OctagonOctopus

@levani No need to sprout anything, there already is what is as it is right now. No need to climb any steps when the stairs spiral down to here and up to here.

There can be an expirence of pain without thinking of it as bad, or harmful, such that there is no one who believes "I am suffering". As in the reality of what it is, without judgement. It is still useful to pull a thorn out of your ass so you can sit down. Suffering is believing there is a self that is being subjected to the pain, such that "you" are reacting emotionally to it.

Golden teachers are a good one to start with, cubensis is the main strain that grows naturally here in the Great White North. Yep you can take them in your room, sometimes I spend the entire trip in my room with earplugs in just focused on whatever my intention was going into it. It is good to be in a place where you can be with what comes up without much distraction. Reseach as much as you can before taking them. Have much clarity on what your intention is going into it, becoming more loving is a good one. Yep making it into a tea is the best thing to do for the upset stomach, mix it with a herbal tea like ginger which calms the stomach.

@Endangered-EGO Ego curling up has some kind of content in it, usually like a void, it is the ego trying to escape some kind of suffering that it believes it cannot handle. Nothingness is the nothing that is everything. There is no expirence, execpt the Nothingness. Everything you expirence is expirenced as the Nothingness. Emotions are like vortexs yes. The fear is a reaction to something about your ideas of what Nothingness is. As long as you keep making distinctions between pleasent sensations & unplensent ones it is. Not saying that is easy, just it is useful to notice. There is just the senstations. Ego death doesn't have to be painful & fearful, it is just that we usually associate death with those things. The ego will of course want you to think that it is going to be horrifing, because it doesn't want you to realize that it was all a made up fiction.

The nothingness you expirenced could have actaully been a trauma reaction where the ego bascially curls up into a ball and shuts everything out & not Nothingness. Emotions are based on concepts and beliefs, emotions are reactions to the concepts that are constucting your entire sense of self & reality. Torturing the mind? What do you mean? The greatest love you can do for yourself is to realize fully what you really are.

How deeply can you listen? Each sound has it's own life, Waves build then merge together, Some crash and fall apart, What would an ecosystem be? Without the flow of organisms? Dancing around a sandy ground, Sandhoppers bounce to their beat. Every song is it own environment.

There are many perspectives to see something from, never forget this, always look for new ways to see something. Combine ways of seeing to creating a bigger and bigger picture of what that thing is. Eventually you get to it, what it really is, and see it's full beauty. Beauty is seeing something, and loving it for what it is.

The process of identifcation is quite sticky, mind trys to grab onto something to say I am this, as oppose to that. It just needs to be, to realize it always was Being & everything else is something contained within the infinite silence of Being, therefor is just Being. There is no self to be controled, just the flow of things.

@PepperBlossoms A good question, I feel abstract art is usually vauge in its meaning & often created in an unconventional way. Something that it is easy to project different perspectives onto, like Rorschach images. Music is an interesting example, especially pieces with a more ambient less lyrical style. It really is a broad lable to put on things.

Use any method that appeals to you, meditation, contemplation, whatever gets you into an open clear state. Your intention will be the biggest factor that determines in what sphere the insight will be in. Observe the process of having a insight when you do have one, as you do this you will get better at intuitively channeling conciousness into something to gain awareness.

Nice read I could relate to a lot of it! Welcome to the forum

Detatchment from hurtful destructive patturns of thinking. Identification with negative ways of seeing things causes a lot of suffering and gets you stuck as you think it is you so you don't do anything about it.

I think that I had a thought about thinking, but you know that is just a thought. Depends on the context, some ways of seeing are better for different thing. I don't really use language much when I am trying to draw a picture, but of course there are usually associated words, images, & feelings all going on at the same time. I think that is why I enjoy some abstract art, it is funny watching the mind try to associate things to it.

There is something real about it, it is a collection of thoughts/ feelings in conciousness constructing a narative about a person. You are making sense, a room that you are not sensing is just a belief, on another level even the idea that there is something called a "room" is a belief, there is really only Presence. Making distinctions can be useful, but it is always more mind. This is why there must be some kind of surrender in order to be with Presence.

You spent thosands of hours researching other peoples ideas about the truth, and allowing those ideas to percolate in mind, but how many hours have you spend observing the truth for yourself? Comtemplating it? Meditating? Is it really lieing if they really bealive what they are saying? Or is it just a misguided mind? How can you guide your own mind to the truth? Only you can bring yourself there. Other peoples ideas can be good guidence, but they can also get you stuck into their mistaken thinking.

Surrender everything until there is nothing, eventually all distinctions will fall, and all you will be left with is the One. To know everything is to know nothing. Who is it that feels they know? Who is it that is concious of the knower? Just sit with what is and be with it, always. Let go of the one who thinks they know anything, be with presence. Surrender. Allow the relative to be as it is, and jump into the warmth of God.

Im so sorry to hear that, a massive hit in the heart. The most important thing to do is give yourself space to feel, & talk to those around you, give support to others who have also been affected by her death, listen to them, listen to yourself, allow the grieving but don't let it suck the life out of ya. Sometimes a good distraction is what you need, sometimes one needs to sit and give space.

Infinite. That dream & "reality" are both a dream inside immortal ever present conciousness.

First of all notice that you thinking that others are thinking something about you has nothing to do with them, and everything to do with the way you talk to yourself. You are calling yourself creepy & identifying with that thought. This can cause akward situation to manifest. Start creating a vision where you are flowing with the nature of the conversations you are having. Then go out and make that vision a reality, allow yourself to make mistakes, contemplate about what you felt went well with a conversation, & what you felt didn't. Learning & growth will happen the more awareness you put into it. I find the wider the circle of things I learn about the more I have to talk about with people. Thus the easier it is to attune with the conversation. Just be attentive to their words & let approrate connections to what they are saying flow. Develop a curious attitude to see things in the way the other person sees things, this will get you far. The more connections you make to the things the other person is saying the faster you will get to a flowing converstation.

If you assume that there is a physical reality piror to conciousness it can seem like there is a brain that is responsible for conciousness, but conciousness is creating what you call a brain & being transmitted threw it. Notice that you cannot observe anything without it being completely made up of sensations, if the brain gets damaged and sensations change (Something I have gone threw personally) then that becomes what reality is now. Who is to say what sensations are accurate? Well they all are, if you sense something it is, if you don't it isn't. The way in which you interpret sensations is an important thing to observe & contemplate about. How do you know that the brain has anything to do with conciousness? How do you know that conciousness isn't coming from your heart? Your feet? The universe? The ego is something conciousness is being expressed threw, it is just a matter of taming it to surrender to what is. It will keep trying to identify with sensations like a brain, unless conciousness can make it aware of itself. You be more concious by channeling more conciousness into things, let what you want more conciousness in bath in the light of awareness. If you want more conciousness on conciousness, then be concious of conciousness. More info is just more mind stuff that thinks it knows what something is, a direct awareness of what something is is what you need.

Master it by using it to create something you love

Practice Loving Presence, get more a feel for the love feeling so you can follow that rather then bouncing off of pain.

Because all of that is contained within the present moment, God is completely indistinct & contains within it all the relativity. What is being pointed to by saying those things are illusions is that they are mind, they are projections so that we can maintain survival of our societies, of our bodies, of whatever wants to be survived.

Yes, as mind, a holographic projection used for survival.

@Mindfang413 You could say what doesn't exist is the world that the ego makes up, overlays over The Real, and says it is what is true. But it does exist, as an illusion, imagination, being projected as the truth. What is true is what is. Presence.