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Here is a little quick representation of my understanding. in short, I believe the atman is something that both exists and doesn't exist ( a point) and can be viewed both as nothingness and as somethingness. Check out the pic. To me it is not about all those who discuss about it etc. I will never be able to trust with my eternal soul to someone else. What if they have bad intentions? For me to really know I have to find out myself. Especially if the subject is me!

I believe that what Leo is saying is that atman is imaginary and therefore not real (therefore no atman). That only Brahman/nothingness/Everythingness is real because it cannot be imagined. While the atman POV can be imagined. I guess! (we are imagining it right now )

@Someone herewhat the fuck is nothingness

Sounds like you all have been reading up on Douglas Harding and Richard Lang's work on the Headless way. I am trying to understand the bible verse What I gather from this is that YOU CAN see MY FACE and LIVE because the No-Face is All-Face. The Face of No-Face is the same for all. Oh but I think I am getting another interpretation here in that No "man" meaning ego can see the God-self of No-face and continue to exist. The No-Face shatters the illusion of having a head or ego and thus when you see my face, meaning the no-face of nothingness in all of us, then your ego is gone and you no longer live, meaning living as a self in a world, but rather a world experiencing a self. Did I get it?

So this is a new (or new old) way to try to conceptualize reality and make sense of it. The distinctions here are arbitrary and completely relative but nevertheless here we go. There is basically only two things in all of existence.. Forms and formlessness. That's it. There isn't and never was and never will be anything else. The forms ALWAYS are limited and impermanent. The formless ONLY is unlimited and permanent. The two Are actually identical but it's hard for the mind to make sense of that (how could these forms be formless?). Instead try to think of it this way.. The formless is the container of forms. You might ask "where are all these forms taking place"? "where does existence happening"? And the answer is really nowhere.. Reality is happening inside of nothingness. If we erase all forms from existence.. What's left? Only pure formlessness. Pure nothingness. So that's like what's underneath all forms. Or the container of all forms.. The original state that then comes different forms and appear inside of it. So this present moment that's happening right now is 50 % forms and 50 % formlessness. We usually don't think of it this way.. We think "it's just forms ".of course you can't see it because it's not a form. It has no qualities whatsoever and that's precisely why and how it is present everywhere and every when yet you can't see it.. Because you can only see forms. But how come forms are present without a container? There must be a container that contains all these forms and it can't be anything else but formlessness. Think about an empty glass that is necessary to have some water or any substance inside of it. But instead what we have here is not an empty "glass".. But rather pure emptiness. Now you might ask.."where did all these forms come from then"? Here there is really no answer. It's pure magic. But the trick is that ultimately all forms appear and disappear.. They are just like dreams or hallucinations.. Forever appearing and disappearing. There is no rational explanation whatsoever why forms are here (the answer is actually that form is formlessness but it's near impossible to make sense of it rationally without a mystical experience). But the only way to relate to it is by understanding that all forms are ultimately a temporary passing show that means absolutely nothing and was never ought to be anything substantial or to form a "reality".

A while ago I had this profound realization that I do not view the world through my eyes. It was so obvious to me; this whole thing is conscious of itself. There is no need for eyes. God simply is. And one of the qualities of being is consciousness. The ability to see and (to various degrees) recognize oneself. And it's instantaneous. It's now. Seeing and that which is seen are indistinguishable. But as always; there is a trick. And the trick that makes you believe you're over here looking at the world with your eyes is, quite simply; blur. What is blur? Google says; it's when something is unclear or less distinct. Something that cannot be perceived clearly. Hmm. Rings any bells? It's all consciousness, baby. And that which is blurred; is simply the degree to which consciousness is asleep to itself. You had your dmt trips. You know what I'm talking about. There are no blurry corners in the Light of God... -Or so they report. I've been exploring this and playing around with it a bit. Simply by staring into the deep nothingness and breathing my way around. And it occurred to me in one moment that me not seeing my face, or Ivan's face - if you will - is not a coincidence. It is yet another trick of consciousness. I can recall memories... instances of being fully conscious of my head/face. As if I was looking into a mirror. But better. Much, much better. It was unlike anything... None of us has ever seen our own faces, actually. We only see a very limited, distorted reflection of it. Be it in a mirror, a picture or whatever... But to be conscious of it directly is beyond anyone's wildest imagination. So I'm wondering now; am I onto something here..? I think I am. Can anyone relate?

Yeah, I have the same situation with mine. He usually gets annoyed because I have this habit of talking about absolute nothingness and death before we go to sleep. He told me I give him nightmares so I had to stop

@tatsumaru it looks to me like you're playing a war over vocabulary. In addition to talking about delusions of mathematicians. I can exclaim and call my experience infinite as the word I want to say, there's nothing complicated about that. There is non-mathematical infinity, the same way I can experience nothingness which isn't the empty set. That's a separate issue from the delusion of mathematicians, which by all means you are free to rant about. I understand that you're ranting about that with a context, but to say there's no non-mathematical infinity is limited to whatever scheme of words you're reference. But yeah I do kinda get what you're doing with infinity. Since conceptually there with infinity, there is division into many infinities. And you're going after division. So I guess what you're also fundamentally going after is perception of "many"/division vs "one", which is cool. Also sounds like you're talking about whether there is just one absolute and that's that, or whether there are levels to it. Insert Ralston vs Leo debates.

Well yes, everything moves through consciousness, but I'm talking about when you actually start losing your identity, start letting go and you die. my awareness definitely went out of the body literally into emptiness/nothingness and that's where all realizations began. 5-MeO doesn't work for me somehow, might need to start plugging. Smoked up to 13mg now slowly building but nothing. Only experiencing heavy body loads.

@Roy I feel I am addicted to Facebook. I check facebook atmost 25 times a day. I have posted that God is nothingness on facebook post . And my post haven't recieved a like. I still feel urge to post . But this is damaging to my social life. People think I am weird. My likes has decreased now. For normal post too I receive less likes as compared to previous. My intention is only to enlighten people. But they are very religious.

@bejapuskas I truly feel there is no use in this all. I am a random piece of stardust, a speck of dust in time and space. Why do anything? This nihilism is pulling me down, it doesn't feel healthy to me. I feel like I have to watch out not getting depressed. I can't grasp this profound nothingness. Well maybe , when meditating I can feel happy in a sort of no mind state. But I loose this when I stop meditating.

First post on Actualized.org so why not start with a trip report ?. Sorry if it’s a little long. I’ve been a long time watcher of Leo’s videos (first introduced to them by my partner maybe 5 years ago now). I come on the forum from time to time and have a read. I’ve decided maybe a good time to start posting because I have more and more questions going through my head that the community may be able to help answer. So let’s get to the trip itself. A little bit of background before I start. I’m in my 40’s now, I tried mushrooms twice in my 20’s in an immature fashion. At a party with no real idea of what I was really doing. First time was a little whacky and fun, the 2nd time was challenging, negative thought loops, going crazy etc etc and this put me off them. Now in my 40’s I’m much more grounded, I’ve worked through many parts of my life and got my shit together much more. Aside from Leo’s videos I’ve been watching and reading more about the studies at Imperial College in London and the Johns Hopkins in the US and the ground breaking work they are doing with psychedelics, which is amazing to read and watch about (all be it from a more therapeutic stance). So a perfect time for me to pick these substances back up and see if I can expand my mind a little more. The first trip I tried (this was a couple weeks before this trip report), I was starting on the light side, just to get a feel for them again. I had 1g psilocybin cubensis. I ground them down in a coffee grinder and steeped them in tea (making sure the water was not boiling) I had chamomile to help with any nausea and a little honey for taste. The effects of this trip wasn’t so great. Little effect in terms of insight / sensory, it mainly felt heavy bodily, nausea and a slight heaviness in feeling. This lasted maybe 4 hours in total. I’d not eaten since dinner the previous evening (so a good 16 hours of nothing in my stomach). Which kind of puzzled me because I wasn’t expecting much nausea being steeped in tea. But from researching I do realise it’s very individual. The next trip I had was a couple of weeks ago, again on a Sunday morning 9:30am ingested. This time round I opted to up the dose to 2g (same batch from previous). I’d also done a little more research because I was hoping to avoid the nausea. So I did a lemon tek this time round. Also realising the trip maybe a little more intense, but I was ready for that. I had my partner trip sitting me, she was sober and holding space and there if I needed her, without really getting involved and shaping any of the trip. Again didn’t eat for a good 16 hours, grounded down the shrooms and steeped them in lemon juice, stirring every 5 mins or so for around 30 mins. I strained the bits of mushrooms twice really squeezing ever last bit out of them and then discarded them. I had the lemon juice with water to make it a little more palatable. I went to the living room, lay down on the sofa. Eye-mask and music on and relaxed doing some light breath-work. My mood was great, my intension was set (to try and get a better sense of what reality is and just go with the flow of what the mushrooms wanted to show me). After around 30 mins I could feel them hitting me the waves of euphoria started. I taken the eye-mask off and the general signs that I was tripping had started, colour distortion and general distortion in things like the carpet patterns. These were fascinating to get sucked into, the more I focused my attention on items the more magical and trippy they became. Each time I had a drink of apple juice when I brought the glass to my mouth the colour of the juice in the glass would then interact with everything in my line of sight changing the colour to match. This external trippiness went on for some time. Then the peaks of the trip came in what my partner said afterwards were 3 waves. I can’t remember the first wave. But with each wave the the body load was very intense, not in an uncomfortable way, it basically smashed me to the ground (my body was so heavy that movement was difficult). The nausea was also intense with each wave. I had a bucket ready, each time these waves hit me it made me retch, thankfully empty stomach so nothing was coming up. The second wave was powerful and my awareness was through the roof. I lay with my eyes closed and felt really connected with myself, visuals were strong with my eyes closed and had a strong sense of compassion for myself and this was really emotional, it allowed me to really forgive myself for not taking care of my body in my younger years (20s). Although I’m perfectly healthy, I did abuse my body a little when I was younger. My partner held my hand through this period, which really grounded me and helped massively. The 3rd and last wave was like nothing I’ve ever experienced before. Again massive body load (I could hardly move). I closed my eyes and the only way I can describe it, was the whole of reality (and everything contained within - including myself) just started to fracture away in many many, almost an infinite number of parts. This went on for god knows how long (time no longer existed at this point) and when it finally stopped fracturing away there seemed to be nothing, just an infinite expanse of nothingness. I had no sense of anything (who, what, where I was) it just felt like pure love (I know it sounds like a cliche). I felt connected to everything it was the greatest feeling I’d ever felt and I seem to bath in it forever. My partner said I had my eyes closed just saying “this is amazing” over and over. Then after some time my general sense of me seemed to return. I’ve not pieced together yet exact how I returned (and I’m not sure if I will). This last wave eased very quickly and it was like I’d gone from totally tripping to being generally back to my base reality very quickly. At this point visuals were very much back to normal. I could then move around, so got up and had some food and went into the garden to play with the dog. The total trip length from ingestion too feeling relatively normal again was 4 hours. Im still spending time integrating what happened and how it effects my everyday life. I had a total loss of self, some might call this ego death. Although I’m a little shocked at doing this from only 2g of mushrooms. Other reports I’ve read are generally 4+gram at least before this happens. I guess everyone is different and maybe I’m sensitive to psychoactive substances. I’ll spend more time integrating before I go again. I’ll do this dose more times because I still feel there is loads of insight to be gained. I do have many questions, so maybe I’ll just post them separately in the main ‘Meditation, Consciousness, Enlightenment, Spirituality’ forum. Thanks for taking the time to read ?

Have you studied this stuff, @Leo Gura? from what i understand, Magick is basically another word for Consciousness, and more specifically, the "miracle"-forming quality of consciousness. I purposely avoided it until now, because i figured this type of western spirituality attracted all sorts of wackos and i wanted to have a more stable mind and awakening before diving in. The most interesting part so far is understanding everything i know about God and Love and Consciousness and Nothingness and basically all the stuff you teach, through the new lens of western symbolism. It has been some time since i felt like i'm learning something completely new. It definitely connects some dots. I also enjoy the process of patiently filtering all the information and all the biases of the teacher. This channel Mystery School seems to explain things pretty well. He isn't God-Realized, but then again, most people aren't (and that's not what i'm on his channel for anyway) I tried starting to learn this stuff from books and other people, but so far this is the only guy that made me stick to it, because i feel that he explains thing well for beginners. (or maybe i'm just dumb, who knows XD). I found out valuable stuff from Jason Louv and Damien Echols also. They got me a rough idea of the areas that are worth exploring in Magick and what supposedly actually works best.

Generally the progression is this: 1) You realize no-self. 2) You realize Nothingness/Emptiness/Formlessnesss 3) Then you realize The Self. 4) Then you realize Formless = Form It does not have to happen in that order, but this a very common progression. You need more consciousness to see that Formless = Form You progressively realize deeper and deeper that everything is ONE. All dualities merge into each other more and more and more and more until it gets so radical that you literally cannot tell the difference between anything. It's a slow process of defragmenting the mind until your mind becomes a perfect Unity. You are healing and unifying old divisions in your mind like, self vs other, life vs death, love vs hate, good vs bad, reality vs illusion, God vs self, truth vs love, something vs nothing, relative vs absolute, etc. In the very end you realize that everything equals everything else.

HEY guys, I do agree with Leo that non-duality is just one mode of existence. One lens of perception. This is why I distinguish between non-duality, non-locality and uni-locality. You could say that those are all different stages of non-duality, but there are on the relative level degrees of non-duality. Here are some quotes from AH ALmaas's website that most resonate to my current mode of development, and might point out some of those difference (Beyond non duality) All Forms Exist Within One Another "The Freedom Vehicle makes it possible to have these types of unity experiences – we call them experiences of unilocal unity, or unilocality – with another person, a group, or the whole universe. Unilocality is the view of reality related to a nothingness that has no sense of space, extension or distance. The experience of being in union in this nondimensional nothingness is unilocal unity. It can arise as the experience of two or more individuals sharing the same location often experienced as being inside each other. Unilocality is neither dual nor nondual. We are not talking here about an ocean of consciousness that unites all forms as they arise within it – the nonduality of the boundless dimensions; nor is it dual, when individual forms are separate and relating spatially. In unilocality, all forms exist within one another. As we become comfortable exercising the view of totality, we can consider all kinds of other questions from its perspective. One of the central issues that we deal with in this book is the relationship between duality and nonduality. Discerning the implications inherent in the nondual view opens up whole new possibilities of experience. We will spend some time exploring these new frontiers by examining the nature of time and space, the role of the particular individual, the paradox of nondoing, and the various mysteries of emptiness—all from the perspective of totality. What is revealed as we do this is that reality is far more indeterminate, far more mysterious than anything we can conceive of. No single view—whether dual, nondual, unilocal, or something else entirely—can capture the dynamism of reality. Freedom is the freedom of reality to reveal its dynamism, to express itself as form, as formlessness, as both, or as neither. No single feature and no combination of features can exhaust the potential of reality. It is a mystery without end. Reality is always revealing itself by knowing itself; and knowing reality and living it becomes the fulfillment of our life. The purity of reality expresses itself to us, through us, and as us, all at once. Our life becomes the life of true nature—the purity at the heart of reality—living consciously and expressing itself as us"

Those are all good and valid. You have no form, but you also have form. The human form is also Absolute. Do not overlook form. Those are all facets of God. But you still have yet to grasp as a whole what God is and how it works. What is God? << that's the key question to crack. Answers such as "awareness" or "consciousness" or "nothingness" are partially correct, but not good enough. Those are glancing strikes. You must hit the nail right on the head to reach complete self-understanding. Of course. It's just a matter of realizing this more holistically. Look at your hands. Your body is God. This is what God looks like. God has a human body. God is a singular being who creates itself using infinite imagination. You are that being pretending to be human. You are an Infinite Dreamer. YOU! YOU! YOU! No one else but you. Just look at what you dreamed up.

I had this idea earlier today - we care so much about religion/ideology/values/identity/story because they are the context we set for the character "skin" of our reality. If there was no "skin", there would be nothing to see/interact with - nothingness. but is there something or nothing?

I overlooked so such thing. I was not talking about a selfish desire. You guys here way over-project egoic desire. Not everything other than Nothingness is an egoic desire. This kind of redictionism is problematic and stunts exploration of consciousness. This is why I shouldn't even share my deepest goals with you. You don't get.

Nothingness = Formless = Form = Something = Everything = Void Void is right here, right now. Your ass is the Void even while it looks like an ass.

I think some people are getting confused with the word formlessness. Nothingness, the Void, or whatever you relate to is absolute stillness, no motion, no energy in action, no thought, no consciousness or awareness. It is absolute zero. Formlessness, on the other hand, can have two meanings, or possibly more. Formlessness is sometimes referred to as a dream state that has not materialized, or it can be referred to where no patterns, shapes, or designs are created or exist, which could be interpreted as nothingness! Having said that, patterns, shapes and gestalts of thoughts, ideas, images, beliefs, emotion, energy, sensation and non-physical textures etc., are “formed” within the ocean of consciousness, or what some people refer to as the dream states, or realities that have not materialized in to physical matter as we know it. Think of consciousness as energy in action, thoughts in motion etc. Consciousness is an ocean of energy, which allows thoughts, ideas, images, belief, emotions, sensations etc. to “form” into patterns, to form into psychic gestalts of energy, to form into electrical patterns, blue prints of beingness etc. These “forms” of energy are one with everything, they exist within consciousness, they are all interconnected and interrelated, and yet they “create” an invisible independence or identity that purposely forms gradations of intensities and densities that simulate invisible, non-existing boundaries to purposely experience “forms” of beingness, separate and yet “one” with absolute consciousness. Do not get forms, patterns, or shapes that exist in the dream states confused with objects within the material reality of physical matter, time and space. Forms, patterns or shapes of energy, thought, ideas, etc., are “Not Formed” in “time and space”. They are formed within gradations of energy densities, densities within densities within intensities, which do not take up time or space as we know it. These units of conscious psychic gestalts of energy, thought etc. eventually get so intense and focused that they burst into physical matter, creating infinite fractals of “physical” conscious units of beingness. Consciousness is an absolute ocean of independent psychic energy gestalts, which cooperate to create infinite forms of non-physical and physical realities that are truly independent, yet interconnected and interrelated, forms of “Real” “Beingness”. Just sharing a few thoughts, ideas and beliefs!

Haha no, seriously. I wasn't serious about what I wrote. I just thought it's one perspective which makes sense, at least for me. I personally like the idea that all experience, normal or supernormal is still a distortion of mind and is just as unreal like every experience. Only when you dissolve the mind you experience that which is beyond mind and matter. Only that can be true and not distorted by the mind. Buddhism stresses a lot that you can only a have a real taste of this beyond mind and matter phenomena in cessation where there is no experience left only awareness is there. Well this you can argue if you want. I'm just saying what they are saying. I'm not a buddhist even lol. And I have no bias towards buddhism. I just think they make sense here. Also buddha sayes that every samadhi state is just entertainment for the ego. It doesn't necessary dissolve the mind. According to them only dissolving all experience of life is important. Total cessation. Everything else is just your imagination. When there's no imagination left then Truth remains. And that Truth is a state of cessation. Well it makes sense my friends it makes sense to me a lot. Of cource I'm not attached to it much. You can say everything, every moment is absolute truth. Everything that comes from emptiness is emptiness. No duality formless = form etc. It's the same thing. Just a different side of the same coin. I enjoy all perspectives My personal theory about psychedelics (which could be totally wrong btw) is that they don't dissolve the ego they trancend the ego. They push awareness temporarely by releasing a lot of energy from the Ojas above the mind and you experience this beyond mind and matter phenomena. In that moment you get an experience of absolute truth without dissolving experience. And at the same time you know that all experience is not true and imaginary. It's just a sensation of god's mind. That's what self-inquiry does in a way. One other thing that buddha sayes is even if you get this experiance of 8jhana of self-realization of god and everything is not real etc., you are still stuck in this game and are forced to experience life untill you dissolve this imagination into nothingness. Realization of god is not enough to end life, you have to dissolve all imagination, all mind. When there's no more experience, total cessation, that's the end of suffering, end of life, end of mind, end of creation. Buddhism can sound pretty dark sometimes lol. I'm just pondering stuff here. Don't take it seriously Regards ? @Leo Gura @Adamq8

Perhaps everything that you experience, every state you experience is a delusion. The only reality is That which is not experience. When all experience is dissolved then truth is left. Total nothingness. Cessation of all sense doors. Not a single thought or sensation like in deep sleep but still aware. I wonder if such experience is possible with psychedelics. This rises a good question. For example, christians when they take psychedelics, they experience Jesus, angels and stuff. Hindus experience Shiva or Krishna. Those who read about dmt entities start meeting entities. There are some who watch too much matrix and then take psychedelics and say I've experienced that life is a computer simulation. Everything is not real. And they're super serious they even end up in mental hospital. I know one person like that. So yes. I think potential for self-deception is a big one with psychedelics. The only thing you can trust is That which is not an experience. Because every experience is just a projection of your subconscious mind I think. I like what buddhist say that unless you polish your mind totally everything you see is not true. It's distorted with your own subconscious believes, likes and dislikes. The only way to know what is true is total purification/dissolution of the mind. Idk. Makes sense to me. Regards ?

@The0Self I'm not sure if you are familiar with the nothingness, or in my situation DP/DR. But once you have it, nothing is real anymore. Nothing seems real... Keep in mind, I was 16yo at that time. And I have researched how people behave when they are confronted with nothingness. Basically, they do stupid shit as if it was a dream, because it is a dream. You basically just behave as usual, but sometimes you say: fuck it it's a dream. And it changed me. In ego terms, I make the correlation between this and behavioural changes, so the Now is still absolute, but still it happened. There is no doubt that such experiences change your personality, and fuck you up deeply if you aren't prepared. It's like thinking "I am definately crazy, but nobody would understand that, so why tell the dream people about it" Everything happening on it's own is an awakened state, but not comparable with nothingness. The ego always reacts to changes in consciousness. Euphoric highs, or fighting stuff, or going crazy. It often depends on the awakening. Furtunately, I am out of that state now.

Yes, that's actually one type of "meditation" I enjoy doing. Like sitting, or laying on my back and not caring about anything, once I reach that state of being, I actually feel what you could call contentment, without reaching profound meditative states. @Tim Ho The heaven awakening I had is not really a metaphysical truth, but more like a change in perspective + no-ego state. Not as incredible as Kundalini bliss or nothingness. Let's hope My head will show itself to me I also stopped torturing myself with SDS meditation, cold water showers etc, because I have a notion, that spirituality is a path made out of suffering, for it to be transcended, which is a very unhealthy perspective on life. I am aware, that once I let go of strong physical pain, I enter a state of equanimity, but that's harder for sneaky stuff, and I often don't see the point of that. @Gianna I don't only watch Leo's videos, I'm also in shinzen young's fb community, but I just love this forum too much. I am sorry you feel that way. It's really hard to remember the highs, when we are low.

I wished I had buddhist background or anything before I had a spontaneous nothingness a few years ago. I was just abusing the effect of the no self for egoic reasons, got really manipulative, provocative, outright deceptive, because, yeah this dream has no rules/limitations, why not do whatever I want. All this shit I did, actually backfired hard on me. Because once the dream feels real again, you have accumulated all that karma, all those lies and shame and guilt will come up. I'm so sorry for what I did to some people. But at least, now I know I will not do that again. (I hope though)