Consilience

I think so yes.

If you look at some of the quotes, there is most certainly a contradiction.

It’s interesting how much my experience contradicts what these quotes are saying. Meditation has been perhaps the single most effective technique on my path towards truth. It has actively transformed my mind in a multitude of ways and helped me cut through ignorance on multiple levels in addition to building levels of focus I had no idea were possible. Be careful not to become dogmatic. Recognize each individual’s path will be different and some techniques will be better suited than others depending on the persons mind structure, genetics, prior beliefs, experiences, etc.

Personally I would never stop doing meditation unless it was by my own authentic authority. You said you enjoy meditation. If that’s the case, you probably get benefits from meditating so why stop? In my experience, meditation is one of the most grounding practices I do. I remember one of the biggest insights I had from my last mushroom trip was that meditation is extremely grounding and stabilizing for the mind. “Grounding” essentially meaning it keeps me in touch with what my mind is up to and builds an incredible infrastructure towards pretty much all facets of my life. Meditation is like a meta skill that has carry over into any activity requiring focus, which... is basically a requirement towards any activity ? So I say if you’re enjoying it, keep going. Meditation can be very grounding but also destabilizing in the sense that it is a tool for reaching insights. But I honestly dont even see meditation being all that useful for discovering insight; it’s more about slowly transforming the mind overtime and grounding oneself in their baseline state of consciousness (vs psychedelics which are incredibly destabilizing to one’s baseline state of consciousness.)

Turn into the pain. Lean into it. It’s super counter intuitive but the more you can lean into the raw sensations of the actual pain rather than the mind’s interpretations of pain, the less suffering will arise. But sometimes the best way to deal with pain is to remove whatever is causing it

You once mentioned in a blog post the importance of recognizing sameness and difference. In this example, spirits and science are both imaginary, but the difference would be that science has a predictability to it. So what is the difference between an imagination that’s not predictable or consistent (spirits) vs an imagination that is predictable (science)? Perhaps the majority of humanity isnt in a state of consciousness where spirits could enact predictable consistency, whereas if our baseline was more like NN-DMT, maybe spirits would be our normal.

Thank you for the post! This is fantastic

The Mind Illuminated by John Yates has given me incredible results regarding concentration. Much better than a standard meditation technique like mantra, do nothing, open awareness etc.

Maybe. I think it was his intense interest and massive amount of hours contemplating though. From what he discussed, it sounded like consciousness work helped his martial more than martial helped his consciousness work. The thing is, if you’re suppressing emotions in the name of martial mastery then I doubt you’d awaken to what Love is. His energy in person did not make me feel love or compassion. While he had a very lighthearted joyous presence and I was thoroughly appreciative of learning from him, I wouldn’t say I felt love from him. Not in the way Ive felt it on mushrooms or LSD. Not in the way Ive felt about Leo discussing it or other teachers like Adyashanti or Ruper Spira, for example. The paradox is that the masculine and feminine are one and yet you can become conscious of one and not the other. Just as you can become conscious of infinity or nothing even though both are technically the same. Ralston is an amazing teacher, and I think having his masculine approach to sorta kick the seeker’s ass is great. But... Personally Im not afraid to criticize and analyze his approach, especially when Ive had direct experiences of reality which no other word could do justice other than Love. Beauty, acceptance, love, and compassion were not mentioned at his Experience the Nature of Being workshop, and yet in my experience Being cannot be fully acknowledged or understood unless one uses words like Beauty, acceptance, compassion, love in addition to emptiness, nothing, infinity, or void. It’s all one, but you cant suppress or exclude all of these facets. You CAN, but you’d be missing what Being actually is.

One of the interesting things I heard at his workshop is an important principle for martial work which is being unemotional. Brendan was explaining how not letting yourself get emotional is an extremely effective principle for fighting. I wondered since then whether this approach towards martial mastery impeded Ralston’s understanding of what Love is.

I was going to a store with a friend, as we stopped at a traffic light, we heard this big pickup truck honk at what looked to be a homeless man. He was in the middle of the street slowly walking towards the intersection, dressed in a bathrobe. Within 30 seconds, 4 cop cars showed up. They all got out and started yelling at the man to get out of the street, which seemed to provoke him. The homeless man turned from looking confused to now somewhat aggressive and started walking towards the cops waving his arms up in the air. I hear 3 loud bangs, and I watch his body drop to the ground. News article later confirmed he was dead. Im not entirely sure how to process this or even how I feel or what I think... It was just a really intense moment and I haven’t had any comparable experiences in my life thus far. Ive experienced traumatic events of various kinds, but nothing so visceral. One thing I will say though, it makes me feel privileged to live in such a safe and comforting environment compared to various parts of the world. It felt like sharing would help. If anyone has any advice or input Im all ears.

This deserves to be featured.

Supposed to, but it doesn't always happen. This cop got put on paid administrative leave as the investigation took place. Apparently this guy had a knife so there doens't seem to be any big consequences or repercussions. For the most part, our cops are good, but like.. it's not uncommon for cops to get away with things either. They are kinda the authority figures and with all authority based on ego, corruption seems inevitable. Much stronger human rights than a lot of other places around the world though, but there's still much work to be done. Just a general update, I did a holotropic breathwork session and had a pretty big release. As weird as this sounds, I discovered that I felt frustrated at my complete lack of ability to prevent this. I felt pathetic just watching as this man got brutally gunned down within seconds of the police arriving... And I wished I could have prevented it. In a way, I somehow feel responsible for this dude's death which I know sounds completely irrational, but emotions aren't always rational. Overall I wanted to help, I wished this man could just get help, but I wasn't able to, I wasn't strong enough. I also felt horrible for the cop that killed him, because I clearly saw how the act was out of fear. The officer shot him so quickly, he panicked. It felt like I felt the panic and felt the pain this officer is going to have to live with after killing someone like that. I felt sadness for the child that watched with his father (saw the father get interviewed on the local news), how the kid is going to have to grow up with this scar and how the father is as well. I also felt the fear of being killed myself, and how utterly vulnerable I really was and am. I also wish I could have shielded this situation from my friend, in fact, everyone. This is all what the emotional body wanted. Today I felt extremely lethargic and unmotivated to do anything, but after doing the breathwork I feel a lot better somehow. Somehow acknowledging the emotions, no matter how irrational they seem, really helped me let them go, or start to let them go. Healing probably is a process and will take time. I've never seriously participated in breathwork until tonight, but given the immediacy of its result, I'll probably continue to do it. Thanks again for everyone's thoughts, ideas, insights, etc. I do sincerely appreciate it.

Yes! That's what I feel too. The more the mind starts unknowing that which it never actually knew, the more THIS becomes clear. Man there's so much to un-know

??

@VeganAwake It feels like THIS keeps getting deeper and deeper the more its observered. Relative to time, 2 years ago THIS was still here exactly as is, yet unknown for me. Relative to time, 2 years to now, THIS is observed more clearly, with no end in sight. If that makes sense. So the more time spent on this path, the more THIS appears. Yet.. why does it feel progressively more experienced? So then my question is more like... perhaps more understanding is unknowable, but is there a more direct experience of THIS available? A deeper more penetrating experience available, to YOU?

@Nahm Thank you for the wisdom ??

Do you think there’s still deeper insights to be had? Essentially deeper awakenings.

The reason I'm asking all of these follow-up questions is that it feels like the best approach towards understanding God is though radical open-mindedness, which would include the possibility of paradoxes being the nature of reality, in some way shape or form. I think the fact that you're contemplating this is great though, it's a really powerful and interesting approach towards understanding reality. I think so at least... Paradoxes are weird. One of my favorites is, "This sentence is false."

It feels like maybe that's a human centered projection onto God? Like... why would it be satisfying or unsatisfying? How could I, as a human, know what satisfies God or doesn't? And from direct experience... even my own existence as a human is a paradox, more specifically a strange loop. Look into "I am a Strange Loop" by Douglas Hofstadter. So if the existence of myself, as an individual, is a paradox, being totally self referential and grounded in absolutely nothing... why couldn't reality/consciousness be the same way? If God can be satisfied with the egoic self being a paradox, what would make God dissatisfied with consciousness being another paradox/paradoxical?

Let's just say for the sake of argument, it is a paradox. Reality/God is paradoxical. Why would this be a problem?

Ive discussed this in other posts but here’s the jist: it’s both, and neither simultaneously. Both can be observed in experience. Both are illusions. Both are available experiences which can be observed. Free will is no free will... and the mind will never be satisfied with that conclusion.

Yes... the timing for my friend and I was so weird. All the events of that day were timed so perfectly for us to watch, it didn’t feel accidental. It felt like reality gut checking me. Like.. “look truth in the eyes, do you still see love? Do you still see beauty? Do you still see safety? Do you still feel fearless?” And such a powerful observation because yeah, knowing, routine, familiarity, all create a perceived sense of safety that’s not actually there. Life could be taken away at any moment... and that lesson is sinking in deeper and deeper. It feels like there is a call to action... which basically amounts to accepting the way the world is without losing empathy and genuine human to human understanding. To grow my compassion for the collective situation humanity finds ourselves in. To understand my own position in life and how grateful I am to be in a position where I can do something like consciousness work. Life is brutal but it’s not often I see brutality firsthand. So... this felt like a harsh lesson that the Universe wanted to be acknowledged if I really care about something like Truth. Thank you for your input.

This is a great question. Ime meditating for 30 minutes twice is not as effective as 1 hour. The effort required for sitting twice as long seems to give me non linear results... such that the 1 hour is more effective in the long run. Doing 30 minutes x2 is still great and if that’s all that time permits, it’s the next best thing. But there seems to be something about sitting for that long straight and facing the extra boredom or sinking that much deeper into the meditation.

Im not positive. I just watched the news and it said 911 was called because he had a knife. So perhaps I missed it. It’s kind of a blur in my memory now. @Mikael89 Thank you. Like I said though, I dont feel safer. Instead, I recognized my relative safety. Until today, Ive been extremely disconnected from violence all things considered. And for that I feel grateful. My heart does go out to this man and any potential family members he has though. Im not sure if there were or werent weapons involved... I didn’t see any but the news report says otherwise so idk. The thing is, this one isolated event doesn’t change my situation. Feeling less safe doesn’t change anything. Just gotta stay extremely vigilant and aware at all times but letting my overall fear increase is not the lesson to be learned here. At least that’s not the lesson I feel.