tsuki

It is, but it's much more beta to get caught up in war in the first place. The greatest masters will hide in plain sight and look exactly like a nobody so that they can flourish.

Not making war A Taoist wouldn’t advise a ruler to use force of arms for conquest; that tactic backfires. Where the army marched grow thorns and thistles. After the war come the bad harvests. Good leaders prosper, that’s all, not presuming on victory. They prosper without boasting, or domineering, or arrogance, prosper because they can’t help it, prosper without violence. Things flourish then perish. Not the Way. What’s not the Way soon ends.

So it's wisdom or death then. Is it an 'or' though...

But Leo~! You said that thanks to this substance it may be possible for an advanced practitioner to heal cancer with his imagination! Wouldn't it also be possible for a bad trip to give cancer the same way?

If you gulped 5-MEO at a irresponsible rate, you would just pass out and retain no insights from it. It takes time to integrate the insights, just like it takes time to build up tolerance to go deeper. So, if your true desire is really to experience the highest states of consciousness possible, then the trade-off between "now" and "future" is not really there. To live in the now is not to throw your life away and act stupidly. It is precisely the opposite. The ones that live irresponsibly are the ones that cannot face the fear of death and live as if they were immortal. To truly be immortal is to embody death and trust the directionless present moment to provide the proper guidance now. It is an act of vulnerability.

Hmm, so you wanna convince me, an open-minded person, that I'm really close-minded? Alrighty. I will close myself down and insist that I'm open-minded just to prove that I'm really open to teaching.

Here's your open-minded person. Ta-daa!

No Joseph, find yourself your own teachers hahahaha.

Hahahaha, you should~! Open mindedness is a graceful gatekeeper to wisdom hahahaha.

Disclosing a potent unscheduled research chemical to the general public is quite a responsibility @Leo Gura. I can't wait to see how gracefully you are going to deal with it. You are not just going to say 'use it on your own accord', are you?

If anyone tells you fire is light, Pay no attention. When two thieves meet they need no introduction: They recognize each other without question.

Pffft... You're a saint!

I would suggest @Aakash that you open a journal as your thought-dumpster. You can delete it with just one click when you will finally get embarrassed by it.

Nothing can prepare you for an awakening. Enlightenment is the ultimate hero's journey.

Nah, you're too much of a mother to leave him like that. He may stick a fork in a socket, or something...

Honestly, I don't even read everything you write

My coworker was telling me once about a family that had, like, 8 kids. I won't even try to imagine how much work it takes to raise one, not to mention 8. He gave me a funny look and said: at some point they start to raise each other.

The ego is not just a feeling. It is a complex comprised of thoughts, feelings and perceptions that is the illusion of separateness and control/doing. In actuality, the ego is powerless and is always swept along with the currents. If the currents align with its conceptual understanding, then it is happy. Otherwise, it suffers and struggles. The relationship between the ego and intellect is such that ego introduces conceptual frameworks of behavior (morality) that the intellect is "supposed" to follow. It does not. It's true purpose is to perceive/receive Dharma/Tao/Logos. To discern what is harmonious in the present moment. The intellect always does that and the concepts that constitute ego are the ego's suffering. They may have served their purpose at some point in development, but they are to be integrated to the point of irrelevancy. They are a ladder that is used for transcendence and then, thrown away.

sat chit ananda.

If you understand love as your true nature, then acting from your true nature is the ultimate expression of it. To ask 'how can I love more authentically?' is to ask: 'how can I be myself to a greater degree?'. That question cannot be answered, because one cannot know oneself. Knowledge implies a subject and object of knowing, and therefore, separation. To know yourself is to be separate from yourself. Authenticity, love, is being. It is a lack of self-reflective awareness that employs self-referential phenomena (thoughts about thoughts, feelings about feelings, etc.). True love can only happen when there is nobody loving and nobody loved. That requires abiding in the state of not-knowing, by dropping all self-concepts such as 'I must love'.

It is not possible to perceive change. Change is an illusion, so is any 'object', 'place' and 'another'. Note that anything you term 'memory' is always happening in the present moment. Memory is indistinguishable from imagination and ultimately unverifiable by any measure.

Interesting. Take note of the fact that there is time involved in this vision. It is exactly right, time is a misconception stemming from ignorance to rhythmic/cyclic nature of reality. A misapplication of linear thinking, blindness to midnight.

Sigh, I'm gonna have to buy that book...

@mandyjw If you wish to be happy, act happy, regardless of the mental state you're currently in. This is what 'polarization' is. Refusing to participate in backward swing simply means that you do not try to act your misery out when you feel miserable. The pendulum swings, but you do not swing with it. When you go against your conditioned ways, it creates a bodily shock, discomfort, pain. It screams: DO SOMETHING. If you choose to do nothing, you can learn to tolerate it until you stop noticing it. This "resistance to resistance itself" slowly stops the pendulum makes the pendulum disappear. It may take many swings until it finally rests. When it stops, it is put back to motion by 'external' events. Mastery is when you are able to react to circumstances without losing presence. When you are able to ease the circumstantial charge right on the spot by seeing it as arising for your benefit, as a reminder, a centering lesson.