Arhattobe

Samsara or the realm of mind = Is infinite supposedly. Infinite realms, experiences, beings, creations, creators of many levels and magnitude beyond anyone’s imagination within our realm. There are many insights, and understandings wishing this realm. Many things to own and to hold. Many ways to feel superior and inferior. Many things to be excited about and to be apathetic about. Many beings due to karmic ties supposedly wander from life to life, realm to realm. In fact within Buddhism it’s stated sometimes that the rebirth process is endless. Said rebirth process is also what is referred to as what binds us to samsara. The reason for dukkka. Yet, it doesn’t have to be this way. You have delved deep within the realm of mind you could say. Seen many things and aspects of mind. You have taken mind to be the only reality. Bound by mind and with insights you’ve gained that are heavily perverted by your defiled consciousness you have reached the conclusions you have which have made you apathetic and sad. This is not related to truth. In fact it’s its opposite masquerading as truth. What you have seen has made you afraid, apathetic. All qualities that bind you. You must go the opposite direction if you seek not experiences and “insights” within mind, but freedom from mind.

I was on ayahuasca when I decided to take 5 meo. Luckily didn’t die, but definitely had a rough time afterwards. Really rough.

I mixed Maoi’s and 5 meo. Damaged my energetic nervous system. You don’t want to do that. Don’t be stupid.

@Phoenixx What you are saying is overly simplistic and doesn’t really make sense. Saying growth as a human being is possible is not judgemental.

@Phoenixx Don’t see what that has to do with my point. @mandyjw necessary or not it’s shortcomings should be discussed is my point and people should be more honest with themselves : )

This is my issue with the modern non dual climate. Spiritual bypassing, talking about “accepting reality as it is” without realising that, that is not even an option when your baseline is steeped in ignorance. What a defiled mind calls “accepting reality as it is” equates to a lack of genuine reflection, lack of self awareness, turning off and closing one’s eyes and refusing to acknowledge the possibility of growth, nuance and everything that this life is both about and can offer you. Just unsubstantial word salads that make people feel good.

@Leo Gura Fair enough.

@Leo Gura It is, I walked the path sober mostly but still fell into said traps but a lower baseline and more intense peaks and experiences can drastically increase the tendency to self delude. You shouldn’t get into this line of work until your at a certain level of maturity. Blasting yourself through the door might have consequences is my point.

If you are at a “low state of consciousness” as you guys put it. Your insights gained by psychedelics will be heavily distorted by your defiled intellect, made black and white and the lack of nuance within your perspective will lead to self destructive delusions. So they won’t magically make up for the fact that your baseline is at a low level. You need to do the unsexy, unpsychedelic work regardless or you’ll get absolutely nowhere.

@Haloman Your logic is flawed. I can dehydrate my body and do a fad diet and seemingly lose a lot of weight in a day or two (which I might promptly regain) while I destabilise my system and health or I can spend a lot of effort and lose much less weight but in a stable and healthy manner without repercussions. You are judging both by the intensity of experience they give you due to desperation instead of having a sober perspective.

@Serotoninluv was just asking you to be clear with your point instead of vague and unclear. I assume you are trying to be non dual. That’s fine, but irrelevant to my point.

@Serotoninluv Than what?

Absolute nonesense. Most advanced people that have genuinely progressed on the path do not attribute their progress to psychedelics. In fact some of the most famous practitioners through out history warn people against taking mind altering substances. Buddhism is one example.

Within Buddhism, full and total enlightenment is the same as completely ridding yourself of avijia. Avijia = ignorance. Ignorance isn’t removed all at once, however. It is shed step by step. Step by step our defilements & our impurities are purged from our systems. This purging eventually culminates and results in the dropping of the first fetter: the identity view - the immense self involvement and attachment one has to one’s personality, identity, body and mind. This is what the modern spiritual community calls non duality. For those that enter non duality, however, it becomes abundantly clear that regardless of the dramatic loss of tension upon awakening, tension still remains. Ignorant actions, thoughts and behaviours still remain. Traditionally, within the non dual community, such tension is easily dismissed as “mind stuff”. Yet why does such “mind stuff” still remain post awakening? A lot of the same people also report growth and deepening. How can that be? If ignorance is gone and one’s clarity complete, there should be no growth. If one has completely disidentified with the body mind organism one should not report such things. Yet not only do such things happen, but many teachers even talk about levels of enlightenment. In this thread I will answer 1 - why that is? 2 - What the substance of the path is, pre and post awakening. 3 - how can one open one’s self to the substance of the path and shed one’s defilements, and achieve complete and total enlightenment. Let’s start with number 1. Why is that? The human being comes with some built in programming. We are programmed to survive, and we primarily rely on our intellect to do so while our intellect relies on its understanding. The issue is, the world is a complete unknown. We can never understand the world. It is unpredictable, always changing, moving and way beyond our scope of understanding. This threatens our survival. Once we feel threatened, we are now at odds with everything that threatens us (this also separates us from what threatens us.) The more threatened we feel the more at odds and separated we become. The more self involved we become. Now let’s get back to the path. On the path, as we decrease our level of self involvement, we progress. This is the case with people off the path as well. For example, a sociopath or a serial killer is completely self involved and doesn’t even see other people as human. This is why he can kill, maim and torture them. At a certain point we hit a threshold and our level of self involvement results in the dropping of the first fetter. In non duality. Yet the subconscious and instinctual need to survive, our fears, traumas and control mechanisms are deeply ingrained in us. This creates cognitive dissonance. Why, you might ask, do I still feel fear, anxiety, depression, joy, pettiness and all these human emotions even though I see clearly that I am not the body mind? Why do I still put others down and think of myself as primary even though I see that so on and so forth? Because your seeing is surface deep. Only on the level of the conscious mind. You still fear, you still attempt to control on many levels within your subconscious and beyond. These questions are often ignored and shut out by people in non duality for the drop in self involvement has resulted in a previously unimaginable peace that they do not want to question, that they do not want to rock. So just as a religious person clings on to his god for comfort (and ultimately survival), the non dual man does so with void. 2 & 3 - what is the substance of the path pre and post awakening? & how to shed one’s defilements. The substance of the path relates to clear seeing of three things within Buddhism. Three major facets of truth. These three things are 1- Anicca 2- Anatta 3- Dukkha. The more clearly you see these three aspects of truth the less self involved you become, and the less self involved you become the more progress is had. This is true pre and post awakening. In fact, complete seeing of these truths on all levels of the mind (subconscious and beyond) without any cognitive dissonance left = full enlightenment. Before I delve into these three facets of truth, however, let me talk a bit about truth itself. Truth is never not present. I don’t mean this in a non dual way, but the facts of life, if they are indeed facts of life, should be evident in every waking second of life itself. If you do not see it, you are simply turning away from it. By that logic if you do indeed want to see them, you should first reflect on what is making you not see such truths, and then reflect on the truths themselves. Now, let’s define and then talk about the truths a little bit. 1 - Anicca. Anicca has two translations that I think capture its essence nicely. One is “one can not maintain anything to one’s satisfaction” while the other is “impermanence”. 2- Anatta. Anatta, popularly translated as no self, has another more nuanced translation that I personally think is superior: “the inability to control”. A self is merely a series of complex control mechanisms created in response to fear after all. 3 - Dukkha - suffering that can be stopped from arising. Why are these truths so important, you may ask? Self involvement and ignorance are both a direct result of not seeing these truths clearly. When we do not see the impermanent nature of the world, and our absolute inability to maintain anything to our satisfaction (Anicca), we attempt to control life’s circumstances. We exert our will onto the world (the opposite of Anatta) and then, when life shows us that it can not be controlled and pinned down and eternalised, Dukkha arises. Suffering arises. Instead of constantly living through that loop of pain, the next time you feel pain, and the next time you suffer, reflect and ask yourself: in what way am I attempting to pin down reality? To eternalise it? In what way am I attempting to control life? In what way am I failing to recognise the absolute truths that are anicca and Anatta at this moment? Then, by reflecting on and seeing these fundamentals of reality all around you, In death, decay, aging, and every second of our waking life, the clarity of them will increase further. Bring your ignorance to the light by asking how you are failing to recognise these truths, then burn them slowly through constant reflection of these truths : ) That was a really long post. A lot to take in too I assume so sorry if it wasn’t too clear. If you have any questions regarding it, feel free to ask.

@Inliytened1 Sorry. I notice I came from a place that was less than ideal in my response in the way I formulated my points. The lack of acknowledgement of our humanity and the relative within non dual dogma and things resembling non dual dogma does make me a bit reactive. My bad : ) Noticing this tendency of mine has been fruitful, however, thanks for that lol

@Ero I just briefly skimmed through it because it was rather long. My bad : )

@Ero Since it’s not really related to either his or my thread it might be best to create a new one and give some context and add a header so the reader knows what the post is about before engaging : )

@Aakash I almost never understand what the point of your posts are, but to respond to the latter portion of your comment Buddha talked about metta, and other facets of love and stressed that they were key for development. @Leo Gura “Historically it just seems pretty clear that there were gurus and masters who have had very deep metaphysical insight yet still plenty of defilements.” I didn’t see this paragraph when I was typing my response. Maybe you added it as I was typing, but that is due to what I said earlier. Experiencing a number of peaks with deep insights while ones baseline consciousness is still quite self involved.

@Leo Gura I distinguish between peaks, highs and stabilised states. What you say is true for peak and high states. Said highs and peaks also feel like that because of the contrast and the drastic difference between them ones baseline. If ones baseline reaches a state of absolute no self involvement it is far different that a defiled minds high of such a state in other words. Much more stable, cohesive, holistic and nuanced. In regards to the Buddha I am no making him an authority figure due to fancy notions or ideas of who he is. I used to not care for him for much of my path. I went from teaching to teaching and teacher to teacher as I progressed. Eventually none remained yet I saw that he eloquently described my progression and how I would progress from that point on. This remains true to this day. I can not say the same for any other public teacher. It is my experience, insights and understanding that makes me make that judgement.

@Inliytened1 It’s an energetic reality actually. Karma or defilements carry with them a physical and energetic tension that is stored within each organism. Certain actions further increase this tension and self involvement, certain ones help decrease said tension. What you are saying is that ultimately it what is a “defilement” is relative due to an insight or seeing into that which is beyond the relative. Yet simplifying reality to just that and ignoring the truths I am pointing towards in the first paragraph of this response lacks nuance, and is incorrect.

@Inliytened1 Your claims and logic lack nuance, are black and white, and don’t look at reality honestly. This is due to your non dual state being filtered and distorted heavily by your defilements. This also causes you to not truly understand what I am saying which will make a back and forth between us not at all productive. Ill end my comment with a story. A friend of mine awakened and stabilised in non duality. Thought his fear of death was eradicated, only when he got kidnapped and was actually threatened did he start to realised that his former beliefs and viewpoint lacked tremendous honesty.

@Leo Gura I misunderstood your post the first time around and thought it was a question. Now I see that it doesn’t require a detailed response. In regards to your claim. I’ll have to disagree. Both according to my experience and the buddhas words (who’s understanding on the path is beyond any modern teacher by a huge margin) it is our self involvement and the layers of delusion caused by it that separate us from truth and all of its facets for truth itself is ever present. Every insight and every deepening I’ve ever had were couple with a loss of self involvement. With the absolute loss of self involvement. Key word there being “absolute” I do not think any ignorance can remain. @mandyjw : )

@Leo Gura Hey, thanks for making this thread a featured thread : ) I’ll try to give a detailed response to your question, and other people’s questions (if there are any) after I eat and take care of some things.

@Aakash sure : ) will do. Not today though. Going to the pool today to relax haha

@Leo Gura sure : ) will do. Give me a day or so though. On vacation haha.