FocusOnTruth

@Mada_ It may take more time to determine. See how it persists over time. I haven't done shambhavi mahamudra, so I'm not sure what symptoms are typical (maybe research that if it's available). Based on the description, it just sounds like some basic purging, which is common and good for you, nothing to worry about. Stay healthy and be mindful and genuine and the symptoms should be manageable.

I got it and got read at 1000 a few years ago. My experience unfolded like Ramaji described in his book,and everything went as advertised, for the most part. At the time it was pretty mindblowing, and I considered it a deep nondual state( from my reference point at the time, that was honest). I still had a ton of issues/defilements/ blockages that I was largely blind to-- it wasn't anywhere close to where I am now, much less full enlightenment as they claimed. Also, after hearing from many others about their results, it turned out that not everyone had the same experience or even awoke despite having the same transmissions and being read at 1000. That being said, it may be beneficial for you, especially if you've got a solid foundation. I think Ramaji is largely honest, but just lacks reference points and underestimates the depth of how far awakening can go, as well as having some self-bias issues about the efficacy of his tools and methods. It's further reinforced by those who highly benefit from it but then buy into it being the end and just rest on their laurels instead of having the vulnerability and desire to keep going. If you decide to get it, just know it's a small step and not going to do all the work for you.

Transmissions can be a powerful tool, but doing the work yourself is important. They're much the more effective if you're reflective and actively working on gaining into your issues/unconsciousness. Any tool I've seen is an aid, not something that does all the work for you.

Very cool--thanks for sharing.

@Emerald Btw, if you get really into it, I think it'd be pretty cool, to cover it in-depth on your channel. You're well-spoken, and I've found most who speak on it to be kind of lacking in presentation quality. I think you could discuss it really well.

@Western Buddha To put in simple terms, suppression is unconscious while letting go is conscious. An example of suppression: You want to watch some porn, but you have a rule in your head, "Porn = bad. Don't watch." You follow by compulsively following the rule without any real insight or investigation, cutting off the behavior in an unconscious fashion, not applying much self-awareness. An example of letting go: You want to watch some porn, but you're conscious of the drawbacks, conscious of making better use of your time, conscious of your compulsion, the emotions behind it. You notice the unconsciousness in the impulse. You're mindful of your perception of it having some inherent ability to satisfy and see how that's just a fabrication of your own mind. You don't do this merely intellectually and/or forcefully. Instead, you gently let go of the impulse and do something else. To put in concisely in another way, it's done with insight and as much awareness/mindfulness as you can muster so that the insight is seen and felt and it's done gently, not forcing yourself to follow some rule.

Not to be mean, but notice how this is selfish? It's not really generosity and giving of self when it's done with the hidden agenda of trying to get something out of them. I think the others have given you some good advice of working on self-love, shadow work, building inner strength. Some healthy self-esteem would likely be beneficial for you. What I'd add is that start contemplating two things: 1) What is real selflessness? How I can be genuine and move toward that? 2) What do I hope to get "out there"? Why I am not turning inward about this and seeing what within me is driving this? Ultimately you should come to a place where you've resolved these cravings and give only with others' well-being in mind.

@Emerald I haven't done Tarot reading, but I've gotten my fair share of tarot reads, among other psychic readings(other types I've also practiced myself). I was quite surprised how often some of the reads really hit home. Prior to experimenting with, I had dismissed them as just playing with cards and doing some guesswork. One of the big things in getting more of out of them was getting more and more in touch with intuition and feeling. I always had a proclivity toward the spiritual, but there was still often this barrier much too intellect oriented. The interesting finding regarding that is this was the case as the person being read, not just for the reader. With that in mind, I'd like to mention a related finding about psychic insight in general (something that seems to be the case for tarot, channelers, etc.): all these readings are relational/relative. From how often they've resonated, I believe readers often do really see something other than their own projections. (I say that after applying skepticism and really trying to investigate and not prematurely buy-in). However, there is always a filter. The reader's own preferences/biases/ defilements come into play. This happens on an individual and group level-- I noticed groups of people with similar POV's/ communities would have similar impressions, even though there would also large variation in the reading within those communities. Navigating the limitations of reading, accounting for distortions, distinguishing between what different readers said and whether they noticing a different aspect of something or if the differences were some delusions/projections was difficult. Due to that, I decided psychic reading is best used as a supplemental aid for self-awareness and self-examination. When done well with the right attitude from both reader and querent, it can function as a more in-depth form of psychotherapy. Ime, it's very easy to become subconsciously enchanted with readings and forget the limits, even if there is a conscious effort to be objective about it. At least, that was a big pitfall for me. An observation/hypothesis that I felt really put things in perspective is that these abilities are something everyone has to some extent, just with all sorts of variation in both degree and type of perception. For instance, most unknowingly acknowledge it when they comment on someone's vibe or give their impression of someone. It's been helpful approach it and just getting someone's opinion on something, just by different and through a wider field of perception, but many of the same underlying mechanisms. That's my 2 cents based on my exp so far. There's ofc a lot I don't really know/understand and could be mistaken about it all.

I have a black friend in a nondual state. As for why they seem to be scarce, I think others in this thread addressed that pretty well. Pervasive systemic oppression through history has presented that demographic with a lot of development barriers/less opportunity.

Don't worry too much about abstract metaphysical stuff with feelings like these. If there's some sort of bad feeling, it's just a personal issue. Just be real with yourself and stay on course. Any hint of unpleasantness/suffering is a fabrication of your own mind. There's nothing to fear.

Regarding psychedelics, there's a lot of controversy around them to say the least, with critiques ranging from various generally well-respected gurus dismissing them as experiences or inducing states that may seem similar to but which ultimately aren't enlightenment to even critiques from experienced psychedelic users, many of whom are in stabilized nondual states, who also dismiss them in favor of a 'sober path'. The obvious response is to go by direct experience rather than accepting any authority, whether they're enlightened or not. However, this advice alone may not make everything so clear cut to seekers. After all, there are people who contemplate, do various forms of consciousness work, yet they still draw different conclusions from others after having taken psychedelics. That being said, I think it would be great for you to discuss the various pitfalls in using psychedelics and explore why people arrive at different conclusions, looking at the epistemic nuances and practical factors. On a similar note, it'd be nice to see some discussion on the wide-ranging social implications of mystical experience and higher states becoming more normalized. While a more highly conscious and awake population doesn't suffer as much from certain issues, new complications arise with awakening and on a large scale especially things can become complex and hard to navigate. For instance, how people should deal with: -Sectarian and personal bias between awakened people and exploring what are important differences and nuances in traditions, approaches, and conclusions vs. cultural baggage,dogma, etc. and being able to learn and benefit from the many current and future sources with both a lot of beneficial wisdom and various limitations and flaws. -Future science and various academic fields becoming more open to account for metaphysics, paranormal, etc., and the general problem of people needing to communicate and arrive at consensus models of reality. Being able to account for insights from various reports of direct experiences of the nature of reality is much more tricky business than conducting an experiment to verify that the Earth is spherical. Some more examples under the same topic/principle (it's driving the same point home, but I think perhaps the examples might help illustrate.) Ex 1: As people develop spiritually, it is somewhat common to have a much broader field of perception, however, the way this develops varies between different people in drastically different ways. It can be difficult considering the various perspectives they bring to the table, especially since you can often learn things from them but can't get in their head and share their exact experience. What's your take on how people should discuss the huge variety of spiritual experiences and take them into consideration when it's not necessarily possible for every individual or even most individuals to verify all of these things in their own direct experience. Some people seem to just be wired in different ways and have legitimate experiences of different things that other people can't-- being understanding of them, their experience, and what to make of it can be quite difficult. Ex 2: When spiritual growth is considered a universal and essential part of human development rather than just something people like do for comfort, fun, or whatever purpose, the topic of mental health, sanity, etc. becomes drastically more complicated. What kind of infrastructure should be established and what changes in society's approach to mental health should take place to accommodate for this? Someone going through a difficult stretch in their path can simultaneously be growing a ton while seeming horribly unstable, nonsensical, and all-around poorly functioning. I ended up getting more into the large scale/macro-issues/ societal stuff, which I'm not quite sure is on topic.

This insight, imo, is much more important than the experience or trying to retrospectively analyze it. Based on the description, it just sounds like a brief samadhi, which is nice, but it's not too important to make sense of the experience. Use that energy instead to gain a permanent shift in depth.

I wouldn't get too hung up on a time frame or the efficiency of the technique. Kind of ironically focusing too much on measuring will hamper effective surrender. Also, I'm not sure if this is your mindset, but based on your post, I'm going to go ahead and make the assumption you somewhat have the expectation of releasing a certain amount of stuff then reaching a more loving state. It may not work like this, and even if you do experience more love at the end of the retreat, it may not really matter. Issues run deep and may rise over and over again as you release more layers of the same underlying craving. It's quite possible to feel horrible afterward while having made a ton of progress, though that's not a requirement either. I'd say the best way to gauge your progress is just through self-honesty and seeing how much you've really worked through stuff and let it go. I think there's some utility to a map like Dr. Hawkins's, but it can also be misleading, depending on what you get out of it. Our systems are complex and it's not so linear as dissolving a certain amount of stuff and then resonating in the peace or love frequency. Not sure if that's your inclination, but I used to have that kind of expectation, and underestimating the non-linearity of things caused a lot of unnecessary doubt. I feel that's good to keep in mind in regards to expectations. In terms of the effectiveness of the practice, I'd recommend making sure there's depth to your surrender. Feeling into the body and just letting stuff come up can be really good, and it's a good habit to establish if you don't have a lot of experience with it. On your path you may find really hard times and need basic mindfulness like that to ground yourself; it's really useful. However, I'd also like to emphasize that the depth of your insight matters. Just feeling something come up and noticing it and being nonreactive is a good start, but it's even better to really see through things, your control mechanisms/cravings/ ego and deconstruct/see through it. The more fully we see through the futility of craving, the more completely we can relinquish it.

I agree that not everyone is equally predisposed to spiritual growth. If anyone's discouraged by this, I'd like to make some points, based on my journey so far, that perhaps could be motivating. - I've found that spiritual growth is distinctly more pliable than other pursuits and with a good approach, you won't struggle as much with things like plateauing or arrested development. -The more you progress the more natural things will become. You will have fewer issues, more clarity, and surrender comes more and more naturally. Not to mention with experience, if you've learned well, you tend not to get so caught up in stumbling blocks, and you'll develop a stronger feel for the kinds of things (behaviors, choices, circumstances) that are conducive to growth. -Your physiology will adapt as you become more conscious (I'm not sure about the limitations). Purifying the mind and energetic system will make it healthier and more efficient. Your baseline predisposition to clarity, insight, wisdom, surrender, etc. is malleable. -While there are general trends and characteristics that across the board are more conducive to awakening, which people may naturally possess to differing degrees, there is a huge amount of variety in people's personal characteristics, and you may find that something which is holding your talent back gets resolved, and then you may progress much more easily. Not saying anyone was discouraging here, but I thought this could be beneficial in case anyone felt that way. Our capacity for transformation is huge.

@kieranperez The more clarity/more awake so-to-speak you are, the less you distort things through the need to control/ have things go the way of your agenda, and in that sense yeah, things are easier and enduring life is more bearable. Of course, even after entering into an abiding nondual state, suffering is still a thing, and may even be quite intense. A big mistake of mine when I first awoke was using the clarity I gained as a means of escape and ignored the reality of my suffering as I would fixate on aspects of awareness that had set in, and pretended like I was peachy-keen because life was now a lot more bearable in comparison. One thing I really like about the Buddha was that he said in no uncertain terms that this was the nature the life. Things won't last, we can't control and maintain them, and experience itself is inherently not satisfying. The depth of this being so significant, that it was the center of his teaching and liberation or Nirvana was the final goal of the whole spiritual path to him, not something as easily as attained as some degree of awakening. In my experience, the more important thing than wanting to get into a nondual state and hoping it will quell suffering is to put one's focus on cultivating the right qualities to learn from it and grow as life will continually provide us with the opportunity to do so. Every bit of suffering is in a way a gift that shows us where we're not seeing things clearly and how our cravings are playing out. Reflecting on this gives us the opportunity to become disenchanted and dispassionate toward the world, thereby extinguishing our craving and progressing toward release. Life can be really hard to deal with, but it's also really beautiful, and as I see it, being willing to face the pain is worthwhile. Sorry about your dog getting old, man. Seeing loved ones, human or animal can be rough.

I agree. I think that's really solid advice. What's more is I think that, while shedding the self-view is a milestone in one's growth, qualities like self-honesty never cease being important and cultivating that quality is progress in and of itself.

Yeah, but I wouldn't focus on them. They can come and go along your path or can even be maintained throughout your life, but it's just flashy stuff and not really enlightening.

Is that supposed to be one sentence? For sure

David Spero is so real in this video, and I totally agree with regards to most teachers. When I started walking the path, I spent far too much time trying to force myself to see perfection/problems being a projection of the mind when it didn't match my experience. I've found that merely telling yourself that it's all good isn't very productive, and instead of attempting to negate suffering by some sort of focus on beyondness/bliss/ love, etc. it's better to see it for what it is and just be as honest as possible, which isn't the same as the opposite extreme of denial via spiritual bypassing in which you indulge and self-pity. Pain has been such a great teacher and its lessons in seeing what you fail to see as so direct if we only listen. It's a necessary part of the path.

Not going to argue with you about where you are/how enlightened you are, but there have been so many times I've been in some state and where the shift just seemed so radical and I thought that was it. So just in case you're going through something like that, I'd like to say, please just be honest with yourself about your suffering, it can seem non-existent, especially when first shifting to a much higher state and immediately seeing the contrast from where you were, but in pretty much everyone's case there's a lot more stuff left to work through than is apparent, that's just how things go. I think @Serotoninluv has some pretty good advice for you, if that the case, which I'm inclined to think it is.

Imo, astral stuff tends to be a huge waste of time, other than perhaps for opening up your mind. I used to mess with astral stuff a lot after I first hit nonduality, entities, gods, what-have-you, and was rather enticed by how alien it was. Things seemed cool, and I thought I was doing highly conscious thing simply because it was out of the realm of "ordinary" experience. I'd later realize that instead of getting caught up in the bizarreness, real spiritual work tends to be quite straight-forward, and is all about self-purification and constant self-reflection. Tapping into some subtle energies is not something I see as relevant to true growth. It's just a subtler level of mind. If anything helped me grow, it was probably the really bad experiences, like hell realms and demons, since those helped me realize I was lying to myself when I thought I had largely conquered fear and suffering. Nevertheless, the real lesson for me was to not get seduced by fanciful aspects of spirituality and become more grounded in self-purification and depth. If you're still interested nevertheless, then I'd at least recommend checking out David R. Hawkins on YouTube. He was pretty experienced with that kind of stuff and knew well of its limitations. I agree with a lot of his conclusions and views on it.

No, I'm vegan. Eating meat is worse for the environment, not sattvic, and it causes suffering when you could survive just fine without doing so. Transitioning to veganism may possibly be difficult for some, but it's a worthy goal. If you haven't already, try being mindful of the impact your meal is having on others, such as animals, your mind, and the planet.

@Salvijus Was talking about brahmacharya (purity in thought,word, and deed), not just nofap. Imo,brahmacharya is much harder, but that might just be me. It took me a long time before it got easy.

In my experience, Brahmacharya is a great practice that can really improve your growth so many aspects of the spiritual path. However, I think it's very important to be aware of various pitfalls: -It can be extremely difficult, especially if you have a high sex drive and/or are young. Even more so if you're doing it completely on your own accord without any external commitments. If you decide to undertake it on your own accord and without the guidance of a master or as a vow within a community you should be aware that you will likely fail many, many times at first to have perfect conduct. Simply gently get back to your habit and remind yourself of your higher goal. -If you're not well established in your values, you will waver and not make a lot of progress. I don't really think it's feasible to succeed at this without 100% commitment. - I didn't find Brahmacharya helpful for semen retention alone--I had to be true to the practice and aim for purity in thought, word, and deed. Aim to control your senses and purify your mind. This requires constant reflection and mindfulness of your impulses. If you just force it, it will become repression, and not really be productive. First and foremost it's about growth and purifying yourself, so don't lose sight of that.

@Leo Gura Do you think it's possible to reach turquoise+ in all developmental lines once you're highly developed and worked out your shadow and issues, or do see it as an infinite series of projects that are continuously undertaken but not possible to complete? I notice consciousness work takes care of a lot of issues automatically and allows you to develop as a person a lot more effectively, but for instance, is it possible to go from stage orange to turquoise in areas such as business and dating without actually having had plenty of hands on experience in those domains and integrated the lessons from the lower stages?