can lead to contractions within, and attachment to, those theoretical constructs. You’ve got the theory of nonduality down pat. You understand in nondual theory how there is no degrees or stages of awareness. You seem fluent in this and you don’t need anymore work to realize there are no degrees or stages of awareness. This has truth, yet attachment to this truth is a limitation. If I say “I have already arrived”, that has truth from one perspective. Yet if I become attached to that belief and extrapolate it, it will block me from realizing that I also haven’t arrived. This is the dilemma of theoretical constructs, they have inherently contradictions. If I think “I have arrived” and I don’t take a step to a destination, I will fail because I will not move toward the destination. Yet if I think “I have not arrived” and I take steps toward the destination, I will fail because there is no destination separate from where I am here and now. To me, it looks like you have the nondual “arrival” theory down, which is a profound understanding of truth. Yet attachment to this aspect of truth will hinder realization and understanding of other truths you have not yet arrived to. What you are writing is not completely wrong. It is partial and incomplete.

99% of nonduality students and Buddhists and so forth. They don't understand DMT worlds.

As unbelievable as this sounds, I have reached levels of Awakening which clearly show me that no nonduality teacher is fully awake. But I don't expect you guys to believe me. Okay, so you've given them some degree of awakeness. But it's gonna be a very mild degree. I'm not saying you shouldn't do that. It could be very helpful. I'm just saying there are higher levels.

I agree that self-emptying is the path. However, there is always a blind spot. This can make us very passive in life for example. But incorporating this Divine pointlesness into everyday actions is what its about. Thats when you'll view this world as your playground and honour your vulnerability as a person in duality. This is the blind spot people. Why practice gratitude as everything is perfect in nonduality? Because of the impermanence is exactly why its perfect. We have no control on the circumstances in "duality". But the free will in duality gives us our eyes to birth creations through perception. So why the hell not?

@charles1 phenomenology is knocking on the door of nonduality but isn't quite the same thing (still too much categorization and fantasy). Idealism is way way way off. Idealism does not understand the difference between actuality and concept. When Leo uses the word "imagination," he means something totally different from your average ideas and thoughts. Idealism, not so much. They still have some sense that "reality" can be grasped through human mind-activity (ideas and thoughts). There is still hidden subconscious duality that is taken for granted, such as "there is an intelligence within me (separate from the rest of the perceived world) that is doing activity." Even the idealist believes that, even if they deny physicality and matter. There is no single process. Maybe you are describing your own process, but that is by no means universal

I’ve been listening to Em since I was 5 years old, I can guarantee you he has no idea what Enlightenment is, none of his lyrics even remotely touch on the subject. Eyedea on the other hand (r.i.p) was knee deep in NonDuality stuff.

@Leo Gura I acheived this enlightenment and greater from cannabis and tobbaco combined. The combination is perfect. Jump up and down notice form going up as you go down and as you go down form goes up. We are not bodies we are invisibility and nothingness pretending to be a me and a you. There is no man and no woman. Remember NONDUALITY.

I discovered something almost funny, maybe I have already mentioned something similar. Is the map the territory? From a nondual perspective the answer is yes! Is the menu the dinner? The answer to that too is yes. Haha. Seemingly crazy. The trick here is that nonduality means one single wholeness. Yes, there are dualities within the wholeness but dualities are actually also joined into a wholeness. So everything is the same "stuff" from a nondual perspective. The same with concepts. Is the word "tree" the same as an actual living tree? Yes, they are nondually (if that's a word) the same. And the past is the same as the future. Cause is the same as effect. Up and down are one. And so on. This kind of logic is of course not the classical logic used in philosophy and science. It's more like the kind of logic Shunyamurti mentioned in a video. I didn't find that Leo has a video particurlarly about logic, but this video about rationality may have some of that:

I'm 22, and I haven't had what I would characterize as a kundalini awakening, but I've had many "awakenings" where I again felt like I was dying, losing control, merging with God etc., and I do feel like I have what you can call energetic stuff happening throughout the day. The main thing is a subtle form of stiffness accompanied by small crackling noises every 5-ish seconds in the upper part of my spine, and if I sit in a comfortable upright position for prolonged periods of time, I interpret the crackling noises to be a type of unwinding of tension that goes on in my entire body. After a while, my body becomes very still, and the tension is concentrated in my forehead. The tension will keep building untill it sort of dissolves, and by then my mind is very quiet, and I'm heading straight down the path of feeling like I'm gonna die. I normally used to love when this kind of stuff would happen, but now it's happening on a totally different level than before, and it's scary. I know all that nonduality stuff: that fear is an illusion created by the ego, I'm the one creating the fear etc., but I just can't for the hell of me let go

Sounds like you're proposing an ethical "bait-and-switch" of some sort! Many times I wonder if that might be my calling as well. Nonduality can be seen as a rather different "subject matter" from what most would consider "normal" - science, mathematics, history, english, etc. All of these more "conventional" subjects arise from the thinking mind using symbols. Nonduality is the opposite of that, you might say. "Nonduality" is not even a "subject matter" - it's not even a thing! So how the hell do you share that with someone wedged in a web of symbolic beliefs? I mean I mostly hide my "spiritual" side in public, I know I will sound dysfunctional and crazy if I start talking about this. It really does come down to individual bodhisattvas "watering things down" doesn't it? I don't see any other way of facilitating a massive cultural shift. Someone has to sort of "take the blow" - and sacrifice going all the way (not only in their personal growth - but also in their teachings) - for the sake of empathy by delivering a "kiddie version" of nonduality as though it were low-hanging fruit. Even if they had reserved "higher teachings" for committed students, their split focus would be a hindrance. And this archetype is nothing new, it's been around for millennia. But I feel that it might be more applicable to our current generation than ever before, given the sheer amount of comfort and distraction our society offers. Alan Watts is a good example of someone like this. Amazing introduction to this stuff, but his speeches get repetitive and stop helping you once you outgrow them and commit to a personal journey. And it's not uncommon knowledge that he was never truly "enlightened" himself - he was just more or less aware of his True nature, but apparently settled for a glimpse and had more of a focus on social impact. Even Alan freakin' Watts doesn't seem to be enough these days though, I've tried encouraging people to check out his speeches and they would only make people more confused. I used to wonder why cheesy group "mindfulness and meditation" centers existed, since those centers are never really serious about existential work and they usually just market as "stress relief," but now I understand.

BREAKTHROUGH: After not meditating for about 3 days and simply following my hedonism. I decided to just meditate for an hour. I was becoming aware of how my mind and brain function more or to simply how my consciousness functions to not give it limitations. I was literally meditating and I began to think of love and I was overwhelmed by the unlimited amount of warmth. Of course, that was something I found extremely interesting in what I was basking in was wonderful. Before all of this occurred I began to undergo this trial which made me feel extremely fearful for no reason, once my awareness was able to see that this was all being made up by the mind I was able to complete this mini-trial but it was heart racing. I would admit this was the first time I have ever been able to become aware of these small trials before receiving love. I was able to become aware of the little tension my brain creates and just simply being gave me everything sort to speak. Then I again asked myself in my self Inquiry “Who Am I” and I could feel each word and were in my brain they were occurring and I noticed how the “I” was occurring in my heart. Through my knowledge of Nonduality and its theory, I was able to knock many challenges know to keep my cool. One of the more interesting aspects of this was how it seemed to be me communing with some type of feminine energy and also manly annoying person energy... I’m sure this just simply is myself but it was a cool interaction.

But what if free will and individual doership are real? In ego consciousness we cannot prove nor disprove that. And even as I intellectually think my model is logically consistent, the model can be false. And what about the depersonalization disorder in psychology where the individual experiences himself or herself as a passive observer? As I understand spiritual enlightenment conceptually, it's about actualizing oneness. Depersonalization disorder is totally different because then the person experiences even more separation from reality. Spiritual enlightenment is about the absence of separation at the fundamental level. Nonduality teacher Roger Castillo (who sometimes uses ACIM quotes) said that his teaching which he learned from Ramesh Balsekar is about replacing the ego concept in the mind with new concepts about nonduality. I like that approach since it can be tested in one's own experience. If there is truth to nonduality then there is a possibility that the nondual concepts become true in the sense of actualizing oneness.

Forum. n. a place, meeting, or medium where ideas and views on a particular issue can be exchanged. There are many types of forums on pretty much every subject available. They can be helpful... you may even make "friends" or learn a lot about a particular subject. But the subject matter of nearly every forum is relative, and I don't necessarily mean grounded in physicality. You can have philosophy forums about IDEAS. But the common thread of a forum is that it's centered around a construct of the human mind, whether it be cars, psychedelics, cooking, or abstract concepts. This sub-Forum, however, has a subject matter of an entirely new quality. This is a rare forum that is centered around consciousness, enlightenment, and nonduality, and these happen to be the absolute. THE nature of existence! METAphysics! Strange loops! So why is this important? Well, I have noticed some things by participating in the forum for a couple years or so. I've noticed that everything this forum claims to be about is not being served by the forum itself. It is NOT an aid to your development in these topics; in fact, it's a trap that only a few of you can see. This is not a fault of the people on the forum, but rather a fault of the forum system itself. A forum is limited by the dualistic medium of the English language, which cannot in any shape or form grasp the absolute. The purpose of a forum is to share information and help others to learn, but it's just a fact that you can't learn the absolute. The vehicle of "words" only communicates with respect to your body of experience. You can't communicate the color blue to a blind man any more than you can communicate consciousness and nonduality to a seeker. So what ends up happening is that many non-awake people get lost in the words on this forum, and create vortexes of meaning (traps) for other seekers. The delusion swirls around. The idea of coming to a forum to debate consciousness is absurd! And yet here we are, thinking we are growing by essentially mentally masturbating. You're talking with yourself, thinking you are "helping others see the light." You and I come here because we are like-minded, and maybe we don't have anyone else in our lives to talk about this stuff with. I get it. I honestly think the rest of the forum is pretty great. However, when it comes to nonduality itself, anything that can be said about it is already stepping in the wrong direction. Truly, that is the case. You know what would happen if a bunch of enlightened masters had a forum only for discussing the absolute? They would shut it down, knowing that all answers can only be found within. If the only thing to be said about consciousness and nonduality is to NOT get lost in thoughts, words, and concepts, then what the fuck is this sub-Forum here for? Trip reports? Again, more mental masturbation about something that can't be explained. Did anyone here gain a deeper understanding of their trip from someone else on this forum? I didn't think so. In this field, language can only be used as far as a tool to circle around on itself, and make the logical brain submit to the actual uselessness of language and thought in pursuing awakening. In a moment of implicit understanding, the "aha!," you will understand that this entire endeavor was a distraction. You wasted so much time on this forum, time you could have spent doing the work or finding real-life, like-minded friends and mystical experiences. The goal of this particular forum should be to render the forum useless. Of course this brings into question why it exists in the first place. Does anyone need this roundabout path? What if this sub-Forum was changed to a few pages of recourses instead, with a description of why an interactive forum on these topics only creates more delusion? What if we stopped debating consciousness and saved others and ourselves from further distraction? What if the forum evolved? For the record, I think the forums on life purpose, relationships, government, spiral Dynamics, etc. are great, as these are relative topics. This site must continue to be a high consciousness beacon of hope. But I think it's time to reconsider how we treat certain topics that transcend logic, reason, and even words themselves. If anyone can log in and be the pointer, then what message is that sending to newcomers and seekers?