robdl

Indeed. I'd go a step further and say that the ego = the game = the fear. It's a single, unitary movement. There's no distinction between the ego and the game, or between the ego/game and the fear. The ego is the fear is the game, even though language makes them appear as separate things or processes.

The mind can only operate through a sense of effort --- I mean the mind is this effort/volition --- so it approaches meditation in the same manner as it would approach any other worldly activity, right? It wouldn't know how to approach it any other way.

The question is whether having a goal/aim/direction/focus itself in meditation is simply another distraction from unconditional awareness.

Thought = self = psychological time = resistance to what is. Different terms pointing to one and the same thing (mind).

Indeed, it is paradoxically both stillness and aliveness/dynamic. Adyashanti described it perfectly: "When you enter the stillness of the eternal now by letting go of the fictional me, you see that reality, enlightenment, or God is like a flame. It's alive, ever moving, and ever dancing --- the flame is always here. But the flame is impermanent. There is nothing about a flame that is permanent, static, or stable. If it were, it would be dead. Reality is alive, ever on the move, like a flame that leaps up from the log into the air. Truth is continuous movement. This movement, this aliveness of Truth, is constant. It never ceases. It is timeless. Impermanence is the only continuous thing, the only permanent thing."

You're not a philosopher. You may do philosophy, then you may do your laundry, then do whichever next thing.

Doesn't approaching meditation as a useful/non-useful means to an end imply achievement, a goal, ambition, time --- all of which are mind? Mind can only see meditation in terms of what will it achieve, what will its use be.

Think of other people while having sex. If all else fails, pay for butt implants. I kid.

Thought itself projects the notion there's a thought-controller/owner, but doesn't realize it has done so. It's the self-deceptive and sneaky nature of thought.

Thought projects a thinker which feels that thoughts are "mine." Thoughts and the "thinker" of them are not two separate-distinct processes, but rather a single, unitary process.

Analysis, whether it is self-analysis or analysis performed by a psychyotherapist -- can it lead to further self-deception by reinforcing the division between the "I" (self-analyzer) and that which is being analyzed (accumulated experiences/memories/knowledge/beliefs), when in fact the "I" is one and the same process as that which is being analyzed? As Krishnamurti has said,

Also, @Shanmugam has made the point that self-inquiry (as explained by Maharshi), choiceless awareness (as explained by J. Krishnamurti), and witnessing meditation (as explained by Osho) are in essence the same (he can correct me if I'm misunderstanding him on that). What are your thoughts on that, @winterknight ? Is there a commonality between all of these forms which language and terminology cloaks? They all appear to aim to de-objectify awareness and inwardly invert attention to pure-subject

@winterknight Could you elaborate more on the significance of identifying your "emotional truth" and pursuing it, particularly as it relates to the emotional truth of seeking enlightenment?

choice implies a chooser entity -- but what is the chooser other than accumulated thought-memory-experience-knowledge content? What is the thinker other than thought content? So choice arises out of thought/the past. Thought sneakily chooses but doesn't realize it has done so --- thought projects a thinker which falsely assumes it has chosen. But the thinker and thought are one and the same unitary process.

would you say that there is no such thing as spiritual progression-degrees and that all matters of comparison-measurement-progression-degrees are purely thought-self's attempts at self-feeding?

thought meets the now with the past/old, and so veils it. thought is resistance, to the now.

Focusing on and fretting over one particular desire (i.e. sex) can be a distraction from observing the total movement of desire in oneself. Thought is always seeking pleasure or resisting pain, and desiring sex is just one of many forms of it.

Desiring not to desire is still desire (ego) self-sustaining.

There is sexual desire. Then a condemnation-resistance toward it which reflects the desire not to sexually desire. So now you've just shifted the problem from the desire for sex toward the desire for purity/chastity --- but it's all desire, just in different cloaks, reacting to/within itself.

To try to suppress, deny, change, fix, escape, condemn, or control the resistance is subtly and sneakily the very resistance itself, adversely reacting within/to itself. The entity which experiences resistance and the resistance itself aren't two separate processes, but a single, joint, self-reacting thought-process. Thought may take the aforementioned and become the conceptual "knower" of it, which is again thought dividing itself into knower-known, experiencer-experienced, etc.

I would agree with this. The first couple minute come-up on 5meo was like the trepidation of realizing you're surfing a 1000 foot tidal wave, but mushrooms last so long and your mind can take you down so many negative rabbit holes during that time.

Just remember that all fear is ego-mind trying to sustain itself as this substance is attempting to dissolve it.

That's good. And my mindset going in was to surrender. To let go. That there would be a ton of fear and terror thrown up by ego and to just flow with it, with a deep trust that as long as I did that it would work out. That's it.

Ultimately for me the curiosity and drive (you could even describe it as a calling) to try 5meo surpassed my fear of what may happen. I was willing to pass through any potential terror or insanity to achieve breakthrough.

Right, if "consciousness levels" are defined by the growth/advancement from absolutist worldviews to relativistic, that's a narrow/selective definition is what you're saying.