TheAvatarState

@Jed Vassallo You sure you got pure 5-meo? Did you test it with a testkit?

Some weird shit happens, let me tell you...

@Fairy Have you poured Lye on your hand? (Wonderful movie reference btw, love it!) And if not, then isn't your opinion that "pouring lye on your hand will lead to true knowledge of the self" just an ideology? Are you not armchair philosophizing yourself?

@LoveandPurpose Let me ask you some questions: What is self-actualization at its core? What is spirituality at its core? Can you self-actualize without practicing spirituality?

Perhaps even more direct: Are you aware?

@John West You don't really know until you try it out! I'd say, go experiment with it for a few weeks. If it works, great, if not, then you know. I'm actually thinking of experimenting with them myself, as I'm really sensitive to music.

@Ferdi Le glad I could help! A lot of times an ego death experience manifests itself in you having visions of your own death; I have experienced this a few times on LSD. I obviously have no way of knowing that's what happened to you, but my strongest guess is that you were becoming so aware that your sense of self felt like it was dying. There is no difference between "physical death" and enlightenment. Don't let that scare you though! If anything, this just means you're on the right path... Keep up your meditation practice and self inquiry. and next time you're in that situation, try to summon the courage to surrender. It just might be the greatest thing to ever happen to you.

@Anton Rogachevski well then no one can be blamed other than herself.

@Anton Rogachevski I agree, it was sad. If she was told this at the beginning, she probably would have had it, however, the 40 years of work was working against her. We need more people like Rupert Spira showing the direct path, before people become too indoctrinated in indirect spiritual practice. I feel like enlightenment should happen within a couple years, then you can move on from there to truly develop yourself. Of course that's not always going to happen, that's more of the ideal.

? So what you're after is political correctness, not clarity? You realize you're at actualized.org, not the youtube comment section? Using a Zen koan to clarify your point does not mean you support Zen Buddhism, it just means you recognize they got one aspect of reality right, where there's a gap in our English language. That's like saying English words with Ancient Greek roots means you support Aristotelian Logic!

@SoonHei yes, that was my ego speaking. But fully knowing that I don't exist, and that every distinction I make between myself and the "outside" world is an illusion, honestly it isn't that pleasant for me right now. I can stop at any moment and smile at the infinite beauty and wonder of this illusory existence, I really can, but forcing myself (to the best of my ability) to bask in that for days now, it's starting to get really tiring. I have faith that I'm doing the right thing and that it'll get better... And honestly I'm not attached to a future outcome of "getting better," I'm following truth no matter what. It has already killed me, so there's nothing really to fear anymore. I just wanted to express that it's difficult to be at a lower state now than I was... But maybe that's just what I need.

I believe the word you're looking for us "Mu."

@Leo Gura thanks, I'll make sure not to lose this understanding. It could be so easy to fall back into objectifying things. How do you reconcile this understanding with everyday life? I am aware of the one-ness right now, but it doesn't seem to bring me any happiness, fulfillment, or extra value to the experience. Am I missing something, or are these experiences completely normal?

I talk to myself out loud in English ALL the time. I'm also a massive introvert and like to be kept alone. However, as I started my consciousness journey a couple years ago, an interesting thing started happening on its own accord. Over time. I changed from saying "I" to "we," to make the distinction between my true and false selves. This never used to happen, but I'll say "we" to motivate myself all the time. "We've gotta get going." "We've gotta get going." "We've gotta save that note for later." All while being completely by myself, but of course, there are actually 2 selves at play here. I didn't plan for that to happen, it just naturally came about when my awareness of my true self increased. This is the voice of my true self talking to my lower self, since I noticed that every time I say "we" it is in a positive or motivating light. I'd say the next step would be to enter a no-mind state more often and transcend the need to talk to myself. However, that's still quite a ways off...

@Cepzeu Thanks for the advice; I'll definitely stay on track.

@Leo Gura In that specific experience, my awareness didn't go much past my living room, but I have had the realization of infinity on psychedelics. So yes, this screen is infinite, as it must be! So I've experienced no self, the screen, infinity, and consciousness as fundamentally irreducible--the fabric reality. Where should I be looking next? I've had some amazing feelings of love, but I wouldn't say I've experienced infinite love. I also have plans for taking 5-meo for the first time this summer, as it's one of the only psychedelics I haven't tried yet. Should I just read Ramaji's book 1000 to gauge where I'm at? Thank you. @Nahm I see where you're coming from, and I think we're just coming from different angles. In the Absolute sense, yes, none of this shit ever happened and all we have is now. But in a more relative and practical sense, we are controlled by the desires of the ego mind. For example, people in the 1700's knew nothing about Evolution, but were still controlled by the ego. It's really helpful to understand our history and trajectory, not only for understanding our animalistic tendencies, but for improving our diet to something more appropriate. The possibilities are endless

@Nahm ? @FoxFoxFox true. It's our identification with objects that forms the appearance or sensation of a separate self, not that we were ever actually separate from it. One of the biggest traps our minds like to make is to pre-conceptualize or pre-judge something we have not yet experienced. This skill was extremely useful in our evolution, for instance, to assess dangers before they actually killed us. However, this is turning into a hindrance more and more as we thirst for true spirituality, which cannot ultimately be achieved through the mind. Transcendence is a tricky beast, considering our millions of years of psychological evolution. This enlightenment shit is brand new to our species!

@FoxFoxFox yes, I had heard that analogy many times before, and it is a good one. But there's a difference between conceptualizing it and experiencing it, of course. Words can't do any of this justice

Day 6: Energy: 4 Awareness: 4 Sexual thoughts/urges: 2 Self-esteem: 4 Social confidence: 4 Kind of a blah day. Slightly lower energy and awareness than yesterday. Nothing abnormal, just slight fluctuations. I'd attribute that to only getting 6 hours of sleep instead of 8. Very few sexual thoughts, and I was able to quickly toss them aside in the light of my self-actualization goals. I've found that when lower desires arise, thinking about the big picture can help to put them in their place. Also keep in mind that I spent years of my life at an effective 2 in all marks except sexual thoughts, which were probably at least a 5 at all times, so a score of 4 is actually really good for me right now! A 3 would be cause for a little concern, but 4 is a good baseline. I hope I can maintain that through the doldrums of this 90-day reboot. Today, I bought Leo's Life Purpose Course as the best Christmas gift of all to myself! I'll be devoting 1-2 hours a day on going through the course. I think any faster would be detrimental; I really want this information to percolate into my entire psyche, and that takes time. Adios, amigos!

Here is the recount of my enlightenment experience I glossed over a few days ago. I felt the need to write a detailed report, not only for myself, but for other self-actualizers on this forum. I'm counting this as my full journal for the day, since that took quite a chunk of time... Enjoy!

@Tistepiste Thanks for sharing! That sounds like a wonderful experience, I quite enjoyed reading it! About those two friends texting... We are all connected. You letting go of your past traumas triggered something in them. They wouldn't be able to explain it to you, it's like an intuition. This is very real stuff, stuff I've personally experienced. I hope this experience will allow you to be more conscious of how connected you are to everyone else... This is an extremely powerful tool you can use once you study and understand it better.

@Roman Edouard Thank you. Best of luck in your journey! And if you have any other questions, feel free to shoot me a DM. I'm in my early journey myself, and honestly still trying to figure this stuff out, lol. All we're doing here is trying to learn and grow together

The best thing I could ever tell you is this: drop all ideologies and attachments. Appreciate that you came into this world not knowing anything. Become a child again, and genuinely explore the world and yourself, with no attachment to where it might lead. Only then will you be able to experience true personal growth.

@Roman Edouard You're correct. Evidence is destroyed. Science funding is controlled by big businesses and government, so it's mostly only concerned with what will make the biggest economic gains in the short term, and that's a travesty. However, the biggest blunder of all is that science is not aware of its own limitations. Listening to Michio Kaku and the like, they're spending their lives searching for the "God" equations that will describe the universe, for they think that the universe is material and mechanical. I want you to know, right now, that this is a fundamentally fruitless pursuit. Don't believe me, go research this for yourself. All the evidence is right in front of you, it just requires a radically open mind... Like you said, science is amazing and has drastically improved living conditions. I'm not knocking science at all, in fact, I appreciate it more than probably most scientists. Why? Because instead of studying one specific field, spending all my energy on mastering one subdivided construct of reality, I focused on understanding the big picture. It is only by getting the big picture right (the Absolute context), that you can understand what science is and what it can and cannot do. Science is a beautiful thing. But be open to the possibility that it's just a man-made framework of viewing the world. The laws of physics aren't inherent to reality, they help to describe reality in our narrow, human-centered perspective. Science describes reality with symbols (variables), and it will attempt to describe what other variables are by shuffling the symbols around in equations. But science is incapable of getting to the root. What is time? What is space? Science will describe these only in respect to other variables, but it can't get an understanding of the variables themselves. Science confuses the map for the territory. Try to get this.

@Roman Edouard Your belief that the universe is a contained sphere is... just a belief. Also, it is impossible to see the entire universe from earth. You can only see what light has reached earth, that doesn't mean there isn't more beyond. According to science, the universe is expanding faster than the speed of light. So it should become apparent that you can't rely on your perceptions from earth to possibly describe the whole thing. Part of it? Sure. The whole thing? The whole thing hasn't even been seen yet, yet alone "proven" by any means. Nor will it ever. Let's assume the universe is a contained sphere... What lies beyond the sphere? That's a valid question! If the universe is finite, then it must reside in a "container." What is the container? What is it made of? Where did it come from? It must have existed before the big bang, right? Now ask yourself the big questions--and really think these through. Will science EVER (in a billion years) be able to explain what lies beyond? What is science? What are its limitations? Will science ever be able to describe what time is? What space is? Is mainstream science even aware of its own limitations?