Consilience

Neo Advaita is such a privileged form of spirituality. The potential for self-deception is massive and the teachings only work for those living relatively comfortable lives. Yet the spiritual bypassing and possibility for enormous amounts of suffering are there, all unconsciously present, all hiding in the background of the unconscious mind. It's like fast food for the spiritual community, no wonder it's so popular. Watched one of her videos and a quote stuck out : "How can any practice bring you closer to what already is?" - Nargis No thing How? Paradox. Neo Advaita is unconscious of this deep paradox. That no matter what we do, we can not get any closer to what is ultimately true, yet to deny our level of consciousness is to still play right into the dream's hand. If you aren't enlightened, you aren't enlightened. No amount of pretending "this is it!" will make it so. This is indeed it, but until the consciousness of what this is, is, Samsara. Embracing this paradox is salvation, denying it is just another game of the ego. Shinzen Young said something during the last online retreat I attended, "The Monastery will find you." What does that mean? Suffering, immense suffering, will find you. Aging, illness, death, pain, loss - Until you can embrace hell with a smile on your face, your spiritual games mean shit. All vapid games of the ego. On the other hand, we can rest easy and practice playfully, knowing it is already complete, whole, free. Those who balance this paradox know true liberation. Those that pretend, well... I feel sorry for them.

Sounds very Dzogchen. Nice

Perhaps so, but I also went into it thinking it was probably bogus, and then was sort of shocked. I think it's important to also remember with most any drug or supplements, there are going to be hyper and hypo responders. For example, if you look at the research on creatine monohydrate, it's shocking how varied some of the data is. Some individuals respond amazingly, growing muscle well beyond statistical significance, while others don't get any results at all. Seems like brain chemistry could be the same. I can say for myself, yes the possibility of placebo is there, but I just don't see it. It would be like drinking a 12 oz starbucks and someone telling me the caffeine effects I feel are placebo because it's not enough coffee for me to feel anything. I can say with certainty I respond well to Lion's Mane. How much is placebo is impossible to know, but my gut tells me it's not much. There have been times where I intentionally didn't take any because I didn't want the stimulated feeling that comes with taking them.

Basically the more I meditated, the less effective cannabis became. I get maybe an hour of heightened creativity followed by a lower vibrational state of mind fog/dullness and a couple of days of recovery for meditation to get back to where it was prior to smoking. Essentially, life's natural high eventually became higher than cannabis's and I can reach profoundly more altered, rewarding states with meditation than weed. This, however, took a massive amount of meditation and abstinence.

0-10 mins >> Focus on breath or mantra 11-20 mins >> Open Awareness 21-30 mins >> Focus on Emotions, how are you feeling now, how can you feel better, can you open up to loving kindness, gratitude, sympathetic joy, tranquil contentment? Do this cycle 1 more time in the same sit. This is what I did for almost 1.5 years to build the capacity to do 1 hour sits. Why does this work so well? 1) You’re training multiple skills by cycling through techniques which helps make sure you’re not over/under developing as a newbie. 2) The novelty introduced by cycling through techniques removes a large part of the boredom and has a positively stimulating quality on the mind. 3) There’s less emotional distress about how much time is left when there are bells going off every 10 minutes. It’ll take around 6 months of consistency to really know whether 1 hour a day is worth it or not.

@Yarco By the time the technology is that advanced, there very well may be A.I. that can make these designs exponentially more efficiently and at an exponentially higher volume than humans. Not to dismiss your goals! Just maybe a consideration.

This is where the mind can't conceptualize about the true nature of this Awareness/Consciousness. In a sense, yes the touch, sight, hearing, smell, and taste are constructed out of awareness... Phenomena and the awareness of the phenomena are inextricably interlinked, completely nondual. But Awareness can also manifest as formlessness, utter and complete emptiness/infinity. Until this is directly experienced, the mind can't conceptualize it's way to such a direct encounter. This formless quality is always present even within the waking, mundane state, however. Practice, meditation, and reliably resting within one's true nature can start to allow this Awareness to penetrate into all moments. More specifically, meditation allows one to recognize how this Awareness was always penetrating into all moments, at all times, completely un-phased, unaffected, by whatever form is taking place. As one goes deeper down this rabbit hole though, the awareness of Emptiness starts to develop, to the point where it's seen that there is nothing going on at all, nor was there ever. Self, world, other, space, time, nothing but a dream. We become so lucid to this dream that it all basically implodes, going full circle until we see that there was never anything needed. Right where we are was always enough. Now this entire process can be cyclical, take on different forms, different speeds... We think we 'got it' and then we REALLY GET IT, only to realize we know nothing at all and are still a child, as well as recognizing the infinite equilibrium that is the entire journey, that there are no steps, or phases, or progressions.

I've had the opposite results. Lion's Mane gives me an extremely noticeable improvement throughout the day. I believe it's due to my meditation practice that I'm able to notice subtle differences in the mind. If you get a bad brand, sure, but from a reputable company Lion's Mane will show good improvements in focus and even is mildly stimulating.

I'm not going to bother to read through the thread to see if it's been answered. If the rules don't apply until after the cup is turned upside down (rule #7) then I would wait for the Earth to rotate after 12 hours and the cup would be facing "upside down" relative to its starting position. And then the rules would apply, but the objective would be complete in that same moment...

The book The Mind Illuminated. Everything you need to develop an incredibly robust practice. From there, you can begin exploring, but foundation is key.

It makes no sense that Absolute Truth would be conditional. If what is true is ABSOLUTELY true, it must always be true regardless of circumstance. If what’s absolutely true is that reality is perfect, then that’s what’s true always.

Technically no. The kicker is that it was always perfect. Yet, it can still be hellish for those who think they’re awake if life decides to give them a strong dose of reality! Still perfect… as heart wrenching as that may be.

Not many. And even those who are have an infinity of eons left, yet, it’s all ready, already complete, whole and this. Pure, primordial paradox, patiently playing. Pure perfection, already there.

@4201 Just now seeing this post, thank you so much for the shoutout Really interesting ideas proposed here! Of course this all would need to be tested in a lab setting to verify but it seems like extremely sound logic. More generally, this idea that psychedelics create the new pathways but those pathways need reinforcement seems to match my experience as well. Thank you so much for the write up, high quality post

There's nothing to apologize for. This is actually not something someone else has said, my own analysis after reading/listening to hours upon hours of various spiritual masters both dead and live ones, as well as hours upon hours of my own meditation practice, psychedelic trips, contemplations, and observations of other sentient beings. Funny enough, your rhetoric sounds like some kind of classic Neo Advaita bs. Just a hunch as well though. Again, if the conditions of your life radically shifted you would be eating these words. If you think you've seen through the illusion of suffering, I would challenge you. I hope life never puts this claim of yours to the test in your own experience, or if it does, I pray you have the inner resources to meet it with the consciousness you claim. Ultimately, only you can face life's pain and the ultimate teacher, death. I wish you luck as well.

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That’s the thing, you aren’t being honest. If the conditions of your life radically shifted, you’d be suffering. The fact that you're ignorant of this is itself suffering. All the stories you say and tell on an internet forum don’t mean shit when the real rubber hits the road. By transcend fear I mean let fear filter through experience without experience fighting with itself, which entails the cessation of resisting the resistance towards fear. Feeling fear so deeply it’s seen to be utterly empty, fleeting, free, and impersonal, along with death and pain, an authentic (honest) seeing that reality was never fighting with itself. Thinking the work is torturous is just a game of the ego mind. The ego mind wants nothing more than to avoid the conditions which give rise to its end. This is beautiful, wondrous work. And in fact, there is no choice of whether it gets done or not. All karma. The act of sitting down to meditate is a movement of reality, the grace of God. I feel incredibly fortunate to have been bestowed this grace - it is not only for my benefit, but the benefit of all sentient beings. If you think you’re done, can get away with believing your way out of it, cool. There may not be consequences now or in this lifetime even, but this too shall pass. All the love.

It actually doesn’t. There are literally some materialists who don’t believe in consciousness. Also, materialism rests on the existential assumption that there are objects, space, and time. All of these are deconstructed when deeply investigated both from a position of serious intellectual epistemology, but more importantly, as a matter of direct experience. Science can be magical for sure, but science is not materialism. Materialism is a belief system created out of the false narrative that our contemporary scientific literature demonstrates there is a physical world, ONLY a physical world. This, however, is no where to be found other than in the mind’s of those interpreting and observing data.

What have you “gained” as a result of your practice if no glimpses? What do you define as glimpses?

Not difficult at all to hear. I don’t feel particularly complacent though, my own practice is going extremely well. What Im pointing out is just a sticking point, a place where resistance can arise which is “damn this path is a lot of work.” While I see and acknowledge what you’re pointing to, this doesn’t resolve the suffering in life, or fundamentally transcend the fear of pain and death. Doing the work does that. The idea that there’s nothing to do and to take it easy can very easily be co-opted by the ego into avoiding facing such existential realities, such as the magnitude of and resistance towards such suffering. For my own practice, Im not aiming for perfectionism. Everything is unfolding exactly and only as it could. Thank you for the feedback though. Edit: moreover, it’s not just transcending fear - no amount of taking it easy will replace the authentic consciousness of truth, of directly experiencing reality. The paradox is that what is true is already true, regardless of effort yes. But if you aren’t conscious you aren’t conscious. How does one become conscious? Doing the work which makes consciousness more likely to become conscious (meditation).

Taking on the emotional hit of practicing. I mean realistically, the first 10,000 hours of meditation is still just warming up to accessing the possible domains, states, and insights of mind. Im glad I didn't realize just how deep “the path” went when I started, it would have been incredibly demoralizing. So a big sticking point is becoming complacent, lazy, and not meditating because of all the emotional games the mind plays with resisting meditation practice. The good news is it takes relatively little time (relative to the extent of the overall work and effort) to start reaping enormous benefits of practice.

The mind fuck is the tension is you’re unconscious micromanagement of the muscles. Why can’t you be present and happy as you are? Because you’re all tensed up and unconsciously suffering. Not specifically “you” but most people. Great post!

You’d be shocked. Running can be a form of spiritual and personal growth too.

Lmao Totems

Actuality