Joscha

@Oppositionless Oh cool I didn't know there was a forum! I only know book version Jed McKenna. Where can I find the invisible guru forum jed mckenna? Why do you think he presents a nihilistic perspective in his books?

I think Jed McKenna would say that self actualisation (or growing up into human adulthood) is what everybody wants. Waking up, awakening, is what nobody wants. Because you don't gain anything from it. He say's he only recommends it to those who are so sick of falseness that they literally can't do anything else. Based on how you phrase the question, it would seem to me like self actualisation is what you want. It is important to a person to grow up. It is not important to the person to awaken, because that's the end. I feel like both are important and can be done simultaneously. If truth is what you truly care about, focus on awakening. If you want happiness, the good life, a meaningful life, focus on self actualisation. Self actualisation seems to me more like a scale or a spectrum. It may not ever really end. So once you have grown up enough at some point the desire for truth may arise. Its not like you end the actualisation part and then move onto awakening, I don't think. Plenty of growing up to do after awakening, if the developmental models are right. Look at your life and it will probably become obvious what should be the next step.

Hmm a few things come to mind.. - Something creative that doesn't use analytical brain power, like light drawing and painting. - Wood carving - Meditating - Singing - Spending time with friends or coexisting around each other - gardening or taking care of house plants - stretching - Chatting with ChatGPT There are literally infinite options. Ask your intuition and then let it go and wait for what comes up

Beautiful! Good luck to you

Byron Katie

Hi guys! I have a difficult relationship with psychedelics, specifically lsd, ever since a horror trip a few years ago. Yesterday night in my dream, I was visiting dream Leo for some time and he offered me lsd. I find it interesting that he was the one who challenged me in the dream to face my fear of lsd (but then again he brought me onto psychedelics). He was super friendly and kind btw. I took it and became very nervous (I multiple times checked in the dream that I had my emergency benzo just in case, and I did. in retrospect I love how the dream allowed me to have this safery net, instead of pushing me into panic). The nervousness was however very bearbable compared to the usual anxiety attacks I get from real psychedelics in waking life after taking psychedelics. I think its because I didn’t really feel bodily sensations in the dream the same way (heartbeat sensations always trigger me). Nothing much trip wise happened for a bit, but then something fascinating happened. I was talking to dream leo about something unrelated, when suddenly I woke up. But the waking up from this dream was different than usual, in that I was never before so aware of the transition between dream and waking state. I completely felt the shift in consciosuness. The waking up was quite sudden. I could describe it like the way when you’re waiting and suddenly you feel the psychedelic kick in and raise your consiousness. I think I partly understand now why people call spiritual insight ‚awakening‘. The feeling reminded me so much of mystical trips in the past and also the way leo describes it in his video ˋwhat does awakening feel like‘. I really wonder how it works that the waking up felt so different from usual, as I didn’t take anything outside of the dream. I just felt like sharing that story. Feel free to share your dream psychedelic experiences too, or other strange beautiful dream experiences! Also thank you dream leo for taking me on a trip! And if you read this, thank you waking leo for opening me up to psychedelics. Its a difficult journey for me but even so I am very thankful for the experiences it has given me.

@Vibroverse No, I'm not sure. Right now they are both images in my awareness. But its still practical to make the distinction, otherwise I would constantly talk to people about things we did in my dreams, which they wouldn't remember.

Haha, you've got good points. That's why I separated them in my post (dream Leo and waking Leo). I know of course they're not really connected. But perhaps it shows how my subconscious thinks of him as a guide, which is why it placed his image in the dream instead of someone else. I didn't thank waking Leo for what dream Leo did. I thanked him for education about psychedelics. I would not thank the torture dream Leo. It would make me wonder what my subconscious is thinking of him to put him in that position in the dream.

I have a solo meditation retreat planned, in case I won’t make it through the waiting list of the vipassana retreat. Aaand hopefully backpack a little bit in France hehe

Its so beautiful!

Byron Katie

I don’t know how it is compared to Chile, but Germany actually isn’t that expensive compared to other western european countries (especially food). Eg dutch peope regularly cross the border to buy groceries (although especially alcohol). The place matters a lot of course (If you stay in Munich it will get very expensive). I couldn’t imagine the war stretching as far as Germany. When it comes to dating I would say the opposite of @NYMPHAI, its a good opportunity to get skills maybe especially because people come off a little cold. If you can do it there, you’re good. Also if you’re in a nice place there will be plenty of young, open and friendly people.

Hi! I'm a student with a lot of flexibility, which often leads to me procrastinating and losing sight of my vision. With infrastructure here I mean anything that lies in your area of control but that, once set up deliberately, functions to help you without or with little of your deliberate action (your home set up, your devices, your social circle, your place, where you live, etc.) What are your ways in creating an infrastructure at home to ensure you are keeping on track with your goals and aspirations? Where do you keep your technology and how is it set up for maximum productivity and minimum distraction? In what ways did you change your environment to stay on track with your vision for your life? Do you use automatic reminders? Sticky notes on your walls? Arranged phone calls with self actualisation friends? Or do you rely solely on your own psychology to always keep you on track? If so, how did you program yourself to be that awesome? What is a gadget/tool that helped you create a good infrastructure for your self actualisation? What is your general opinion and tip on infrastructure building? What other valuable questions concerning this topic could I be asking but didn't think of yet? Thanks a lot!

@ExistentialMuse Hmm okay interesting. You say that if the past and future is illusory, then God experiences every moment as the first and last one… I see a duality here. To have a first moment there needs to be a last moment. The concept of “first” or “last” sort of already implies time to me. I might be wrong but I think I’ve heard Byron Katie say that in the end only the present moment exists, but then she goes further to say that even the present moment is a story in a way. Because it can’t be held onto. Its already gone. I’m making sense of the finitude question in this way: I think actually all things that are “finite”, are imagined. Which would mean that there are no actual finite things, there is only one infinite “thing” that appears in different forms. You said something about “all moments of eternity”, but if there are mutliple different moments thats a duality again. It makes it seem like there are these seperate temporal entities called “moments” that are distinct from each other. When I’ve looked closely before, “moments” didn’t seem detached from one another but just flowed, “they” were one. Eternity may be just one moment, so to speak, not multiple moments. But to say “moment” doesn’t really even make sense, because its a never ending moment with no beginning. From this perspective I would agree that god has not and will not experience all moments. God is being one eternal moment. these are just personal thoughts, no guarantees

The way I understand it is that red is form and form is impermanent. I don’t know if I would call redness eternal. Redness is, as you show with that picture, not always present. But there is something (or actually nothing or nothingness) that is always present, which is awareness. That which is aware of redness is formless, outside of time and infinite. Which is kind of paradoxical because that which appears in awareness and awareness itself are apparently identical. But the eternal aspect, if I am correct, always stays the same. Its like the screen (shout out to Rupert Spira) that shows different colors. It changes form constantly, sometimes it appears red, sometimes green, but its always remains a screen.

@gettoefl is this a loose plan for u? Because you didn’t include a block for things like meeting friends or doing chores, like laundry or buying groceries. I sometimes make hyper ambitious plans but so much time is killed by everyday actions like preparing and eating food etc.

@Florian I read the first one, reminded me of the book "Der unsichtbare Apfel". I like the idea with the bowls containing memories. How long have you been into creative writing? Is it like a hobby to you or do you want to do it for work?

I trust that since I am alive I should be alive. Any reason I find that goes against going on living, I simply don't know if those reasons are true. I trust that if I am not supposed to go on life will stop. But it hasn't and in fact I can't imagine that it will. The fact that I can be okay right here and now motivates me to continue being okay right here right now.

@Carl-Richard Damn! Norway all the way

Hey guys! a few weeks ago I had a discussion with some friends and I voiced my opinion how I believe it is possible to find permanent happiness and peace and how it is smart to aim for that in life. I mean happiness that is independent and free from anything external. I formed this opinion on the basis of following information/experiences: - Rpert Spira's teachings on how our pursuit of finite forms of happiness (relationships, objects, substances, etc.) is futile and that our true nature is pure happiness already, we just need to recognise it - Byron Katie's teachings of how all suffering comes from believing false thoughts, that no one and no thing can hurt us, that we do it all ourselves, etc. - my own experiences from doing their practices (the work and self inquiry) both regularly and on my solo retreat. The internal happiness was very unwavering at times, although I go back to baseline in everyday life mostly My friends had the very strong opinion that happiness is just like any other emotion, that emotional states fluctuate and that this is a good thing. They don’t believe that anyone has or will ever „achieve“ a permanent state of happiness and peace. They also said that it’s good this way, that they like the up and down, that this makes life interesting. And that they could not be happy if they were not also unhappy at times. It appears to me like this sort of contrasts to some of the things I believe both teachers above teach. From my understanding, at least Byron Katie has never suffered since her awakening. And I don’t feel like here permanent state of happiness is tarnished by the fact that there is no suffering at all left. Now I am wondering.. I could imagine that the attitude of being open to feeling unhappy, as my friends apparently are, is actually a form of wisdom. Embracing suffering and so on, as a part of life. However, I could also imagine that they simply formed this opinion (which becomes a self fulfilling prophecy), just because they only ever experienced the up and down and have not yet had internal, spiritual states of happiness (or at least haven’t recognised them as such). If they don’t have the vision of one day achieveing internal, infinite happiness, I can’t imagine they will ever get there. I have also read before, or maybe this is just picked up culturally, that happiness is „like a butterfly“. If you try to catch it, it will fly away. If you stay still, it may land on your shoulder. This would point to a way of life where happiness itself is not the direct object of focus. More like a random appearance. But then, practices like Leo's satisfaction meditation seem more geared towards finding happiness directly. It appears to me like spirituality is very often the pursuit of happiness directly. Going straight to the source, instead of indirectly through attainments like success. Lately I've more and more had these intuitions that I want to find happiness in my direct experience. To not attach happiness to outcomes. To still do stuff in the world but not for happiness, but rather out of happiness. Maybe the truth lies somewhere in the middle? Feel free to share your thoughts on this!

Hi! Its been almost a year since my last trip on LSD where I attempted suicide. I was not suicidal before, it was just on this trip. It was the worst day of my life. Since then I’ve mostly stayed away from psychedelics. I’ve only ever done LSD and magic truffles and I always valued the insights they gave me. It makes me quite sad that I can’t use psychedelics as a tool anymore because of my fear. Is there a way to take psychedelics and at the same time make it absolutely safe? By safe, I mean physically safe, as in, the body as an organism is unharmed. By this I mean safe in the sense that you won’t hurt yourself physically. I’ve researched a little bit but I wanted to also get the opinion and experience of people on this forum. Maybe someone else had a similarly scary experience but has found a way to use psychedelics anyway? Lsd is too scary for me but I was thinking maybe a drug with a shorter duration like DMT for example is less risky when it comes to freaking out and starting to hurt yourself? Also, would taking Xanax, for psychedelics in general, before a trip minimize the risk? I’ve even played with the thought of constraining myself physically before administering the drug. But then I saw the possibility that I still hurt myself by biting off my tongue for example. The irrational mind states I’ve experienced on lsd would definitely make that possible. I know it sounds kind of ridiculous to think about such drastic measures. Maybe I should just leave it alone. But it’s also just that I don’t want to have this fear of psychedelics anymore and I don’t know how to do that without facing it. It’s very strange to have had both the most beautiful experiences and most horrible experiences of my life on LSD lol. Cheers!

@Advocate Oh thats nice, thank you! I've used it once and loved it, maybe a bit too much Maybe I will look into it again. @Breakingthewall I deleted it but I can share what happened here again: I took about 600ug. It all started quite beautiful. I was entering what I can only describe as "heaven". I was on the balcony of my house. Everything was very silent. The sound of a pigeon flying and how beautiful that was is something I won't forget. Everything was so complete and perfect. It was like everything was holy. It was like meeting God. It the most beautiful thing I have ever experienced. No words to describe it. I lay down on my bed later when I started feeling a bit less good. I would get lost in thought loops. And then it started getting horrible. Its really difficult to describe but it was like I was experiencing the most horrifying aggression inside. Violence, evil and deeply seated fear. It is what I imagine hell to be like. I would get these visions of horrible things that are quite blurry now. The most horrible thing was that I would get in and out of this hell. Each time I went "up", I would cling to a feeling of safety, only to dive down again. It was like experiencing heaven and hell in alternation. But this time heaven was also very exhausting because I was so afraid of "going back down". The most horrible thing was seeing all of this evil and realising that I did not know anymore if I could control myself. I noticed that I had absolutely lost my rational mind. After enduring this up and down for some time I started screaming for my roommates. I got up and when they came I close the door to my room. At this point I was freaking out and looking around the room. I saw scissors, so I opened the door a little bit, threw them out and closed it again. My roommates, at this point, started freaking out too. I was so afraid of doing something to me in order to stop the trip. Slowly I realised that I would loose more and more control over my own actions. I saw my life flash before me. How my life all culminated in this trip on which I died. Killed myself. It was a very hopeless, scary feeling. I ran down past my roommates into the yard and closed the door. I was also afraid of hurting them because I didn't know how irrational I would become, so I kept trying to keep them away. Then I started banging my head against the wall. I feel like puking when I remember this. I so badly wanted to become unconscious. But it didn't work. So I ran back inside into the kitchen knife and took a knife. My roommates had already called an ambulance but it was still far. I half heartedly rammed the knife into my stomach, because I didn't really want to die, I just wanted to be unconscious. But in my mind dying was the only way. Luckily I got barely hurt. Other friends came over and started pinning me down, which I requested. I was so split in those moments. There was a self that was quite clear and trying to find solutions. It was a fight between the most insane parts and more sane parts idk. I also realised how much physical power and energy is in you. Its quite scary how strong a body really is and I am not very muscular. My friends could barely control me. I was really afraid of escaping the house and walking towards the next street but they kept it controlled. Eventually police came and pinned me down more effectively. This was probably the moment of my life in which I felt the most relief ever. I was so sure I was going to die that day. An ambulance was also there and they gave me a benzo I think, which calmed me. I was transported in handcuffs and like a body restrainer thing in an ambulance to the next psychiatric clinic, where I stayed for the next few days. --- I hope this won't make any ppl avoid psychedelics. 90% of my psychedelic experiences were amazing. It was just the 10% where I was stupid and it quickly turned into a nightmare. So don't be stupid like me

@Kalo I thought the exact same way until I put a knife to my stomach in my last horror trip . Seems like a silly attitude to me now but to each their own. @The0Self Interesting, thanks! I will look into n,n-DMT. It was not really a depression problem back then, more like complete anxiety, loss of irrationality and really wanting the trip to end. I actually just wanted to become unconscious, but I didn’t know how so it became very dangerous. I‘ll leave them for now I think. @Forestluv That seems like a good idea. Yeah, thinking about it probably won’t take the anxiety away.. Thanks for those suggestions! If\when I try it again, I‘ll do it like that.

@outlandish Why is it unsafe to combine psychedelics with Xanax?

@Nahm I'm so thankful.. that was a great response. "Without avoidance, there is no experience of fear." - that hit home! I'll work on those things.