Azrael

Yeah, I will when I have the time and will to do it. Right now, I have a lot on my schedule. So, this'll wait.

I can sense God as the Energy behind every occurrence that I sense in this world. I can sense how the Energy is flowing through my body and how it's shooting in my head. I can feel that if it shoots in my head how it goes through all of the neurons and thoughts appear. And I can see that in other people as well. I see how God as the Energy behind it is making every movement, is contracting and expanding, is fighting and healing. And the individual Self that is created through that, seems like a shell hiding the true nature of the Energy. I see the exact same picture that I saw before when I look in a mirror, but I see no human no more. Can you still choose to stop? Haven't you had some deep experiences? I don't think you'll get out of this any more. You can try, but it'll come back in a few years and you'll always ask yourself: "How would it be?" That's the thing with this work. You really should think about whether you want in. Because if you do, you cannot get out ever again. It's fucking amazing. Not like having an orgasm all day long, it's not like that at all. It's very chill, very relaxed, I feel no suffering at all any more, I experience the depth of emotions a lot deeper, I feel very good with how I look, act, speak and be in this world, I love to make fun of myself these days and love to not take stuff seriously. I'm still involved in all the shit I was involved in before, I still am the same character, but loosened up. For me, it's the greatest because suffering went away on every level. And suffering was such a big thing before. Most people wouldn't even say that they are suffering because it's so subconscious for them. But if you cannot sit still for an hour and feel like you own the world, you are still suffering. And you don't aim for shit any more in that neurotic way you did before, meaning that you really feel bad if you want something. If I would die today, I would be sad. But I'd die happily and with a lot of respect for myself because I overcame myself for the love of myself. And I will never do something again in my life that is so fucked up, hard, confusing and liberating in the end. I took a knife and stabbed myself to death just to see that when the knife hit the body, the body disappeared and I am still there.

I think your teacher has a point there. But it needs to be explained. As you practice one meditation technique it will unfold with time. Meaning that it'll slowly open itself up like a flower and through that process you'll experience different phases of the technique that eventually lead to a final state. Complete non-interference because of the dissolution of you and your environment. Or something like that. To get the development going it will probably help to stick to one routine and let it do its thing. And if you've found such a routine like vipassana, you may want to stick to that. You may change if you like. Especially in the beginning I think its good to try a lot of stuff until eventually you find your way to do it and then stick to that mostly. I will always sing my song about SDS + "Do Nothing" cuz I'm a big groupie of that routine plus the whole Taoist / Zen way of living. But that's simply because my character resonates with that and because when I found that I fell in love. It's no better or worse then all of the stuff IMO. It penetrates a certain aspect but leaves out others. So to conclude, try a lot of stuff and then naturally you'll find something that you love and stick to. And if this changes after two years you haven't found the right thing or your development led you to something different. You'll (hopefully) meditate for the rest of your life. That means finding the right set of technique in the first few years is completely fine. Here's a metaphor that sums it up. "The one who is able to do a lot, will with time be a good practitioner of his many things. The one who is able to do one thing, will with time be a master of that one thing." But you only end up with one good thing if you've tried prior to that a lot of stuff and are able to make a good decision.

Yeah, that's probably true. I like to have some of those though, because it's great fun. I like to have some that are interested in the consciousness stuff as well and I like some that are just normal folks like colleagues and stuff. Everyone has different challenges in his life and will go through his own enlightenments to grow, just naturally. Some people need to see a lot of the dark stuff to learn from that, some people need to melt in boredom, some in heavy negative emotions and others might need to awaken to the truth of reality. Every one has his own journey without knowing about it if he doesn't investigate. That's why some people will awaken very easily and others may never, because it's not for them. And that's perfectly fine. Every single human can teach you something whether it's good or bad or very normal. And if you look closely at anybody, you'll see that everybody has a certain field of mastery in his life - even if it is the subtlest thing. And if you see that in people, it's like living around masters who don't know that they are masters because they've been told to want something else. Because .. it wouldn't be any fun if everything would be clear and understood right away, right?

That's a fucking powerful quote.

I've started in this order: Cannabis, MDMA, shrooms, LSD, 2-CB, DMT, 5-MeO-DMT. And this process was a few years long. So start slow and walk yourself up to it.

Like with everything else, you gotta find a balance here. If you just do the emotional difficult, you'll stop this practice in under a week. However, if you just accept everything and don't do shit, you'll get lazy and slothy. So, develop your own lifestyle. Think strategically and build a plan how to implement both strategies. Stop trying to make out paradoxes with the intention to fall for one side. They are paradoxes, you cannot fall for one side. You need to embrace the paradox and live both sides simultaneously. It must be that way because life is that way.

@Prabhaker I love your Osho quotes. Always an interesting perspective.

I'd say that strictly from a neurological and physiological standpoint - yes, because in your youth your brain still forms and rewires and sets in. If you take this time to work on yourself and to set in not the normal bullshit world view, it might make things a lot easier. But of course you need the motivation and practice hours and most teenagers or even young adults won't go with that.

Yes. But the point here is that I don't try not to filter anything from sticking, but that the one who once did disappeared. So I'm not even aware of any fight or disturbance or resistance, because it is not present any more. When I feel inside as I read this question nothing comes up. I'm not fixed any more to any specific goals. I don't try to make one side of myself buy into some concept. To give an illustration of this. You always try to sell your opinions to yourself like "I will really work on my life purpose", "I meditate for the rest of my life", "I'm a good kid" etc. You do this to a very large degree. This mostly stopped for me. I have an intuition and a strong feeling of my way. I personally "believe" that there is a way laid out for me that I'll just go. And that this will happen independent whether I'll fight it or don't. I "know" this to be true for me because it felt like that from the very beginning of my existence. But that's a belief, a strong one. So, to answer your question. I don't have a terminal goal that drives me that I know of consciously. I have a way that I go and that way follows certain patterns and routes that make me learn stuff that I should learn. I don't decide on that consciously, but I do "super-consciously."

Well, yes it surely feels like a low dose of shrooms trip on a day to day basis, but that's a symptom. As your thoughts go down, it'll naturally be like that because your awareness now shines more on different things. The main difference is that if I look at the shelf e.g., I can honest to god not feel or recognize a difference to what we would call myself. And that comes with a lot of implications. And the low shrooms trip state of being is one point of that. But keep in mind that states are only temporary. I might feel that way as a basis, but for example when I'll get into an argument or a fight, or if I do something very different, I will feel and perceive the world differently. As you wake up, you tend to not want to be in one state or another any more, because it really doesn't matter. That's the beauty.

Yeah, I can spot that in others and myself, too. I've spotted it yesterday in @Huz when we skyped to elaborate on what the ego really is and how it works. But more importantly I can spot and differentiate it in myself from my normal self. The "Self" with a capital "S" is your authentic character. It is the way how you are. What you like, how you speak, how you think, etc. This is not bad at all. This is your expression in this world. Don't try to get rid of that. I see a lot of people confusing that with ego. The ego is the suit that I talked about in my post. It resists parts of your authentic, spontaneous arising character to keep it in place. It's like a guardian that makes sure you don't get too crazy. Well, there's always a cost of having that kind of 24/7 security.

You cut the contact to 100% of your friends because you didn't want to drink? Dude, have a fucking drink.

Everything that was worthy to me before. My life purpose (talked about it in more detail in this post), my friends, family, travelling, my hobbies you name it. Why shouldn't it be worth while doing?

Yessssss. I don't do self-inquiry formally. I always did and do "Do Nothing" + "Strong Determination Sitting". I did contemplate a lot and did self-inquiry throughout the day. But I don't do it any more. Self-Inquiry especially is a tool that looses its power when it succeeded. It is there to get in and get in only. BUT, there is a but. Remember that self-inquiry is one special case of contemplation in general. And you'll not run out of things to contemplate for a bizillion life times. I still do that. I love that. I live that. I contemplated from the first very minute I was alive. This is me. A azzy L. So, this'll never go. I'm curious and naive like a little child. I'll always ask: But what is ... about? Yes and no. When it comes to the mere realization and recognition of who you are, then I would say no. This is a binary step. In or out. But, as I said in the post, this'll then throw you into a big fucking ocean and away from your path. So it's a different level in a different world. Lot's to find out here. My understanding will never go to an end state, it'll always re-arrange itself and find more suitable models to understand the world. My experience will also never get to the point where I am done with this. Everyday I learn and experience new stuff. But the main difference is, that I don't seek for understanding or experience any more. I don't sit down to meditate to get somewhere. I don't think about a concept to hold the moving fish in my hand. This is more like play now, like a very good play though.

Don't make it too hard for yourself too early or you'll leave self-actualization behind for good. Think strategically. You know what you like and crave. Contemplate what you like, dislike, want to have in your life and what not. Don't construct an ideal self-actualized prototype and try to fit that. Implement little practices like meditation and let the realizations you'll have cut away the stuff that you aren't authentically wanting at any given time. There are two kinds of approaches here. The first one is to build a prison around you, the second one is to let realizations design your life. So what do you do? To take the best of both and balance them out.

No, I don't. That's why I opened this thread. So that you had the chance. That's an interesting question. Hard to say though. I don't have too much entertainment in my life, I guess. Or let's say in the regular way. I don't watch TV. I am in front of a screen most of the time though. Mostly because I'm a programmer and I study. And I love it and I am addicted to it. That's why I take walks, do meditation, little sport routines etc. to get a balance for that. It's not a problem for me though. I don't do entertainment to get away from myself. I can sit in the train and just enjoy the situation. I love to be alone with myself and just think about crazy stuff, talk to myself and contemplate ideas and stuff out of my imagination. If you would see how I behave when I'm at home alone, you'd come to the conclusion that I'm a crazy person. For sure. But that's how I like it. I put some music on, dance. Talk to myself out loud, involve myself in my own dramas. That's my entertainment, I guess. I love watching documentaries though and I limit the amount of series that I binge. Because I very well binge if I watch one. I get completely emotionally invested and it takes away all my time. That's why I just watch the best and not too much. I'm pretty fine with this. I work a lot - too much probably - because this is my entertainment (as well). Right now, everything kind of feels like entertainment because it feels good. So I cannot really draw the line. It comes very naturally to me what I do and how much I do of it. I don't restrict myself and I consciously go into low-consciousness behaviour sometimes because I love it. I need the balance. But yeah, I don't know.

@I Am That, good example! I will have to make a few distinctions before we can explore the dynamics of my claim that you are very well able - if not more prone - to rape someone when you are enlightened and you were like that before it. Well, let's start by clarifying that that being able to recognize the source of your nature + having an integrated ego in the sense that you stop physiologically resisting your authentic character by sensations, feelings and thoughts is completely distinct from a moral position you might take on in our life. How can that be? How can someone who recognizes himself as everything and nothing could still harm an aspect of himself e.g. rape someone? How could that be? The beginner and the intermediate practitioner who has had enlightenment like experiences is likely to project that enlightenment is something similar that one experienced maybe in deep meditation. Full letting go, merging with awareness... that kind of stuff. This'll automatically lead to the false assumption that you could not harm anything in that blissful, expanded open state. Makes sense. Well, enlightenment isn't like that. What I described here is an experience and enlightenment is not an experience. You might feel very calm, blissful, open and expanded when you are enlightened, but this'll be a symptom of the recognition and integration that took place. Also note, that you'll still live your normal life with challenges, hopes, fears etc. That'll still hugely direct your consciousness in a very pragmatic way. But more importantly enlightenment sets free your authentic un-resisted character. This character may result from societal / parental conditioning, circumstances, predispositions (whatever you think it is - doesn't matter). But as the ego relaxes and let's this un-resisted character shine through, it'll present itself in every facet with every of its attributes. That's why if you were for example naturally prone to rape women or something happened to you that made you belief that you need to to that or however you came to the conclusion that this is your thing to do, you'll still do that after you are enlightened. You'll still do that even if you feel open, relaxed and expanded. You'll still do that if you feel that you are the very thing that you rape. Just because, your character chooses to do so, just as you as a moral defender choose to judge the one who does it without seeing the whole picture. Moralism is as any set of opinions and beliefs something that a character type might take on or might not. This will hugely depend on the culture, conditioning, circumstances etc. Non of that is God-given or Truth. it's one way to do stuff.

I don't get quote on quote lost in it any more because when I think and I am aware that I do so, it's a very pleasant experience. But compulsive thoughts are not around very much. Even in stressful situations, my mind is mostly calm and it never feels bad to think. That is the main difference I'd say. Before it was often very painful and disturbing to get lost in it. Right now, it feels like a tingeling sensation in my head when I think, not a tension or pressure as it did before. Yeah, you rest in Being automatically without going there. You too, just that you are torn out of there more because of resisted thoughts and feelings that seem to you that you have to "do" something right now to get out of your current situation. That stops, and you feel you are there. Through that, everything relaxes and returns to default. And Being is default.

Nope, again the recognition of the self has nothing to do with that. Your real character will shine through. A rapist that'll become a enlightened will be even better in raping women after he is enlightened. Because the resistance to his raping will probably be mostly gone and he can freely rape. Unconditional love comes from "visiting the places" for years and decades, not from knowing that they exist.

There was nothing holding me back, I just took a no-breakthrough dose. I wanted to get into the feeling again because I hadn't done it for a while. No big experience. Nothing to report on.

Not very much. For that kind of resilience you need to actually "visit the places" as I mentioned in my metaphor. You need years of training and discipline. It's one thing to be not additionally attached to emotions and sensations because of the integration of the constructed self, it's another to be 100% resilient towards natural bodily reactions.

If we define a self-image issue as an automatic subconscious resistance in form of a thought + feeling with the context of not being able to accept a certain property of the self-image, then yeah. I don't fuck with myself no more. Insecurities still exist as a raw phenomenon, because there are still things I learn and am not very good in. The attachment to a certain insecurity is - depending on the context and how important I think it is - mostly gone, so I don't care. But I still have all my weak spots and they can still be triggered. It's just that my body doesn't react in an emotional way to it any more. My mind might think about it, but my body feels no negative self-resisting emotions. And that's like watching a horror movie with friendly music in the background. Not to be taken that seriously. Feelings of incompleteness and lack of fulfilment are gone. That's probably one of the major things. Throughout the day, you don't lack anything any more. You are complete and through that fulfilled. I do experience a lack of motivation because of that. I do. I do less shit and live even slower. But that's just the beginning. So that might be a phase.

I handle teachers / teachings / perspectives on that whole topic / discussions in general in a very specific way. For me it comes very natural to see the context in which somebody is arguing. The whole world-view and perspective that he is trying to express - underneath the actual thing that he is saying. Because of that - especially when it comes to spirituality - I use the things that I hear as tools and I categorize them in certain categories. To give a specific example. In my opinion @Leo Gura is very able to take a normal human being's perspective and slowly debunk the false beliefs one is operating from. Then he presents a set of methods and perspectives to give you the opportunity to work on your own case. I haven't seen so far a better collection of deadly weapons to go about this journey. My own subset of this collection consists of Strong Determination Sittings Do Nothing 5-MeO-DMT to name a few. These alone are so powerful you could write at least a few books about every one of them. I'd actually like to do that some day when I am more experienced with this stuff. Now, a Rupert Spira for example has a complete different setting he presents to you. He is very able to show you your real nature just by listening to him and working with his metaphors. He can very much take you to yourself in a 10 minute video if you are open minded and willing to listen. That is a very different skill set and way of approaching the whole thing. Alan Watts - to name a third variant - will complete reform your world view if you pay close attention to his speeches. He will go into all the aspects of life and free them of the normal false beliefs that we connect them with. All of these three share one important point. And that is that they are pointing to the truth. All of them are (or in Alan case were) through their character and own personal history at a different point on their journeys and will present you different pointers. It's your task to see where they overlap and what they have all in common. Then extract that and use the techniques and world views that resonate with you for your own way. I don't know @Leo Gura any better then you and cannot say how his journey really goes. I watch every Sunday the same as you do. I make my own projections, as you do. And they are neither very intriguing nor any relevant to share. I think there is a clear distinction when it comes to this topic that is widely misunderstood. Before I go into it, I wanna share a metaphor to illustrate it. Go back to the time when you were a young kid. As a young kid, you didn't now that there was a world around you. You weren't yet conscious of the fact that there are places and how to orient yourself in these places. Something that is quite basic to you right now. As a young kid you just didn't now. Through the journey of growing up you went to more places and suddenly at some point in time you became conscious of a whole world being around you. Of different continents with different life forms. Different cultures. Different planets in different solar systems. When you realized this it was clear to you. And without being on every continent you get this part of reality. However, someone who has actually been to a lot of these places, studied cultures and places and lived this literally will have a way deeper understanding of the very same realization. The realizations that there is a world. Now, the same applies to enlightenment in my opinion. If you have the realization you see and recognize the truth instantly. And that realization is whether had or not had. To which degree you deepen it and experience it in all of its facets, will be another question. And that's really the journey that we are on. And in that matter, I've scratched the surface. I've been blown into an ocean and from my path into a new world, and I have to now figure out how it goes around here. And I'm thrilled to find out. I do a lot of consciousness work every day. But in a different way now. I am right now in the phase where it actually becomes a change in your whole physique. My sense of self was always located in my head. Now, that this is gone the bodily awareness comes much more into focus and I experience certain things in a complete new way. That's why spirituality is not a topic in my head right now. Because I experience it now differently. There is no realization that I want to have right now. I'm thrilled with different dynamics. However, I still fall for certain concepts and like to think about them of course. For example the System Thinking thing is something I did unconsciously for a long time without knowing that thing has a name. Now, it's even more interesting to go into. I realize though that this is phase I go through. I might get heavy into the intellectual understanding of spirituality some time later. But right now, there just isn't something I can get from that. It's not that I watch a Mooji video and don't get what he is saying. I do. That's why I wanna experience it deeper with meditation and just living it.

That's not so easy to answer. From the outside it might seem like a good question because you are always pondering whether something is true or not. As soon as you are on the inside, the concept of (outside/inside) disappears and through that this question of "Do you know now what is real? Are you sure?". In some sense I could tell you "Yeah, I can know and recognize at any point in time who I truly am. That is true." But also I could tell you "That I can never be certain about anything at all. Not if I talk about it. Because as soon as I do, I get away from the real thing." If you could be certain about it, there would be a way to make an object out of it and then show it to other people. Well, that's not possible. To understand this paradox ask yourself this question: "How can you know that you are here right now?" You are able to say with complete confidence that something is happening right now at your place. Your sight, sounds, experiences, thoughts. But you can never say with certainty what it is that makes you so sure about all this. You cannot reduce it to the the minimum. But you can recognize it.