Realized I am God, consciousnesses and I am FREAKING OUT. Where is LOVE? help?

[Arthur8769]

Hello,

I've been into spirituality for quite some time now, and I'm not new to it or to meditation, however yesterday night I attempted Leo's exercise to realize you are God.

In meditation, I removed all of my paradigms and belief systems. Realizing that the earth doesn't exist, that I don't exist, that the universe doesn't exist.

And what I was left with was just pure awareness, an all filling sense of awareness. And for a split second I've felt this very very intense feeling of just being, existing in an endless nothingness.

And it felt really lonely. What I thought was my whole reality shattered. I felt the illusion of our world and I felt like a sole existing consciousnesses in the emptiness of consciousness itself.

And it was the most terrifying experience I've ever had. I started panicking and was barely able to calm myself down enough after a while, to go to sleep. I used some meditation to remind myself I am human. After that experience I really needed to "come back down" to reality.

The thing is that now that feeling of reality being an illusion and me being just consciousnesses existing in nothingness is not quite going away, because of how powerful it was, and I'm freaking out, like LITERALLY.

I think the reason it felt so lonely is because I just experienced the sense of awareness, of being, eternally. There was no love. An emptiness that emptied me. I don't know if I should have felt love, but now I don't know where love is supposed to fit in this new picture of reality.

And without love it all feels extremely lonely and meaningless.

Where is the love?

 

Addition:

If You are God, we all are God. Although when we have these ground-breaking experiences of feeling like one pure aware being, just conscious of itself. "Where" are all the other people and aware selves that exist in the world?

We don't feel them. It's just us.

Just OUR sense of awareness..

Edited January 2, 2021 by Arthur8769
Added question.

[seeking_brilliance]

The good thing about being empty is that you can fill it with whatever you want. And it will never overflow ?  what exactly were you expecting love to feel like? 

[Arthur8769]

7 minutes ago, seeking_brilliance said:

The good thing about being empty is that you can fill it with whatever you want. And it will never overflow ?  what exactly were you expecting love to feel like? 

That's quite beautiful actually. Thank you so very much for the perspective. I didnt think about it that way. I guess I was expecting the same feeling you get when you love someone... Or just a more powerful version of that love.

Edited January 2, 2021 by Arthur8769

[seeking_brilliance]

@Arthur8769 I find self love to be a sense of belonging, no matter where I am. I take home with me. I am Home. It doesn't necessarily feel like romantic or endearing love, but sometimes it can. 

[Chris365]

To the 'I', the ego, the unconditional Love will feel like a less powerful, less intense version of the egoic , needy, directional, normal human love.

The challenge is realising that unconditional Love is just that, unconditional, and it Loves everything that arises in your experience, a stubbed toe and your child the same.

Your sense of loneliness and meaninglessness are what the ego assignes to that experience. Of course, the ego is imaginary, and the work is in making this actual.

[Nahm]

3 hours ago, Arthur8769 said:

And without love it all feels extremely lonely and meaningless.

The key is recognizing this is still the activity of the mind, or, ‘the thinker thinking’ facade, and being so transparent in feeling, as to recognize you actually love this entire experience, this metadventure of reality discovery you’re having, just as it is. Here’s some meditations that can help in letting go and reorienting to the source of feeling...

Seeing Yourself With Love

Emotional Awareness Meditation

Lovingkindness

Self Inquiry

And don’t forget the most fundamental obvious ‘practice’ of all...loving. Today. Like, now. 

 

 

[Leo Gura]

Emptiness is Love.

But you have yet to become conscious of that.

[Arthur8769]

2 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

Emptiness is Love.

But you have yet to become conscious of that.

How do I become aware of that? Of emptiness being love?

By trying to feel the love while having the experience?

Because if I just contemplate on the emptiness of consciousness the feeling of love I'm used to doesn't arise. And that's what's so frightening.

Edited January 2, 2021 by Arthur8769

[roopepa]

Hmm. Is Truth discovered or created?

What is the difference?

[allislove]

@Arthur8769

Perfect timing to clearly see that fear and anxiety comes from identifying with thoughts, thoughts that doesn't feel good. Just sit, observe, that all is good in this moment, now. 

[Arthur8769]

33 minutes ago, roopepa said:

Hmm. Is Truth discovered or created?

What is the difference?

I don't think the emotion is that truthful if it's created. If I experience the emptiness and it feels like emptiness, then if I fill it with generated love, isn't that faking the real state of things?

[Leo Gura]

6 hours ago, Arthur8769 said:

How do I become aware of that? Of emptiness being love?

By trying to feel the love while having the experience?

Because if I just contemplate on the emptiness of consciousness the feeling of love I'm used to doesn't arise. And that's what's so frightening.

There's not really a how.

You will either have an awakening to Love or not. Psychedelics help.

There are many different kinds of awakenings.

[Upsidedown Astronaut]

In my recent venture to explore unconditional love I have found that it feels like a vast open spaciousness inside me, this is similar to your description but the choice of words might help it seem less isolating.  Since recognizing the connection of love to this inner welcoming space I find it much easier to let others in and connect with them emotionally.  Maybe you can relate to that some how.  Before this my definition of love was very distorted, transactional and Egoic.  In myself, the opening up to others is paralleled with feelings of deep inner peace and completeness and this is where the unconditional feelings towards others grows from.  I feel so complete that there is nothing else in life to do (this relates to your existential anxiety perhaps), no desires, so I feel the draw towards helping others around me with no effort and no expected return of transaction.  I was able to find this feeling of vast inner space and peace, accompanied with a quiet mind, after doing 2-3 months of intense focused work on Ego dissolution.  Daily I obsessively lived every moment possible as a meditation of empty mind and only awareness.  I am now able to let go of my mind with ease and simply be aware and calm at any given time.  It is in these moments when I feel that deep inner peace and that spaciousness we're talking about, which I'm coming to know as love as I learn to use it to let connections with others, life experience and the beauty and mystery of the infinite creation fill me.  I feel like this is love I am experiencing, it is different from the selfish forms of love I have known.

Maybe you can relate to something I mentioned.. 

I am still looking to have an Awakening to Love as I continue forward, as Leo suggests, it will be greatly helpful.

Edited January 3, 2021 by Upsidedown Astronaut

[aurum]

@Arthur8769

If you're still feeling lonely, IMO you haven't gone all the way yet. How can you be lonely when you are all of existence?

Keep doing the work. If it's too much, take a break and calm down. There's no rush.

[Carl-Richard]

20 minutes ago, aurum said:

@Arthur8769

If you're still feeling lonely, IMO you haven't gone all the way yet. How can you be lonely when you are all of existence?

Of course he didn't go all the way. He dipped his toes in and flinched

[Ryan R]

Hello Arthur,

Everyone here is giving you solid advice. What a wonderful forum. Thought I'd offer my two cents to spend as you like..

Firstly, from observation and research what you are reporting is not unusual for an early awakening. Recognize this and don't give in to permitting your fear to stop you from further spiritual work. 

Here are three pointers from seemingly different converging angles that may help:

1. Have you ever been intoxicated, even a little, with love for another? Not lust, but love. Have you felt the kind of love where all of existence, maybe even yourself, seemingly disappears and the whole world becomes only the object of your love? If you are a young man as I suspect you are we are likely talking about the love of a woman, etc, but we could be talking a pet or friend or relative. Just search your heart for the greatest love like that you have ever felt (even if in current retrospect it feels like it was juvenile infatuation), and feel it now. Hold the pure jubilant feeling of that love in meditation with little to no mental chatter and no visual fantasy about the old object of your love. Hold that love and while doing so, try Leo's God realization exercise again.... If you cannot identify any bit of the love we are talking about from your previous life experience, then go fall foolishly in mad love with someone or something before becoming a serious spiritual seeker.

2. Get out of your head and into your heart. I don't know your practice or tradition, but if you in any way have a technique for opening the heart, do that relentlessly. I was very heady and heart-locked years past my first awakening before Love was realized. "Opening the heart" once sounded like nonsensical fluff to even my then very spiritual ear. On the contrary, opening the heart is both highly accurate wording and vitally important for spiritual development. If you are head-strong with a radically open mind (if not, well, get to work) and you focus on how this "feels", there should be a visceral sense of spaciousness emanating from your skull.

See if you can't move that feeling of spaciousness down so it is emanating from your solar plexus. Practice holding and expanding this feeling of spaciousness coming from the solar plexus. Visualize it as your opening a heart-centered gateway for Love in your human being. Remember and hold in consciousness the love from point 1 above while realizing your love is one with, and a reflection or refraction of, Love. Let Love be your oxygen, your breath, your spirit, your life. Breath deep from the sensation of Love through this heart gateway in your chest. Exhail Love to All Being. Inhail Love from All Being. Recognize that you are a gateway for the Love of All Being even as you are a part of All Being...  For bonus points expand the spaciousness, the gateway of Being Love, to the point where it creates a void larger than your body, then larger than your bubble of perception, and realize that by virtue of being a part of All Loving Being, outside space-time, you are also the absolute totally of It. Call It Nothing or Everything, absolute Emptiness or overflowing Fullness, God, Nature, or whatever but don't get intimidated by any of It's names or related concepts and experiences.

I'm sure you know the sensation of giving a loved one a big hug. I realize this sounds corny af, but that is the best approximation for what this feeling of opening the heart by Love is like. There they are, your loved one standing before you to embrace. You throw your arms open wide. Do you feel the expansiveness and lightness in your chest even if you only visualize a loved one and go through a hugging motion? Do you feel the intention and the anticipation of love given and received? Opening the heart as a gateway of Love is exactly like this, but greater in magnitude.

3. It is a simplified, although useful, ultimate-only dichotomy where your only choices are fear or Love. I went years and multiple awakening without knowing Love, but I sincerely never felt fear from even the most relatively terrifying of spiritual experiences. Everywhere my fear could have been I instead held and operated from pure awestruck curiosity. The reason so many people encounter fear states from awakenings is that they are ill prepared. Your ego is filling you with fear as you describe because it cannot exist as the Emptiness and therefore feels threatened. Ego is labeling Emptiness as bad to get you to identify yourself as the lie of essentially being ego experiencing some weird evil emptiness rather than the Truth of Being Emptiness playing as ego.

The solution is to condition the ego to accept ceasing to be, or at the very least ceasing to think it's in charge. Leo kind of slipped this in on your ego with his God realization exercise and apparently your ego didn't take kindly to it, lol. There are many ways to weaken the grasp of ego. All of them are self (as in egoic self) destructive.

In my opinion some of the simplest gentlest things you can do is engage in alot of self depreciating humor and other such physically harmless acts. Make fun of yourself. Dress dumpy. Act dumb and answer "I don't know" to everything. Stop taking anything seriously or personally.

No? Okay, and/or hit yourself in the wallet. Start giving everything you can away. The more difficult a thing is for you to part with the better fuel for the ego bonfire it is. Have something of great sentimental value? Give it up. The best stuff to part with is that which has great monetary and sentimental value.

No? Okay, and/or go the valuable long intellectual route Leo advocates in much of his teaching. Study epistemology. Truely deeply realize that everything you believe is only relative limited perspective and mental construct. Your egoic self is total BS built on layers of BS. It twists and turns and manipulates your personal reality for what it sees as survival needs, not yours so much as it's survival needs, and you are powerlessly just along for the ride. Expand your mind to the point it collapses in on itself again and again until the ego is stretched so thin it has no thickness left to defend itself. This method takes years of hard work but it's worth it.

No? Okay, and/or go semi-hardcore. Engage in daily visualization of your bodily death in all manner of ways. Walk cemeteries. Work with the dead and the dieing. Hospice is always looking for volunteers. If you have the opportunity to enter a combat zone definitely do so. More advice here I cannot give, but you get the idea. Experience, reflect on, and contemplate death to the point where all fear related to death is completely replaced by only peace. Ideally do all of these things in some measure to prepare the self for encountering and embodying the Self.

I got wordy. May you read this and may some part of it be useful to you. Ultimately man, you can't force Love anymore than you can make fields flourish, but you can plow and plant those fields while praying for bright skys mixed with right rain. The occasional rainbow is bound to manifest in the meantime.

[Someone here]

@Arthur8769 @Arthur8769 sorry but a lot of what you described is totally BS. Awakening is not solipsism. Well as far as I know lol.

If I'm to be totally epistemically honest.. I have no idea if there is "other" conscious bubbles out there other than me.. It could be all my dream.. But the fact that I'm typing this comment to you means I chose to believe that you are an aware being or however you wanna put it. If you were all "alone"... What's the point of reaching out and asking figments of your imagination on an imaginary forum for validation and "help"?. I would advice to adopt radical open-mindedness but also radical honesty. Because I'm struggling with the solipsism syndrome as well.  This notion that you are "alone" is not something you definitively know. 

About "love" and divinity. 

Watch from 55:00 to 106:00

Edited January 3, 2021 by Someone here

[seeking_brilliance]

On 02/01/2021 at 2:40 PM, Arthur8769 said:

How do I become aware of that? Of emptiness being love?

By trying to feel the love while having the experience?

Because if I just contemplate on the emptiness of consciousness the feeling of love I'm used to doesn't arise. And that's what's so frightening.

Don't try to feel anything. That's the biggest obstacle. Get out of the way. If you come to the highest realization of being empty, then do just that. 

When I said being empty means you can fill it with anything, I meant after you get up from meditation and go about your day. If you want to be love, then be love as you go and help an old lady across the street. If you want to be bold then be bold as you walk into the singles bar.  That's what I meant. 

Edited January 3, 2021 by seeking_brilliance

[Endangered-EGO]

13 hours ago, Someone here said:

@Arthur8769 @Arthur8769 sorry but a lot of what you described is totally BS. Awakening is not solipsism. Well as far as I know lol.

 

He is not wrong he is describing some part of the nothingness. It is possible to experience it without love, I had the full blown nothingness without love years ago. The pit of the void, dark night of the soul. I also had another distinct awakening into "Heaven" perfection/love recently.

Nothingness without love is terrifying. Or nothingness without One-ness. The mind freaks out.

@Arthur8769  Be kind to yourself, ground yourself. Nature is a miracle. If you look for beauty, you will become absorbed by it. beauty in see hear feel. Nature, music, people/animals.

[BigDogRaven]

@Ryan R  Beautiful! I will be bookmarking this post. Lots of helpful insights in your post. Thank you!

Sorry I have nothing to add to the OP.