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@Ero What do you mean by "spiritual practices" I research and read about spirituality and meditation and nonduality daily throughout my days as well.

Hmm... the term nonduality just does the best job of communicating the idea of oneness, unity, etc. but no its not that I'm sad if something is " not nonduality"; let's put the term aside and come to the meaning, the meaning is that all is one, that everything is united, that there is unity at bottom in all the diversity. If it is not this way then... If man and woman are not human... Without the unifying quality things move away, separate, are divisive by nature. Without unity it is also impossible to know anything or love anyone. I mean if unity was not a principle. If oneness was not definitive of things. And if it is, but not in the case of God, then all the problems which would arise if it wasn't in any other case would arise with God. Again, if man and woman are not also at once human, the differences would be all, and we would be separate, even opposite. If God is separate from anything at all that would mean that howsoever you define God you must give the opposite quality to the other thing. If God is good, and is separate, all else is evil. If God is good and is one with everything, goodness then is the quality of everything. So I personally prefer to share in the qualities of the highest good and would love it if everything else was of that same quality. It is sad to me if it is not this way. The alternative is the upward effort to becoming good, but how is that possible if I'm already evil? If God is not me, and he is good, and there is duality but not nonduality at bottom, then I am evil and so is anything else that is not God. How then can the evil be good? By becoming God seems the only way. These are the results of God being something other than me myself. All systems which I've studied seem to speak of this, except Paul's. His lamb sacrifice to me does seem to answer the disparity and close the gap, by putting a mediator between God and man, as he says: "there is one God, and one meditator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus." He says we give up our nature which is evil, because it is seperate from God's, which is good, and we accept Christ's nature as a gift which then reconciles us to God.

Thanks for your post. I'm very new to the Bible. Me considering myself Christian is a new thing for me. I've just finished my first book of the bible from start to finish (Gospel of John). The rest of the Bible I only know through various versus I've collected along the way. In a few months time I would probably have been better placed to contribute to this. I'll be interested in what others say. I was just curious as to the above quote from you. Why would someone be sad if something "is not nonduality?", genuine question. Not a trolling comment. I'm really interested if you don't saying?

Peace I've been reading these forums for a while and I'm grateful for discovering this community. I think I've grown a lot from it. So thank you all for your contributions. I wanted to ask about apostle Paul as I've not seen anything about him here. He seems fully convinced that Jesus died for our sins. He says things like "I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live, yet not I but Christ who lives in me, and the life that I now I live I live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. I do not frustrate the grace of God, for if righteousness come by the law then Christ is dead in vain." He also says "As by one man sin came into the world, and death by sin; so death passed onto all men for that all have sinned..." and "the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord." And one more, "if you shall confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead you shall be saved. For with the heart man believes, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation." Okay so, how could this be? This is also the teaching he died for, and he spread his belief very effectively. When I read his letters, I see that he is wise. I enjoy his first letter to Corinth and seeing how he deals with the issues that come up there. When I ask how could this be I mean, why is insisting on a lamb sacrifice philosophy? Is he simply implanting Judaism into the new movement that began around the man Jesus so as to keep its spirit alive? He was a radical pharisee, and persecuted the church initially until he had a conversion on the road to Damascus. His Jesus isn't the enlightened man who is like the Buddha before him, or Lord Krishna, who ultimately has the same message as these; he makes Jesus our saviour and says a confession with the mouth is for salvation. Salvation from the wrath of God which is his righteous anger against our sin, which we have because of our sinful nature, which we have because of Adam who first sinned. This is not nonduality, which makes me sad, it also implies the fruit was real and literal and that man's condition is fallen until he is redeemed and the Holy Spirit enters him; which is another entity outside of us who must fill us. These ideas are well expressed by him and his letters have the tone of sincerity and reason as far as I can tell, but it also puts him at odds with a lot of spirituality from other systems, whereas I find that with almost all other systems nonduality is the principal underlying whatever else is being said. I struggle to imagine that he of all the wise men has it right and therefore it will in fact come down to a judgment day where all that counts is if you gave your life to Lord Jesus and accepted his grace by faith: "for you are saved by grace through faith, and that not of yourselves it is a gift from God, not of works lest any man should boast." What are your thoughts?

@Highest you don't seem to have fully grasped nonduality yet. That's ok, keep being Your post could also be an egoic reaction to the implications of 100% responsibility of your life, so you created an imaginary division between yourself and God to skirt around it.

If "There As Only Change" ~ Then, EVERY Paradigm Here As Procrustean: "Right ~ Wrong" Or Just CHANGE? What If Nonduality As Merely Change? What If "Truth" As Merely Ongoing Change? What If "Awareness" And "Love" And "Enlightenment" Become Merely Change? And Change As Neither "Right" Nor "Wrong" But Merely One Change Changing Into Another Change?

”Is it wise to divide Spirituality from other aspects of life?” Collapse all. Nonduality, “not two”. Spirituality is an idea. Other aspects of life is an idea. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1YqgPAtzho https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0ztlIAYTCU “Grasp” those, and then let that idea go too. These are the fingers. What is the moon?

It’s so interesting to observe an intellectual approach vs direct experience. During and soon after my first psychedelic trip, there was no “me” or “you”. Not in an intellectual way, in a direct experience way. I was left dumbfounded. I remember trying to write a trip report and using terms like “me” and “I” seemed misleading, it didn’t feel right. I remember trying to interact with others on the forum and was confused why those that seemed to know nonduality through direct experience were using personal pronouns. It was one of my initial questions to Leo. To approach nondual pronoun usage from an intellectual mindset is so strange to me. I’m not saying it’s bad or wrong, it’s just weird to me because the direct experience realization is so beyond intellect.

@Javfly33 This is a common appearance along the spiritual path. At first, it can seem like compartmentalizing. There is "spiritual time" in which one may meditate in a spiritual room or sangha. We may have spiritual statues and light incense to create a spiritual atmosphere. We may contemplate afterwards. . . The tendency is to then switch back to "regular" mode. Now it's time to run errands, study, go to work etc. After a while, they start to integrate and overlap. The world becomes one's sangha. At the personal level, it feels like a process. For me, it felt like I was transcending my personal story during my spiritual practices - during solo time in nature, yoga and meditation. And then I went to work and it felt like I was "flipping back" to playing a made-up character. Then I would "flip out" of it. It made for some uncomfortable moment at work and with family. I spent a lot of time alone. . . One thing that helped me was realizing that this "character" appears and disappears. Yet this is not outside nonduality. The character appears just like music and bird chirps appear. That character can appear without any attachment or identification. . . For example, last week I was at a meeting at work. There were appearances of characters in the room - including "me". At one point, someone asked me "what's your opinion?". Then an "I" appeared and words of an "opinion" left "my" mouth. Yet there wasn't attachment/identification. There weren't thought stories like "I hope my opinion was good enough", "She thinks she is smarter than me. I saw how she sighed when I was talking". That type of personal attachment/identification dissolves. . . Then later, I'm walking through nature. There is no need for that character and it disappears for a while.

We can't because Nonduality is recognition that we are all one and separate entities "you" and "I" are delusions

Here's one of the videos where he talks about Leo but also some on Nonduality teachers in general He likes Jed Mckenna but says he is also in the "consciousness trap"

@Lento @Inliytened1 thanks, this is helpful. I do find my mind having these two distinct states. I have an intuition there is a deeper level which encompasses both duality and nonduality, some people talk like that, but haven't reached it yet. It's ok either way. I'm not striving for anything other than awareness of the present moment.

Amazing description and visualization of what a full 5-MEO experience is like.

@Lento I get what you've saying in theory, but in practice I'm only aware of nonduality at 'special' moments, when my mind is in a state of stillness. Perhaps that's just my nature, or state of development or something. Anyway, just curious if anyone here experiences nonduality while thinking.

My glimpses of nonduality have so far all occurred when my thinking has stopped. Is nondual awareness incompatible with thought? If so, then when we're in a state without thought, cognition, recognition, interpretation, mental map-making, then we aren't having illusions, truthful concepts or anything abstract like that. Just pure awareness of sense perception. Maybe. I'm still looking.

Nonduality beliefs and ideas

@Nak Khid If there’s you, and anything else, what’s the word Nonduality mean?

This topic cracks me up so much because it's so easy to understand but difficult at the same time ❤ The separation from oneness never occurred it was an illusion. Nonduality is all there ever has been and ever will be. If Oneness is already the case, twoness could never be... The ten thousand waves in the ocean were never something apart from the ocean. So you could say they're included but that doesn't make sense because they were never apart. The apartness is the illusion.... Duality is an illusion...❤

5-MEO-DMT Bufo AlvariusTrip Report ROA: Smoking Dosage: 93 mgs After many months of failed attempts at experimenting with plugging 5-MeO at home. And many more months trying to find a professional facilitator close to me, and many more months getting our schedules to align, I finally got to do my very first Bufo 5-MeO ceremony this weekend. He was decades experienced, and had me stay at his home, where we did the ceremony. As it was raining up at the property up in the mountains where he usually holds the ceremonies. I was pretty calm leading up to the ceremony, until he said it was time. There were 3 of us there for ceremony. He would take us up to a room one at a time, for about an hour each. We debated who would go first, I requested I go first, as waiting and listening to what happened for someone else, would just make me more nervous. As it finally came time, I was really nervous. Him and his female partner sat with me in a circle and did deep breathing with me until I was calm and ready. He asked me if I wanted to start out with a low dose, or jump right into a high dose. I told him I am prone to panic attacks when I have time to resist the effects. So he suggested a high dose. I didn’t ask or want to know what he loaded. He later afterwards told me it was 93mgs. Not sure how much that translates to synthetic 5-MeO dosage. He explained to me how it was going to work. He would hold the pipe. I was to slowly draw in, until my lungs were full, as he counted to 10. Then as I lay back he would count back from 10, as I hold it in. I never made it to the pillow, and I only heard the count of 8 before I was gone. It is hard to describe what came next. It was indescribable unimaginable pure nightmarish Terror. There was no concept of who I was or what anything was. I was obliterated. But at the same time my ‘soul’ was being ripped apart in an endless cycle, over and over. There was zero possibility of resistance or surrender, it just was what it was and far too powerful to try to control. It was pure torture. Even though I was gone, I could tell I was screaming the loudest high pitch scream possible. This seemed like it lasted for only a few seconds. Coming back, I didn’t know who I was, where I was, who the people in the room were, for about a minute. Then I came to pretty fast, within another minute. There was an instant feeling of sadness. I knew right away that the ceremony was a failure. No experience being God, no infinity, no experiencing infinite realities, no insights into the nature of reality, no death (at least I don’t think, unless death is endless torture), no infinite love, no bliss, no insights, no epiphanies, no alleviation of suffering/depression/anxiety. I started to cry as all of it was for nothing. I felt exactly the same as I did before the trip. The facilitators told me I had been screaming for many minutes. Then was saying “Oh Shit!!!” over and over again as I crawled around the room thrashing about. They asked me if I wanted to do another dose, I said no. This was traumatizing enough, wouldn’t want to go through that again, even if there was a chance of a blissful God breakthrough. I was perfectly normal and fine within a few more minutes. They offered for me to go into a dark room to process, but I said that was unnecessary. I popped downstairs, and cheerfully said “hey guys!”. The two guys waiting for their turn looked traumatized. They said they wished they had gone first now, as they heard all the screaming and it made them all that much more nervous to go next. I felt bad about that. They asked me how it went for me, and I told them I would tell them later, as I didn't want to influence their journey. All in all, it felt like the trip had never even really happened. There was a few seconds of infinite torture and unimaginable terror, then nothing. So my trip only seemed to last a few seconds. I thought, if I knew nothing about Nonduality teachings, what was possible, or anything about 5-MeO, and a friend just invited me to participate in the ceremony, I probably would have angrily bitched him out for the horrible experience, with zero benefits (other than the awesome people who I shared it with). Oh well, I guess I have to get even more serious about my spiritual journey and try try try again. I’m not sharing this to discourage anyone. I’m not even discouraged. From what I hear, every trip can be different.

@Raptorsin7 Like I said, the technical details are irrelevant. You can get all the technical details right and still come up totally wrong. Or you can get the big picture right and screw up the technical details. Chopra has the big picture right. And that's what needs to be understood. Maybe he is doing a disservice to science, but science is doing a disservice to God, which is the far greater sin. Science basically understands nothing about consciousness, so to act as though science is this great thing which is being maligned is a joke. Science itself is the malignment of intelligence and Truth. The hunter is the prey here. Sam Harris would not stand a chance in a serious discussion of nonduality.

1982 Christianity and the Doctrine of Non-Dualism, a work which was first published in French in 1982 first published in English in 2004 "As for ourself, we will say unequivocally that after more than forty years of intellectual reflection on this doctrine [of non-dualism or advaita-vâda], having allowed it to impregnate us more and more profoundly, we have found nothing that has seemed incompatible with our full and complete faith in the Christian Revelation." - A Monk of the West This semi-anonymous work was written by 'A Monk of the West' who used the pseudonym of 'Elie Lemoine' (Alphonse Levée), a French Cistercian monk who, at the young age of twenty, found a copy of fellow countryman René Guénon's Orient et Occident (East and West) in a second-hand book stall while he was posted in Asia. This event had a tremendous impact that endured for the rest of his life and was instrumental in his decision to take up the monastic vocation. 'Elie Lemoine' also worked as an editor of the distinguished traditionalist journal Études Traditionnelles that was central in making Guénon and other traditionalist writings accessible to wider audiences. It was in the discovery of the René Guénon's works that 'Elie Lemoine'--A Monk of the West-- found an integral metaphysical doctrine that was universal in its principles, known in the West as the philosophia perennis--perennial philosophy. The metaphysical 'doctrine of non-dualism' (advaita-vâda) is not exclusive to Hinduism (san'tana dharma) alone but is also present in Buddhism, Taoism, Judaism, Christianity and Islam. It is in this universal light that Christianity and the Doctrine of Non-Dualism was articulated. Though this book on 'Christian Ved'nta' is modest in its length, it is dense in its scope and reflection. The book begins with a thorough and insightful Preface by the late perennialist Alvin Moore, Jr. (1923-2005). The work consists of eight chapters and a Forward: 'Philosophical Monism and Non-Dualism', 'I am Brahma', 'In All Things Like Unto Men', 'Without Me You Can Do Nothing', 'Who am I?', 'I am not the Christ', 'East and West' and the Conclusion. ________________________________________________________________________ I challenge somebody to find a book in a European language that has "non-duality" in the title earlier than Christianity and the Doctrine of Non-Dualism from 1982. However I am going to propose Rupert Spira* is the first European to be called a teacher of Non-duality where that word is put front and center, prove me wrong *fun fact one of his talks about nonduality is included in the video game The Witness.

@Nak Khid I would agree that pure nonduality teachers are relatively recent in Western civilizations. My hunch is that the internet accelerated the process.

My Spanish isn't quite good enough to comprehend easily. I will give a closer listen later. As an aside about learning languages. . . I've found it super helpful to listen to native speakers on content that I am interested in and can understand 70%-90%. The nice thing about nonduality / consciousness speakers is they speak relatively slowly with pauses. This speaker articulates very well. He is speaking at an upper intermediate B2 level.

@Annoynymous The mind likes to think in opposites. Either I am fully aware and present all of the time, or I am lost in thought all of the time. From a personal perspective, I’ve found it helpful to have reasonable goals. Expecting to go from a continuously thinking chatterbox to abiding thoughtless presence is an extremely high standard. It’s like going from a couch potato to an Olympic gold marathon runner. Rather, I found more realistic goals helpful. At one point, I estimated that 90% of my life was lost in thought of past/future and lacked presence. My goal was to decrease that to 50% over a three month period. Everyday, I had “Now workouts”. They started with 30min a day increased to 2hrs a day. I told my mind can do what it wants the rest of the day, yet for the next 30min. it’s a Now Workout. Just like we were going to lift weights at the gym. My Now workouts included things like meditation, gardening, self massage, yoga and watching nonduality videos. In the beginning, there were only a few gaps here and there (a few seconds). Over time, my mind got better and better at it. I remember one day I was walking in nature and my mind effortlessly relaxed. Then I suddenly realized “It’s Now! And I’m not even doing a Now workout!”. Thoughts arise Now, yet for me thinking was the biggest hindrance. It’s so easy to get mesmerized and captivated by thinking. So I put a lot of practice into relaxing the mind body, slow down thinking and develop an observer awareness to thoughts - such that there wasn’t attachment and identification to the thoughts. As well, there may be underlying conditioning/karma that keeps sending impulses and needs to be released.

All nonduality teachings are not the same... You can explore everything we have discussed on this post for yourself. For example have you ever experienced anything other than THIS. Have you experienced the "ME" character created since birth is an illusion, and starts dissolving when closely looked at and questioned deeply. ❤