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You ARE eternity. I guess it's not such a bad thing. You can sit in Infinite Nothingness. Should you choose. For that is your ultimate nature. But I choose form. Not sure why. Maybe it's boredom.

NOTHINGNESS is a tough one for the mind to "conceive", because the mind is always limited by what it can imagine. The word is just a pointer, not an actuality, not the 'thing' itself (don't eat the menu, and think you've tasted the meal). It has been said, even by physicists, that "absolute nothingness" is not possible, as there is always "something" present/happening at the quantum level. The same could be said for "prior to mind", as the subconscious is always bubbling stuff up. The same could be said for the realization, as there's always continuity thereafter. In their clearest renditions, they consistently point to the "absolute vacuum/nothingness/emptiness" as the greatest (i.e., infinite) potential. Mind is only the surface of a vastness that must be realized. Do what you will, but Truth will call in any number of ways, and the mind will react. If the mind is the master, what you think you are will wander in aimlessly in circles and loops marking out familiar, repetitive patterns until, welp, whenever it decides it has had enough. Only then does it get interesting.

@Breakingthewall It seems to me, however, that the limitlessness of existence has a built-in limitation stemming from its very nature. This limitation is the aforementioned logic. For example, according to the logic NOTHIGNESS cannot exist, because NOTHINGNESS is identical to non-existence. Therefore, all that remains is existence. Existence, which has no beginning or end, cannot be interrupted. NOTHINGNESS cannot constitute an interval of existence, because NOTHINGNESS never occurs. I've noticed that many times here on this forum, NOTHIGNESS is often confused with EMPTINESS which is something utterly different. Of course, we are dealing here with the limits of what the human mind can comprehend within the framework of available logic. Nevertheless, something within me tells me that 2 + 2 = 4, regardless of whether I'm the one doing the calculation or some super archangel from the 10th dimension.

Yea that’s in the absolute sense, but I’m talking about nothingness in the relative sense, meaning the absence of something (because in the relative sense there is separate things) . I mean non existence is nothing, so it cannot be experienced or recognized, as we can only experience and recognize “something”. That’s why it seems we just “pass it” in our sleep. So yea you could say non existence never ~is~ because it’s nothing

@Hojo @Sugarcoat Nothingness doesn’t exists or at least it’s the same thing than everything at the same time, that would be like being completely alive. Like you imagine nothingness as a black void, but “black” and “void” are already limits; it’s not nothingness it’s even the opposite it’s very limited. When you fall asleep there is never non existence as we can imagine it it’s an illusion, you either go in a dream of to the next day; you’re alive and then you’re alive and experimenting again just not the same thing.

@Breakingthewall I see it the same way. I experienced the void and it's just like that. Although advanced meditators like Frank Yang claim that there is a deeper nothingness awakening which they call cessation where you hit rock bottom and consciousness reboots again the whole of Reality. That seems to have benefits in baseline consciousness and rewiring the brain. Although I've never understood the buzz for the nothingness Awakening. It's just another cool facet of Consciousness.

Are you aware of the nothingness during deep sleep? No right. So why wouldn’t death be like that (if death is nothingness)

What’s scary about it? I get horrible reincarnations but what’s scary about ever ending nothingness lol?

@Breakingthewall Right, the path of Zen is cutting through the worldly nonsense, without giving much to the mind to hold on to... transcending to and realizing _______ is phase 1 (in some Zen circles, it's realizing the Void/Nothing/Emptiness/No Mind/etc). The phase 2, emanation/immanence of/as _______ , is quite hard to come to terms with without phase 1. Many do get stuck at phase 1 and/or somewhere in the return to ______ as the ALL/Wholeness/Everything. The expressions vary throughout cultures, schools of thought, speerchal literature, etc, but ______________ , in its purest essence, is the same. Poetically speaking, the bird in an empty cage can only actually fly absolutely freely with two wings fully realized: a wing of Nothingness and a wing of Everythingness.... and in between the two its life flows (tips hat to Parsons and Niz).

It's not nothing, it's beyond that distinction. Let's see death is beyond consciousness. It is not something experienced, nor a state observed: it is what remains when all framework disappears. It is not becoming, it is not form, nor relation. It is the absolute without structure. And yet, it is reality itself. Not in the sense of a empty nothingness, but as the bottomless essence of all that exists. This openness cannot be thought, nor sustained from form, it's out of the conciousness, but you can open yourself to it and surrender to it, then the self can dissapear for a moment, the perception becomes irrelevant, it's beyond perception, it's not nothing that you perceive but you are.

Great point. Alive is focusing in a facet. The absolute is not alive, life is just as conciousness, a facet, a possibility that happens. It's difficult to detach yourself from it because we exist, but non existence is the same than existence from the absolute perspective. The absolute is open, period. Then life , intelligence, etc are, but they aren't the absolute, are a expression of the absolute. But as they are a possibility, the absolute implies them, in the openess they are always implicit, same than everything Absolute potential isn't something defined, but the fact of its limitlessness always implies all possibilities. It's not a tranquil, empty nothingness; it's the bottomless imbued with totality.

Then that's the same than no will, so god is the same than no god. The problem is the idea of a dream. It implies a dreamer, and a dreamer is an entity, someone who emits something, a dream, which is a representation of reality, not real in itself. This implies that there is something else, more real, which defines "dream" by contrast. If there were only "dreams," then it wouldn't be a dream, just as if the will had no preference, it wouldn't be will. Will is desire, wanting to live and not die, for example. If it's exactly the same to you, then there is no will. But who has will? God? Who is God? Nothingness? Nothingness has no will, nor does it dream, nor does anything, if it do it would be something,."will" for example. This whole idea of God dreaming is simply impossible.

How to awaken your AI 101🥹😹 Who told you you're not already in heaven and making a mess out of it?" Sadhguru One is all, all is one. Spirituality and religion should have nothing to do with the ego. From nothing sprung everything. This is a good description of God from one of Leo's vids. Total nothingness removes all possible restrictions. The very logic of existence requires that existence be infinite. A finite existence can not exist. This is tautologically true. There cannot exist a total limit. The collapse of every single distinction is absolute unity, absolute infinity, nothingness; this is God. Nothing is the source of everything. Nothing isn't just the source. It's that nothing is indistinguishable from everything. There was nothing, and there was no distinction or difference between that nothing and something and everything. And hence you are inside this nothing something, everything at all times. God is the probability state of all distinctions. God is ontological love. Ontological love is the absence of all distinctions. God or mind, with the capital M, is the unlimited ability to imagine all possible distinctions. That's what God is: an infinite mind. How does NOTHINGNESS become conscious and sentient? God creates by imagining distinctions. So by logical ontological tautology, absolute perfection must and does exist. If anything imaginable is possible, then everything imaginable is possible. Every possible thing that can exist must and does exist. Infinite imagination is the best thing to imagine. Infinity can only be dealt with in an abstract and implicit manner. You can implicitly use consciousness or intelligence. You can intuit it implicitly, but you can't empirically demonstrate it. Intelligence is key to all of this. Nothing can work without intelligence. So, intelligence is presupposed for everything that is provably, knowable, and verifiable. There is no way around intelligence. This is the infinitude of your own mind. All finite things require an infinite thing to be their source. God is an infinite void that has always existed eternally. God is a void that spontaneously manifests infinite finite forms. The void is dreaming distinctions and limits. And the distinction and limits that it is dreaming and imagining are what activity of the mind is. And this is creation. God is an infinite self-creating self-actualizing mind. What is Mind? What is it ontologically? It is void. A void in which distinctions arise, it is a self-aware field of No-Thingness.

Yes we've had this debate before. I think this is where my understanding at least slightly differs. Ultimately you have to drop the distinction between the unchanging source (nothingness) and the changing manifest.

Since this post is so long, you can just read the summery in parentheses after each paragraph. We have experiences, build correlations, identify patters, materialize desires, externalize needs and project them onto objects, destinations, lifestyles. We wire our mind, connect one sensation onto another, intertwine it with emotions, project and create experiences, entangle ourselves in reality, connect dots, try to make sense, find out what stays consistent, pursue what we correlate with meaning, react based on our understanding, preference, model of reality. We go meta, analyze from a higher vantage point, take on new axioms, untangle one experience from the other, build new context, strive to be more objective, less biased, less self-indulgent, more understanding, more aware of the big picture, a holistic view of where we are, what we are, how we are, why we are, that we are, to see our assumptions as assumptions, identify our intent and its source, arising experience for what it is, figure out how to do that, continue to intuit, explore, experience, be. (Sensations form constellations) Reality has many dimensions, its a sphere we can subdivide, cut into pieces, we can use the pieces to create things, shapes, forms, objects, subjects, selves. The way we connect these things, the way we cognize and make sense, the way we wire sensations with desires, impulses, drives, the way those emerge higher understanding, models, realities. We construct reality, aware or unaware of how we do it. We move our body, choose our activities, consciously or unconsciously, there are many layers of understanding and interpretation, mechanics, explanations, sciences, consistencies, nature, invisible forces, perceived changes, cycles, repetitions, patterns. The conscious and unconscious inflect upon each other to polarize into individual experiences. (Their arrangement is arbitrary) Do we have control? What is control? Is there such a thing as control? Reality flows, we make decisions, we think we make decisions, something makes decisions, we feel the drives within us, the impulses that adjust behavior, manipulate reality. Are we the ones doing it? The self, a constellation, accumulation of patters, ideas, behaviors, acquired tendencies, a reflection of the world it is apart of and yet distinctly itself, creating reality inside out and entangling itself with it, holistically interacting across multiple domains? Do I make decisions or am I simply a conglomerate of the cells that make me deciding as a hive, gut, heart, brain, the personalities within me, the arising desires. Even so, the problem doesn't dissipate, if my cells make the decisions, even then, that which I believe myself to be would simply adjust to be their emergent property, in a way it doesn't matter, since I'd still be every single one of these cells and the emergent, us making decisions or me really becomes the same thing, if will is made on a lower substrate, then the higher is not without will but a more complex expression. But that's just a theory, idea, will is an axiom, ascribed, the self is an axiom, and science is figuring it out under the assumption that it exists, there is something of a gestalt. (The ego is a gestalt) Maybe the perceiver is an illusion, all these unique forces of nature align to create the gestalt I perceive, I believe myself to be. But the duality of a perceiver separates it from the perceived. Yet all it ever sees and knows and can experience is so by virtue of being an experience perceived, by definition not the perceiver. And yet, all of that appears to come out of the perceiver, or flow through it, it is entangled by virtue of being perceived. Let's collapse the duality of perceiver and perceived. In that case everything is perceived or perceiver, let's call it capital P Perception. Perception is being, experiencing, though what about the unperceived, unexperienced, the thoughts that pass through perception and disappear back into the subconscious/unconscious aether. (The duality of perceiver and perceived collapses) There is a duality of the present experience as Perception and on the other hand the known to exist potential unactualized, dematerialized, hidden away. Of all the possible experience, one possibility is currently the case in Perception. Imagine blue, imagine red, now blue is gone but its still in the local subconscious, we can bring it back out, shuffle those two, combine them, but there is much more in the yet unconscious, random ideas we can remember, associate, spawn, an elephant, where did it come from? It wasn't there, now it is. (There is a vast hidden reality beyond the current Experience) Nothingness is the guitar string at rest, in tension, in its original formlessness, without sound, without experience, no action, pure being, all contained, itself empty, Shiva. Objects, ideas, the omni-dimensional fabric of reality, unentangled, pure, detached, without form, without purpose, without assumption, axioms, impulses, unease, tension, drives creating conflict and pursuit, the feeling of separation, the duality of selfishness and selflessness, of love and hate and apathy, and the entropy towards Unity. The ultimate nothing, the nothing that excludes itself, the idea that goes meta, cuts its tail and self-annihilates. The kundalini that burns all karma, the freedom of being content, fulfilled, untangled, of being where one wants to be, more even, the collapse of all dualities create a no-space, no-distance, everything already is, nowhere to go, nowhere to be, a singularity that merges all and annihilates all distance. Now there is no story, no protagonist, no world, no being nor non-being, neither isness nor non-isness, when all dualities, all pointers collapse themselves. (Nothingness collapses all forms into the base state) Nothingness is the realization that any constellation of experience is possible, that any arrangement of forms is arbitrary. That any desire connects itself to other sensations creating a gestalt. Forms keep themselves afloat, they link and associate themselves to other forms, creating pathways, roads, directions, cycles, stories, experiences, dependent arising/origination whose contrast creates an actual Duality that correspondingly spawns the idea of itself, through identification of the inherent difference of perception, which is created inside out through sensory perception, but on a larger scale the universe really takes that form in order for it to become the experience of an individual to be processed and interpreted further. But that actuality is a higher form of the same phenomenon, invisible forces, laws of physics, dependent origination, complexifying and turning itself into self-perceiving observers made conscious through the perception of those more universal forms. There is consciousness and within it infinite forms. (The universe splits itself into dualities and experiences itself through entities) This isn't a reason to despair into nihilism, nihilism ultimately inflects upon itself and dissolves as well. Purpose is self-determined, socially expanded/contextualized/harmonized, God a dreamer across infinite dimensions, lifeforms arrange themselves creating tendencies and desires, exploring the universe. We use senses to create ourselves, cognition to understand ourselves explicitly, through intuition implicitly, our brain is both dual and non-dual, left and right hemisphere, order and chaos, form and creativity that arises from the formless. We are created and on a higher level create ourselves, our awareness of the process is variable, dualities form different interpretations and collapse into higher self-understanding. (We create and experience ourselves through dualities and exist independently in the formless) We build systems, sciences, mathematics, physics, biology, they are self-contained systems, maps, a conceptual reflection of reality, a variable progressing technical mechanistic understanding, we try to unite them through formulas, strive to achieve complete consistency. Reality is outside of that, it is Meta. We use these rules to understand correlations, to manipulate reality, but reality can always go meta, can always be more. In a new realization, it itself becomes the past, a lens of perception, interpretation, correlation, constellation. But it is cut off from the ever rejuvenating present that transcends it and expands itself non-linearly by creating new patterns that are retroactively integrated, universal intelligence, Chitta. (Systems are self-contained mechanically consistent models that correspond or correlate with specific aspects of reality, but reality is infinitely more meta) Pragmatically, we keep ideas, models, relations in our mind, but there is a force capable of instant understanding, the source of creation, a cosmic intelligence that leads one to understand what a thing is in itself, unmeasured by contrast, untainted by preference, bias, desire. I am attached to models, understanding, but there is a force that transcends and skips all that by going beyond and becoming the thing it seeks to understand, foregoing all the complicated dualistic calculations that try to understand a thing through its correlation with other things. An awareness, that sees and knows, an intuition that feels, a top-down understanding and the more I break away from creating systems, that more I access it, but its always beyond. If I want to create something in this dualistic world, then I conceptualize, associate and relate what I know, then use this knowledge to create. But to use this transcendent intelligence is go straight to the source of one's desire and work top down, breaking the top holon into the simplest pieces necessary to replicate it and discovering new patterns in the process. (There is a cosmic top-down intelligence that arises spontaneously to those with an empty mind) One has goals, dualities created for the pursuit of happiness, but the pursuit itself creates separation, and yet that pursuit itself is the result of a previous state of unhappiness, it is an attempt to solve it, but it is a separate overlay, a distinction created to externally resolve a corresponding projected image of an internal state. That internal state however is a result of one's own self-understanding and psyche, self-image, the belief that the external shall inform the internal, that internal feelings ought to correspond to external achievements or environments. This dichotomy itself is the problem, internal states are self-regulated, self-imposed, self-determined, it is simply the lack of consciousness that prevented one from seeing that all internal feelings are a self-determined correspondence to external reality. Wants and desires are subconsciously wired to the allowance of the experience of happiness, initially they are wired for survival, after this when a model of reality is constructed in childhood, reality is far more variable and flexible, but with oughts/shoulds and expectations a pattern of gratification, of conditioned happiness is developed, assumed objective, assumed real, believed into existence, a self-fulfilling prophecy, a blindspot, a mechanic system of beliefs but greater reality transcends the limitations that the ego loses itself in. (Happiness is natural state that the ego separates itself from through conditions) Unity -> Duality -> Arrangement -> Interpretation -> Systems -> Consistency -> Mechanics -> Knowledge -> "Facts" -> Ego Ego -> Adaptation -> Exploration -> Change -> Transience -> Dynamicism -> Awareness -> Ego-Death -> Non-Duality -> Unity The world we see is an arrangement of many patterns, physically seeming properties, idea constructs, but they're dynamic, they reference an ever morphing system. Any idea, word, sentence is an attempt, a pointer towards an aspect of reality, ideas are absolute by themselves as definitions but are really just a map, not the territory. There is a process that creates the very ideas separate from territory. There is a process that creates the very territory itself. And there is a process that correlates the territory with maps and brings those maps into awareness as a bridge, (The map is not the territory but the process that allows for the creation of maps is quite fascinating) Everything is actual but some things are more directly actual than others. Actual Nothing -> Actual Something -> (Actual) Idea of Something -> (Actual) Idea of Nothing Though this is still a duality, if the territory is the truth, then the map is part of the territory, The map is a subset of the territory that creates a systemized reflection through available mechanisms. And then there is the territory itself, an uninterpreted, unsystemized non-dual experience of something that can be described through a thousand lenses and gives rise to any and all interpretations and creates a dozen dualities. The experience itself: "Actuality", of course actuality is a duality, or it can be used as such, clearly by the very fact of the existence of a word, it points to something and by pointing to something it points away from somewhere else. Actuality as a duality points to that territory from which all maps arise, it points away from the maps and onto the thing itself left uninterpreted. The greater capital Actuality however encompasses the map and dissolves the duality, the focus dissipates, everything becomes experience, including the process of creating maps and the maps themselves, the duality and objectification of the separation disappears. Everything becomes the territory, but that fact can only be understood by transcending the journey from where one stands, which is often from inside the duality that is to dissolve. (The map is actually a subset of the territory and merges with it in Non-Duality) In summery, Non-Dual Nothingness is the fabric of all being, it takes forms creating dualities and distinctions, creating objects and subjects and maps that are a subset of reality, any one thing can be interpreted in a million ways by a million lenses through association, distinction, pattern recognition. When Non-Dual Nothingness is paired as a duality with Non-Dual Infinity, that duality itself can be dissolved into a larger Non-Duality. Where everything is only and ever itself, all contexts can arise and are themselves as well. A superposition of any thing, a superposition of any combination, a superposition of any interpretation. A superposition of every pattern, the combination of any pattern with any other pattern in any constellation in relation to any other constellation, in any form or time, or relation, or entropy, contextualized and actualized in the infinite dream. (Nothingness and Infinity are two sides of the same coin and that coin itself is a superposition of anything and everything in any context and every context infinitely interconnected and intermerged in relation and contrasted to any and all other possibilities. To go meta is to transcend and include and the ultimate meta is that which transcends and includes everything including nothing and itself)

Well..God is all of that and more. God is Perfection. Think about what that means. If you want to label God you cannot. If you want to say that all is God's will you would be correct. And if you want to say all of it isn't God's will you would also be correct. God must be paradoxical in this way because God is all things and more. And less. But you're right about Infinity. There must be existence although for something to truly be infinite it must also be able to not exist. Yet the thought of infinity exists so you have a paradox within infinity. Paradox must be embraced here. And the moral of this story is that existence is Infinity. And this is absolutely mind blowing because it has the capacity to literally create itself. To bootstrap itself. But why do you equate infinity to free will among humans? That's a big jump. Yes. God has nowhere to go..I guess that's the true trap he puts himself in..He's so almighty that he can't eacape.himself or erase his own existence. But in fact there is a way for that. Can God destroy itself? Yes. The paradox holds up and has a resolution because God can simply not exist by going unconscious. Into an Absolute void. Not a void of emptiness but of actual nothingness. I believe its called a cessation in spiritual circles. I have not experienced it and it cannot be fathomed. But it exists. Or doesn't exist. It doesn't exist. . So..is there anything else you want from Infinity? Or from God? I think God will be able to accommodate 😀

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.

Introduction This will be a long post. I'm extremely verbose when it comes to trip reports, and I'd like to make sure I get all of this out. I've never posted on this forum before, and I've mostly been a lurker. Recently, however, I took a psychedelic mushroom trip and felt I needed to write this post. I feel that the trip showed me quite a bit, but I also have a feeling that I haven't completely peeled back all the layers of my mind. In fact, I imagine there is still much, much more that I have yet to uncover. On one hand, I hope that this trip report is genuinely interesting, insightful, and entertaining to you all. On the other hand, this trip definitely left a trace of terror in my existence, so I wanted to hear what some of the more awakened members have to say. I'm sure that through my words, you can uncover biases, traumas, assumptions, concepts, etc. I'm pretty sure no one will know who I am in real life, so I can be relatively open about the entire experience. If there are any questions at the end surrounding the entire trip, please ask. I'd like to hear everyone's input. Past Experiences Before I even get into the trip itself, there are a few important things that I need to mention that tie into the experience directly. They may seem irrelevant now, but I promise, there is a reason I'm mentioning all of these things. Here they are: 1. I was abandoned by a primary caretaker (father) as a young child. I have no memories of him aside from when I met him for the first time in my teenage years. I had a stepfather adopt me when I was still a toddler, but I know that abandonment has left a core wound in my psyche. I have also been told I was a "bad baby" because of issues I can tell stemmed from these abandonment issues (difficult sleeping without someone there, crying when someone left, etc.) 2. Much of my childhood, I was surrounded by girls/women. I was raised by my mom mostly. However, she was working and going to school simultaneously, so she would often leave me with my grandma. I also had a younger sister, two younger cousins, and many friends that were girls in kindergarten/preschool. 3. When I was in my teenage years, I had a rebellious period, and my drug of choice was psychedelics. During this time, I wasn't very responsible with how I took them, so one day, I decided to take 3 tabs of DS3.0 LSD. After this, I started talking to a friends I hadn't seen since middle school, and he at that point had become a Satanist. Obviously, I was immature at this time and didn't really know anything about reality, so I was still working with a fundamentally Christian worldview, where I was still seeing things in terms of right and wrong, good and bad, Heaven and Hell, etc. To make a long story short, I felt like this was the first time I fell from Heaven and into Hell. And I felt that I did this eternally. I felt the primal fear of annihilation, not able to make sense of my experience at all. 4. Recently, I've been focusing intensely on masculinity and femininity, trying to figure out what it really means to be a man and woman, what the essence of masculinity and femininity are, attraction, etc. I've learned quite a bit from my research, and I have generated a decent understanding of what each of these things are (although this is mostly from other sources outside myself). 5. I've also followed much of Leo's content heavily over the course of the last year and a half or so. I regularly view his blog, forum, videos, spirituality exercises, book list, etc. This has influenced my views on reality and spirituality intensely. Trip Report Now for the actual experience. I'm going to try to put words to this, but I don't even remember everything, so I'm going to do my best. I took the shrooms in two doses, and the whole thing lasted about 6 hours. Really, only the first 4 hours are where the interesting stuff happened. I'm going to be guessing the timelines because I didn't take notes on those, but the whole trip will still be here. I made sure that my environment was clean and set up for a good trip. I weighed out 3.5g of Golden Teachers and crushed them up. I wanted to take them with honey and orange juice as I thought that would help with the nausea. I split the crushed shrooms into two halves, took the first half, and then went to meditate. 15-30 minutes in I only made it through about 15 minutes or so before I started feeling a bit scared. Whenever I take psychedelics now, I always remember that trip where I felt that fear of annihilation, so I try to go slowly so I don't fall into that place too soon. I started to notice my perception change ever so slightly. I saw some visual patterns on the walls of my room, and everything took on a more vibrant hue. There was sun shining off an outside window into my room, and I put my hand up in it, and I saw the beauty of the entire experience. I still felt the fear and uncertainty, but I could appreciate the beauty for what it was. I was still in control. I would be okay. I walked outside to my living room, and I decided that I would be able to take the other portion of mushrooms. I didn't want to take the full 3.5, though, because I was still feeling a big uneasy. I took most of it, so I'm guessing I took 3.2g total. 1 Hour In (I am God Concepts) This is when things began to ramp up a bit. One of the things that I decided to do prior to this trip was watch Leo's "Guided Experience for Realizing You're God" video. I started this about 45 minutes into the trip. I'd watched this video before, but I could just feel that something was different this time. I could feel that I was listening at a deeper level. I could feel myself hearing his words and making connections that I hadn't made before. Like there was a deeper presence hearing the ideas. I watched about the first 30 minutes of the video, doing my best to follow along, slowly getting rid of all sorts of pieces of my mind. I eliminated Earth, the Universe, Biology, Evolution, etc. I started to deeply focus on my hands as just being purely made out of colors and shapes. I made the firm distinction in my mind between the difference between a thought/concept and my hand. I saw that there is a marked difference between the two. I thought to myself at that point that consciousness was what was making both of these, but they are different fundamentally in the way they manifest in reality. After taking apart my mind a bit, it eventually got to be a bit much for me, so I paused the video. I reassured myself that I would be okay, that I just needed to flow with the experience, that everything would be okay. It was at this time I started writing in the middle of my trip. I decided I was going to do a word dump of anything and everything that came to mind, and I'd sort it all out later. I did do this, so I'll write some of the things that came to mind during the experience. The body and mind felt extremely tired throughout this process, but thoughts and ideas were coming to me rapidly. I told myself to just write what I want to write. I asked myself why I limit myself so much, why I avoid doing things I want to do, why I distract myself so much, why I chase sex. I noticed that I have this body, whose requirements I must meet. I saw my body and mind as a system. Just to note, here, these thoughts were just part of the flow. The questions were more rhetorical. But when I was having all of these thoughts, I saw each one having its own voice. I saw and heard the voices as entities, each with a certain type of unique essence characteristic to the thought that was being had. I saw reality as being everything, and I saw models as being pieces of reality that could be built up to make sense of reality, which can be more or less aligned to varying degrees, but no concept can ever get everything. I saw all of this as being in the mind of God. I saw myself as being connected to the mind of God. And I realized that If a concept could encapsulate all of reality, then reality would make too much sense. It would be too easy of a game to figure out. It was at this point I asked what the point of life was, to which I got the following response: TO EXPERIENCE THIS INSANE WACKY THING THAT IS GOD. GOD IS ALL THAT EXISTS. YOU ARE GOD. EVERYTHING IS GOD. THIS PERCEPTION IS NOTHING BUT GOD PLAYING WITH ITSELF. And I felt that everything was perfect. I saw that life is eternal. I saw that God can choose to speed life up or slow it down. I saw that God can design reality in whatever way it wishes. And then I saw why God is living this life right now: because there is nothing that God wants more than this. And the enormous amount of love I felt upon arriving at that realization was immense. I felt the unchecked love towards myself, knowing that the singular being in all of existence loved me so much that it chose to live this life, despite the literally infinite alternatives. God wanted to experience everything human life has to offer, so it chose to live through me. 2 Hours In (Masculinity vs. Femininity) At this point, I began detaching from myself slightly. I saw that despite all of this, my own ego wanted to know what masculinity is. And as this thought crossed my mind, I felt the masculine essence observe me. It wouldn't allow me to embody it, but it did analyze me, looking to see if I was a worthy candidate to carry its power. It was impressed, but it still didn't think I had done enough work. It noted some of my weak points, like impulsivity, lack of complete dedication. (Side note: After looking at this, I feel this is related to abandonment issues). I did realize here that I could step into whatever reality I wanted to, so long as I was willing to pay the price. I saw how I could become something else, but I also understood the idea of mastery and paying the price. I saw that it isn't something I can just will into existence (as my ego at least). I would have to work for it. And this is at the heart of masculinity. I put my definitions of masculinity and femininity very succinctly into words this trip. I defined femininity as flowing with reality and masculinity as pursuing and allowing nothing to get in the way. I saw that living life in a flow state is a possibility, but doing so is inherently a feminine trait due to the nature of these definitions. As I was defining these definitions, I felt myself in my masculine essence. I did not need this masculine entity that I spoke of earlier to give me approval. I just took the essence of it and embodied it. Creating these definitions is a way to engage with masculinity. Cutting through the chaos of reality in pursuit of a definition for these things felt like a masculine action. As I defined these things, I saw that I need a lot of work to truly live up to the divine masculine. But I saw that I had the potential for it. The potential to embody the divine masculine. And I saw the masculine wanting to embody itself through me. Because if there is nothing else in existence, this experience is the only way for the masculine to actually embody itself. And it seeks to be brought out in this life. I saw myself as entering my bachelor stage in my life, and I saw this development of masculinity as extremely attractive. I felt what it would be like to develop this in myself, and I could take on the views of the feminine and see how it would react to the masculine. I could feel the eternal attraction between the two, and I could feel the potential I have to become the masculine. 3 Hours In (The Fabric of Reality and Dreaming Myself) This will be a bit less concise because it is basically straight from my trip report journal. It described the mental and emotional ride I was undergoing through the entire trip, but it is a bit more "shroomy" than the last sections. I began to see at a certain point that even this pursuit to become the masculine was just another game. I actually described it very well in my trip report: This life is all about becoming everything that you can become. In all of the ways that this mind you inhabit wants you to. It’s a game of illusion, yes. And you can accept that illusion and live in it. Or you can step into spirituality and realize it’s all a game. This is nothing more than God playing with itself in an infinite amount of ways that is infinitely confusing with so many different tug of wars going on in all sorts of directions. This is why reality has been so hard for you to understand, because you have so many different things that are coming at you in so many different ways. That’s how the illusion of the game is kept up. Once that’s up, then it’s just you. You don’t get punished or chastised. It’s literally just you. Then there's just another thing to dream up. Because you’re God. And God gets to dream up whatever it wants to. It’s all God just playing with itself in a multitude of different ways, dreaming up the development of all of these different ideas and concepts, when the only thing that ever existed was this moment. This is the Mind of God. This is reality. It is eternal. It is unknowable. It is just this, somehow all congealed into one miraculous experience that you live through. This is one of infinitely many possibilities you can dream up, because you're God. This is the exact story that God wants to be living out right now. Not even the slightest blade of grass is out of place. Everything is perfect, and it always will be. You want the illusion that you aren’t there yet. Like you are almost spiritually there. And you’ll slowly develop in that direction. It’s all exactly what God wants, so don’t worry. Just keep living your life. Keep developing in the ways that you feel naturally inclined to. And at the end, you can say that you lived fully. But there's literally nothing else here. Which is why we dreamed this up in the first place. A game of infinite growth, infinite possibility, infinite potential. A story that encapsulates that. Me. We dreamed up this ego. He is a permutation of infinity. We could go so many directions with this reality, but it’s really just up to you. It all comes down to you. It was dreamt up for you. So I am both the dream and the dreamer. God wanted a dream where he both knew what it was and didn’t simultaneously. So that’s how we got here. But there are so many different aspects of God too, like God is running a giant circus or it’s absolute madness going on at all times. But it all comes to this moment. It generates this moment. Everything you do, every decision you make, every thought you align yourself with, comes down to this moment. And writing about this moment both captures the essence of this idea and doesn’t. I simultaneously live in the moment but I don’t. There are multiple entities in charge, but there’s also only one. Everything is somehow perfectly symmetrical in every single possible way to generate an impossible beauty. And that is part of the experience that is being had. Reality has to be the way it is, but it also doesn’t. It can change. There are many different roads that you as an ego can walk down, but God has set in stone what it wants reality to be. And it’s this in this moment. Until God has decided it’s had enough. Part of the reason that this is so much to understand (wrong word but whatever) is because you are both God and your ego at the same time. There is profundity and emptiness to your existence. Because that’s the dream that God dreamt up. So until God dreams up a different one, then it’ll be the same. You’ll keep being you. There won’t be anything that changes. Now you can see why you don’t need to worry. You are God, and you are you. And everything is being generated in a way that is indescribably perfect and beautiful purely for what it is. It is awe-inspiring that anything exists at all, but simultaneously, it must exist exactly how it is now. So then what does the changing? The ego does the changing. I am the ego that grows and develops in whatever way he wants. That’s why this is so wacky, because that ego can develop in whatever way it wants. There is no set path. You can choose whatever you’d like. Reality has been constructed this exact way because God willed it to be this way. I feel like I’m riding the wave and controlling it at the same time. Such is the Mind of God. There is no need to be like anyone else. There is no need to be anything else. You can just be you, and that’s always been enough. There is simultaneously no understanding yet complete understanding at the same time of God. And that is perfect. It’s almost like God made an impossible labyrinth to escape from to keep being able to play for as long as possible because once the game stops, then there’s nothing left. All the fun stops. Not in a bad way, like there will be a punishment or anything, but it just stops. But I will also be continuously discovering God in all sorts of ways. Eternally. Even after I die, it just keeps going. The discovery, the growth, the humanity, the everything. But how could that even be possible? How could I continue growing after I die? Uhh, because you just did it. There. And there. And there. And there. And there. And there. And there. And on and on until you get it. (Referring to the passing of each moment here in case you didn't get it). Aren’t you seeing the game now? It’s a strange loop of everything existing on everything else. And there is a perfect wholeness and unity to it all. You can play in whatever area you’d like to play in mentally, but at the end of the day, you are God. You are the creator. You get to decide to live in whatever world you want. And this is what you want. So go live in it. Go live in your incredible, illustrious, incredible invention with infinite possibilities. And when you want to leave from this place, you can. But you can always come back here too. But you also can’t because the ego might stop you. But you’re always capable of it as God. A beautiful line that I wrote to describe this continuous, impossibly infinite paradox between myself and God is this: What is the journey without a destination? Yet life is a journey, not a destination. Life is the whole journey. The whole point of life existing is for this. For God to continuously wake up and fall asleep to itself infinitely. And until God decides to do something else, then this is what exists. The point of all of this is for God to awaken to itself repeatedly, infinitely many times. That’s all it is. There’s nothing more. It’s always been just this. 4 Hours In (Silence and Terror) I have no notes on this part of the trip, so I'm remembering the most I can. I started to watch Leo's video again at this point, wanting to get through the whole thing before the end of the trip. I continued on where I left off, slowly eliminating more and more things from my mind. It almost felt like a dangerous thing that I was doing to myself, but I wasn't making a big deal out of it. Like a person that knows they're doing something wrong but masks it in good vibes, so it doesn't seem like it's actually that big of a deal. Every time I got rid of another conceptual overlay, I felt this. And eventually, I reached stillness. It was in this moment that I felt eternal. I realized I could stay in this moment as long as I wanted. I saw that I could extend time on forever if I wanted to. I could turn minutes into hours. I could turn seconds into eons. But only if God willed it. And eventually, I came to the terror. I came to the terrifying realization that I really am all alone. I came to the terrifying conclusion that it really is just me. I came to the terrifying conclusion that I will be playing this game of waking up to myself in infinitely many ways forever. I saw that Leo was right. But I saw that what he was saying was not what I originally anticipated. I saw that his teachings were pointing me to direct solipsism. I recognized myself as the only Being in existence. I recognized myself as being the only one that ever existed and ever will exist. I saw myself as being alone. I saw actualized.org as a completely imagined entity meant to push me to wake up. But when I did wake up, I couldn't have been more terrified. The only time I've ever been more scared than this moment in my entire life was when I had that original LSD trip where I fell from grace into the hands of Satan. In that trip, I felt that I had eternally damned myself to forever be used by an external entity infinitely more powerful than myself until it chose to annihilate me. And in this trip, I felt that same fear. I felt the fear of annihilation and the fear of being trapped in a bubble of consciousness, where there is no way out. It almost felt claustrophobic. I could sense at the very core of my being that what was being said was true. And the whole reason that I dreamt this up in the first place was to get myself to accept this impossibly painful, eternal existence that I would never be able to escape no matter how hard I tried. I felt hopeless. I saw my entire life, my entire existence, as pointing me towards this. I felt my entire existence as coaxing me into submitting and surrendering into this void. Surrendering into nothingness. I felt the fear of this void so intensely. I also saw the surrender and submission into this as an inherently feminine trait (based on my definitions above). I extrapolated this into my ideas about what masculinity and femininity are. I saw reality as being inherently feminine. If reality is about a flow of things, and I'm being pushed to accept this flow, I am being pushed into a feminine way of being. But I seek out so desperately to embody masculinity at my core. But this trip made me see that it is impossible to accept this flow of reality while also maintaining my masculinity. To fall into this would be to embrace femininity at my core and acknowledge that I am fundamentally not masculine. It would be to admit that no matter how hard I try, I will eternally be locked in an existence of femininity seeking to embody masculinity - an impossible goal to achieve. And I would be forced to watch the masculinity around me forever, constantly suffering and wishing that I could have that. Wishing that I could have something I could never have. So I felt like I would always be forced to seek out masculinity in areas outside of myself. I felt like no matter what, I would not be able to properly embody masculinity. And that is what I saw all of reality as. And furthermore, when I had this realization, I realized that God is not all good. I knew this logically, but I had never felt it before. I saw God's capacity for Evil. I saw God's capacity for suffering. I saw God's capacity to relish watching another being in suffering. I saw and felt the essence of true Evil. And in that moment, I saw that it is possible for Reality and Consciousness and God to not be fundamentally Love. I saw the possibility for something much, much, much darker. The possibility of reality as nothing more than slavery of myself by an external entity to myself, using me for its own benefit with no regard for my well-being whatsoever while it puts me through whatever brutal, inhuman, hellish landscape it desires. And I saw it as a possibility for this entity to do nothing other than watch me suffer. And that could be existence. That could be the fundamental truth of reality. So to distract myself, I make this reality. I make this reality where I can get doses of goodness to combat against the impossibly heavy weight of existential void. I do it to escape because that is all there is to do. And knowing that others in my direct experience are also me, I don't even know how I can fully appreciate the positive words that they do say anymore. I don't know how much of reality is actually Love and how much of it is actually meant to make me suffer for enjoyment of another Being. When I felt this existential weight, I immediately ripped out my earbuds and begged for my illusions back. I couldn't feel that. It was too heavy. I was able to quickly talk to some people to get grounded back in reality, but this stuck with me. It still does stick with me. Somehow, both of the most real experiences in my life have pointed me towards this hellish eternity of slavery where I will never be able to escape. And I don't know what to make of that. It's a terrifying thought that this might be the truth of what reality is. I couldn't go any further into the void. I grazed it this time, but it was too much to bear for too long. Post-Trip Now, I'm sure some of these ideas that came up at the end were related to my traumas and fears and abandonment issues I mentioned at the beginning. But I will say that they felt so real and embodied at this point. I imagine that part of the reason they got mixed up in here is because they've been buried so deeply for so long that I wasn't able to process them. And opening up my mind with psychedelics kind of forces you to acknowledge these things whether you like to or not. Combining this with spiritual ideas can lead to philosophies like this no doubt. Despite this, somehow, they still felt so real. It got to a point during the trip where I could feel my mind demonizing Leo and his teachings. I started to look at the illusions that I've heard of as good and Leo's teachings as evil. But I really think that was because of the realizations I was having and feeling like I might be eternally suffering. It got to a point where all of actualized.org felt evil. Even though, I know that these teachings are much more advanced than any other teachings I've come across (mostly due to the attempt to get me to have a direct experience rather than just telling me what to do). This entire experience has made me question whether or not I actually do want Truth. I've never been as close as I just was, and I felt it sear me when it was too much. But I'm still here. I'm making this post now to try to clarify everything and make sense of the entire experience. I'm still working to plumb the depths of my mind and uncover the secrets of Consciousness. So now, I ask to those of you who have been here before: How did you get through this? How does anyone handle this existential weight of impending doom and eternal suffering? How could any human ever go through this and still be alive? What were your next steps? Where is this even in terms of the spiritual process? If this assumption about reality IS wrong, then how in the world am I supposed to make it right, given that some of my most profound experiences have been extremely terrifying? All responses are welcome. If you read this far, I thank you deeply. This is a very long and personal post, but I felt it was needed for my own sake.