Actually, all symbols are just territory. There are maps proper. A map is what you get when you confuse part of the territory for another part of the territory.
To make this real clear: if you draw a map of Florida in the sand on a beach in Florida, your map is literally Florida. There isn't a map + Florida. There is only Florida, which includes within it a smaller version of itself drawn in the sand. So what it means for Florida to be Florida is that is has drawings of itself within itself.
Notice the fractal nature of how this works.
Now expand this out to reality itself. A thought/image/symbol of reality is itself a part of reality. Such that all you have in the end is reality. All you have is the territory. So in fact: the map is the territory!
Strange loops are not a bug here, they are a feature. They arise due to the self-reference problem: when you have only one thing in existence, how can it point to itself? There cannot be a duality between map/territory. Symbols cannot stand outside reality because they are within reality and because there is nothing outside reality. Inside and outside are of course one.

Yeah, I think that's possible to some extent.
5-MeO-DMT is already that technology in powdered form.
It still won't be that easy in practice because to deeply awaken your entire mind has restructure itself. It's not as simple as cutting a few wires. Your entire web of beliefs needs to be reconfigured too. Otherwise it will be a half-assed enlightenment leading to Zen devirly and pathology. And awakening alone is not enough, there is also the need for Spiral development which cannot happen simply through some surgery or even a chemical.
There are all sorts of rare and interesting abnormal brain case studies. For example some people can hallucinate monkeys or see the world as a cell-shaded cartoon. Some people convinced that other people are robots. The brain/mind is a very tricky thing. Enlightenment is far from the only interesting mystical thing that the brain can do.

To me awakening means a permanent disidentification with form. An ever-present state of nondual awareness. That's not something I have yet.

@Immortal peace You're sort of conflating two issues there, existential issues with mundane survival issues.
If you care about survival there's no escaping that you will have to handle those survival issues. For example if you're starving and you have no money or food, no amount of meditation will fix that issue. But what meditation can do is allow you to die in peace. How? Well, you'd need to become very good at meditation or you'd need to awaken to realize that death is an illusion. The body will die from lack of food, but you as God will not.
If you want the body to be alive there's no escaping finding food.
Which is why spirituality is not an escape from everyday obligations. That's a bad way to look at it. You want to get masterful at handling survival issues. Which in your case means: design a way to make a decent living. Don't try to offload this issue on meditation or enlightenment. Learning how to earn a decent living is a whole skillset. It's tempting to think that you can avoid developing such skillets through "finding peace" via spirituality. That's a bad approach.
As your practice spirituality though, even though you'll still have tricky survival issues to deal with, you will deal with them more calmly and effectively. They won't stress you out as much as they would otherwise because in the end you know that whatever happens will be okay. And you will have more emotional self-control.
A simple way to calm yourself is to breath slowly and deeply for a few minutes or hours.
Sedona Method is also really good for clearing out emotions.

There cannot be emotional mastery without enlightenment. Emotional mastery is even harder than enlightenment.
But if you just want to do some basic self-help stuff and work on emotional issues, yes, you can do that. You ain't gonna be anywhere near understanding the true nature of emotions. But it can be helpful.

@ardacigin I don't think that such medieval methods are healthy or lead to the highest understanding. Sure, those monks are badasses, but I doubt how much of reality they really understand or how Spirally developed and well-rounded they are. I would bet most of them are underdeveloped on the Spiral, which would be a great shame.
The thing is, running marathons has little to do with insight, development, or understanding. Don't automatically assume that doing brutal rigorous mechanical training methods will get you to the highest levels of understanding. I highly doubt it would. I am much more in favor of a thoughtful contemplative approach which incorporates study of psychology, sociology, semiotics, science, etc. I think some of the hardcore Eastern schools are not thoughtful and scientific enough. They can be too grounded in tradition for tradition's sake without evolving with technology and the times.

No, I think it's definitely possible, just very, very rare and difficult. Yogis and sages have definitely accessed the highest levels of awakening without any chemical assistance. I suspect though that they were exceptionally gifted, whether due to genetics, karma, past-lives, upbringing, the right brain chemistry, luck or a combination of all the above. I don't know exactly why some people are exceptionally spiritually gifted. That is still a deep mystery waiting for an answer.
5-MeO just makes it so much easier and more accessible to ordinary people.
I recommend a hybrid approach.

@ardacigin I know all that.
What I meant was, he's still missing a few deeper layers of awakening like Absolute Infinity and Absolute Truth.
Last time I spoke with him I asked him why reality exists and he was not able to give me an answer. Nor was he aware of Infinity.
Of course I still consider him enlightened. Just not at the highest level of understanding possible because I've clearly become conscious of why reality exists. So I know it can be done. Just probably not through mindfulness meditation and labeling.
Being aware of God is one thing. Being aware of the mechanics of God is another yet deeper thing. There is a lot of important stuff to discover about the mechanics of God. How does God actually materialize reality? And why? This can all be understood and it is worthwhile to understand it.
Don't take this to be anything negative against Shinzen. He's still great.

Hehe, that's mostly what self-help as a field/industry is. That's okay. It's mostly geared towards stage Orange/Green folks. There are still very important lessons there, just don't expect it to come anywhere near the depth of the stuff I teach.
Most self-help does not include a metaphysical, epistemological, or spiritual component. As a result, it cannot possibly be profound or an ultimate solution. But I'm still a big fan of even that type of basic stage Orange self-help. People really need it in our society. In fact, most people who follow me probably need it more than they need my metaphysical musings. Metaphysical stuff is quite advanced and assumes you've already handled other basic parts of life.
Of course Reddit is not a high-quality source of life advice. You should expect a lot of keyboard-jockeys there. For the best advice, read quality books.

@kieranperez I'm not clear what you wrote, but anyways...
Whatever thoughts arise in your human head/mind are of course God's doing. God does not think somewhere elsewhere from human minds. When God is thinking, it's using a human to do it because thinking requires form. So God as a formless entity technically cannot think unless it first materializes a human who then becomes a vehicle for thoughts.
So you might say that God as formlessness cannot do anything at all, but at the same time it can materialize all of physical reality and then whatever physical reality does, is equivalent to God doing stuff.
So formless God cannot eat a cheeseburger (because eating is form), but it can spawn a Big Bang, wait 14 billion years, spawn a cow, spawn a human, spawn a chef who cooks the cheeseburger, and then have the human eat the cheeseburger. That's how God eats cheeseburgers
God as formlessness lives vicariously through all form. Remember, form and formlessness are identical. So God literally is the taste of the cheeseburger. Ta-da!
Or think of it this way: when you're playing a video game you cannot directly enter the world of Mario as a human. But you can live through that world as the Mario character. To manipulate Mario's world requires that you use Mario as the interface. You become Mario while also being a human who's distinct from Mario. Mario can die but it does not harm you.

@Serotoninluv You can probably handle it.
Each trip will go deeper and deeper, and wider and wider. There will certainly be significant cumulative effects.
With this method you're cramming years of spiritual growth into a single week. So be prepared for some ego-backlash and unexpected stuff. In a sense it must disrupt your old life. This can be both great and problematic when you return.
I highly recommend it for very serious, seasoned spiritual aspirants with a very solid theoretical and practical foundation, and high emotional maturity. Not for newbies.
Don't be too surprised if this kind of work makes your depressive or even suicidal for a while. You need to be stable enough to weather such storms. The payoffs though are HUGE.
To handle a solid week of 5-MeO requires pushing yourself. The ego will want to stop somewhere half-way through as it gets overwhelmed with Truth.

Hi everyone. Here is my current practice method. I wanted to share with you one of the most useful mindfulness manuals I've ever read. 'The Mind Illuminated' by Culadasa.
For me, his training method was so effective that I've experienced a lot of exponential growth in a relatively short amount of time. More people need to know about this guy.
For anyone who has read his book, I'm currently working on stages 7-8-9 holistically. After stabilizing the attention to the breath, I start an investigation towards the sense of being an individual self and awareness practices in no-mind.
I do this not only in sitting sessions but also in daily life. For instance, today my awareness of external sensations were so acute that when I was meditating in the subway train, the sound of the door closing (+ the engine of the train) was so loud that if I hadn't cultivated equanimity so much, I definitely would have gotten startled. It was so intense.
I'm currently trying to master effortless stability of attention to the breath sensations at the nostrils in stage 7 and once I do access such levels of concentration, I expand my awareness of external sounds and bodily sensations while maintaining stable, bright and continuous attention to the breath. Making sure to have introspective awareness (aka. inner awareness of thought and feel space) for potential distractions and dullness.
From this foundation of samadhi, I start the self-inquiry process where I try to pinpoint and investigate the sense of being a self. I separate the three fundamental aspects of being a self: see, hear and feel modalities. 
Then I inquire if there is anything more. A locus of consciousness. The experiencer/doer addition to these 3 modalities. Once I do this inquiry, my mind slows even more. Thoughts go away. Emotions cool out. And sensations of external sound, visual and touch modalities get amplified and I start to feel like my sense of self starts to melt away merging and blurring out because of the awareness of external sensations.
I continue from here and try to access deeper and deeper aspects of no mind while maintaining the stability of attention to the breath.
This is my current practice and I get TONS of growth out of it on a daily basis.
Also, I'm doing 90 to 120 mins of SDS sits in the cross-legged posture with these techniques on a daily basis as well. So that also adds a lot of spiritual weights and stable foundation as I start my day.
I hope this gives you guys some motivation and an idea of how to move forward in your practice if you feel stuck. 
For more information, read Culadasa's fantastic book 'The Mind Illuminated'. Here is the special Reddit forum of the book if you are interested: https://www.reddit.com/r/TheMindIlluminated/
Let me know your thoughts on Culadasa and his methods. Have you tried them? If so, what are your experiences? What do you struggle with? 
I'd love to hear your thoughts and give guidance as much as I can

That's not good enough. It doesn't count unless it's direct experience.
Also, you ARE the one moving the fingers. Who else is there but YOU? You are all there is! You are the entire universe moving those fingers. The only problem is that you've confused yourself with being limited to a human body/mind. Start thinking of yourself as the entire universe. That will help a bit to give you proper perspective. But merely thinking you are the universe is still not enough. You must directly experience that it is so. This requires awakening. The boundary between self and word must collapse.
Be careful not to just believe me. Belief is the enemy here, even if it's positive belief or belief in nonduality. True nonduality is not a belief.

Firstly, scientific models are NOT based on formal logic. Again, "formal logic" is a loaded word. There are an infinite number of different formal logics. So which one are you gonna base your scientific model on? They all contradict each other. You must do empirical research to determine whether your logic squares with reality. Often times it won't!
In quantum mechanics particles do not follow Aristotelian binary logic. So physics has long ago debunked the naive notion that reality follows binary logic.
The question of What is science? and How come science works? is a very tricky one. It takes decades of study and contemplation to understand it.
In short, scientific models contain very partial and limited relative truths. They are true only under very very narrow circumstances and contexts. Just because some aspects of reality are predictable does not mean that reality is logical. In fact it tends to work the other way around: Whatever humans call "logical" is however reality happens to behave in contexts which are relevant to humans. For example, if chairs had a habit of turning spontaneously into cats whenever you sat on them, your mind would grow accustomed to that behavior and call it "logical".
In practice, what you call "logical" is just whatever reality happens to do around you. If everyone you knew walked around naked on the street, you'd eventually start calling that logical. Because in fact it is impossible to distinguish between logical and illogical things. That is a matter of relative perspective. What's logical to me is not logical to you, and vice versa. Or to put it another way, YOU are the sole arbiter of what counts as logical. Whatever you insist is logical, becomes logical (for you). Whatever you insist is illogical becomes illogical (for you). Logic has no normative power. So if someone wants to be "illogical", they are free to do so and no amount of reasoning, argumentation, or evidence will convince them otherwise. Because they are only "illogical" relative to your judgment of them. They are not illogical in any absolute sense.
There actually exists no standard to determine what counts as logical. It must be this way because reality is nondual and empty/groundless. Anyone who tries to ground reality in logic will fail. This was rigorously demonstrated back in the early 20th century. Logical positivism and the attempt to formalize reality with a finite system of symbols failed spectacularly. As it should have. Reality is not quantifiable or formalizable.

@Paul92 Paul as a biographical, biological, physical entity is constructed fiction. A narrative.
But there is a True You -- the True Self/No-Self/Nothingness/Void/God. Your true nature is not human but God. You are God thinking it is Paul. So when you realize that you are actually God, you will also realize that God has Will. God has infinite Will, in fact. Paul's will is a tiny splinter off God's infinite Will.
So in a sense you will discover Paul was never really in control.
But then you will also discover that since you are God, you control and create everything. As God, you have Will which you can use to create. So literally God allocates a tiny percentage of its infinite Will to this body of Paul's so that it could create a life. As a human your creative capacities are not infinite, they are limited so long as you are in a human form. If you exit the human form your creative power will be infinite, you can literally materialize physical objects out of thin air. But at this point you're not a human any more, you are the Godhead. You are that which you were before you were born.
In the end, everything is God's choice. But the kicker is, you're God! But simultaneously you're human
None of this is to be believed. You must discover if it is true through consciousness practices.
The more conscious you become the more of God's Will will be at your disposal. Eventually you and God will merge into one such there will be zero distance between your lifting a finger and God willing it so.
The definition of a devil is someone who thinks he is separate from God. The devil seeks to separate itself from God and rule using his own will. But the devil is always just a partition within God. So the devil is tricking itself into thinking that it is in control. Eventually the devil must surrender control and accept that it was God all along. This merges the devil back into God as if the separation never even happened. That's nonduality in a nutshell. Nonduality polarizes into duality and then depolarizes back into nonduality.
God is the doing non-doer

@Caitwin Not a fan. There are much better philosophies to read.
Try Nagarjuna or Plotinus instead.
Remember, there is A LOT of dualistic delusion within Western philosophy, so be careful not to waste your time wading through bullshit. Go straight for the highest nondual teachings.
You can easily spend 20 years reading Western philosophy and still not get any closer to Truth. With that said, there is the occasional gem and I still encourage everyone to think through philosophical questions for themselves. Philosophy is not meant to be read or believed, it must be DONE! -- as in: contemplate everything for yourself.
The power of philosophy lies more in the questions than in the answers. If you are not contemplating for yourself, you are not actually doing any philosophy.
 

@MM1988 There is skill and there are principles to dating, just like there is with golf, tennis, driving a car, or meditation.
You are framing what I said as "This is so inauthentic and artificial". But once you actually internalize the skill of proper texting, it will become authentic and natural.
Every skill you learned was at one point inauthentic and artificial, from mathematics to reading to writing to typing on the computer.
I am not saying you need to keep a file of canned text messages. Once you understand the principles of texting with a girl, you can generate an infinite number of spontaneous texts. Without learning this skill, your text messages will suck and you will lose girls by committing stupid mistakes which only years later will you understand why.
People expect to be good at sex and dating "naturally" without any deliberate practice. Because love is supposed to be "natural". This is a silly double-standard. Nowhere else in life do you adopt this attitude. If you want to be good at something you must train and recognize principles. Girls will appreciate it when you don't creep them out with your texts.

You are confused about who/what you are. This is how most normal people are. At the same time they identify with being the body, the mind, and also not that. They are unsure and confused. The mind plays these games where one minute it thinks its the body, another minute it thinks its a human, another minute it thinks its the voice heard in the head, another minute it thinks it was born, another minute it thinks its some kind of "soul", another minute it thinks its God, and so on.
The purpose of self-inquiry is to become very strict with yourself and force yourself to confront this shell game that the mind plays. What are you REALLY? Not as a belief, but what the fuck are you? If you claim that you are real, then you must be able to clearly specify what is it that's real. The body? The voice? The memories of childhood? The feelings of pain? If we put a gun to your head right now, what is it that you fear will die? << That is the false self.
Getting clear about the false self is just as important as discovering the True Self. You can't disidentify with something unless you first clearly realize that you're identified with it. You might be identified with your childhood memories and not even realize it. So you have to ask yourself very seriously, "Am I identified with my childhood memories? Is that what I actually am?" And so forth with any other possible identifications until you eliminate them all. What will remain is nothing, which is what you actually are.

It requires a change in state of consciousness.
The sense of I is more than just a feeling, thought, or belief. It's an entire state of being such that you know no other possibility.
Changing that state requires a lot of concentration practice, or kriya yoga, or psychedelics.

I was only talking about pre-sex communications. Once you have sex with her, then you can text her more seriously.
You must distinguish between pre-sex and post-sex behaviors. They are very different.
Pre-sex, while you're dating, there must be some gaming going on. After she falls in love with you, you can cut the gaming.
You don't need to manipulate her too much via text. The key is not to display neediness and desperation. The biggest mistake made with pre-sex texting is that the guy fucks it up by trying to say too much, trying to be too edgy/cocky/funny. Trying to attract her via text doesn't work. So actually my advice is to not game girls via text. Use texting mostly to handle dating logistics laced with bits of humor.
Make your texts totally non-needy and unimportant. Don't be sending her long letters via text. Never try to logically convince her of meeting you. All that crap will blow you out very fast.
Here are good kinds of texts pre-sex:
Hey gurl, let's grab a coffee. Coffee! Lets go Saw this shirt at Walmart and thought it would be perfect for you [insert pic of ugly shirt] Meow... Moo Hey dork Let's hang out When you free this week? Let's do something this week How's the recovery going? (from last night's club/bar) You're the weirdest gurl I met last night. I want to build you a mansion out of Legos and stock it with exotic baby animals. Reading a book Chillin by the pool Making juice Clipping my toe nails, thought you should know Trimming my nose hair, thought you should know Going to club XXXXX tonight. You? You remind me of a dog I just saw You seem great and all but I'm trying to figure out what's wrong with you. I bet you snore like a pig. I want to stick a scorpion in your pants Hope this isn't too forward but I mailed you this basket of puppies [insert pic of basket of puppies] A few of them might arrive dead, I was too cheap to swing for overnight shipping That kind of stuff. Keep it lite and chill. Zero investment is key.
This is the extent of pre-sex texting.
NEVER, EVER get sexual via text unless you've already had sex with her a few times. It comes off way too creepy and needy. Act like you don't care about sex.

@ThomasT Awesome! Glad you found God.
Not sure why you needed to fly all the way to Mexico though. Bufo ceremonies are done in Europe all the time.
Here's one: https://www.psilohuasca.com
I know Octavio Rettig travels to Europe as well.

Suffering IS a survival function. The only reason anything suffers is because it cares to survive.
Suffering can be transcended through consciousness at the individual level, but at the collective level that's another story.
Why are you framing it as "someone needs to be stopped"? You can act against devilry without being attached to it, and hence avoid suffering.
I am not saying you need to fight anything internally.
I can vote against Trump without hating him. I can be conscious that he is me, but that he must still not be allowed to hold power. I can support the existence of a police department without suffering simply by understanding that police is needed for a decent society. This just requires some understanding of how government works.
You can work to build a decent government without becoming an ideological partisan zealot about it.
In fact, anything that can be done with suffering and attachment can also be done without suffering or attachment.
You seem to be conflating action and education with suffering.

There is some similarity but it is also not really a mystical or nondual experience at all. You are still deeply unconscious in a flow state.
It is similar in the sense that the sense of I is gone and thoughts are gone. But awakening is much more radical.
Flow state shows you how nice it feels to not have ego controlling your life. But it gives you no understanding of what reality, Self, or God is.

You are tricking yourself.
All spiritual sayings require proper interpretation within the proper context.
He is not necessarily saying what you think he is saying.
No, almost the opposite. 
All that nonduality requires is to shut off the mind and sit in silence and concentrate for long periods of time.
Concepts and thinking are the #1 obstacle.
Sitting in silence and not thinking is not so easy if you are addicted to thinking (which everyone is).

Well, that's extremely rare. I would call that a spiritual gift of its own.
Yes, some people literally sit down, do a few days of meditation or inquiry and BAM! -- they awaken. But this is very, very rare. Don't count on that happening. Obviously if that happens, great! Consider yourself very lucky. You won the spiritual lottery.