BipolarGrowth

Well, if it’s something like anxiety or paranoia, surrendering to these feelings can potentially reduce them as they are ultimately a rejection of what is and accepting what is might counteract some of the severity. If it’s euphoria that is causing one to be psychotic, surrendering to euphoria which is causing one to embrace reality can just lead to more out of control euphoria. In that instance, it is usually best for people to take steps to make them less euphoric by going against the impulses the euphoria is generating, and this is rarely done by the person themselves as their state feels so good that they would not want to resist what it is leading them to do.

If the psychotic break is caused by negative emotion, this might work. If it’s caused by positive emotion, surrendering to it can make things worse in my experience.

Why does there have to be a point? Why would it be any less if there was no point?

@Siedah I would assume it would include ego death, possibly to a greater degree.

Well no one here has actually physically died in this dream, so you’re not going to get anything but speculation in answers here. Near death experiences are not total physical death of the human body. Psychedelic experiences are not total death of the physical body. Meditation experiences are not total death of the physical body.

This thread sounds like someone adopting Leo’s beliefs as much as any of the others ?

This is great advice.

Nice brah ??

Something that makes you feel good and meanwhile does minimal harm to others is never meaningless. Joy is plenty meaningful. Unless you plan to do consciousness work for 12 hrs per day, you have time to pursue some passions. See pursuit of passions as a welcomed break from enlightenment work and enlightenment work as a welcomed break from pursuing passions.

Frank Yang Bhikkhu Candana

Nibbana is not necessarily another word for nothingness in Buddhism. The 7th jhana is typically called nothingness, but cessation and nirodha samapatti (the cessation of perception and feeling) are seen as being synonymous with Nibbana in the view of some Buddhists. “In” those forms of Nibbana, there is no experience at all whereas the 7th jhana is experienced. Non-experience is most certainly not worse than experience. Suffering is literally impossible “in” non-experience.

Yeah, it is pretty clear that Leo does not have psychosis. Psychedelics certainly touch on similar things to psychosis. Sometimes psychosis can be more powerful than even heroic doses though. There’s a pretty good chance that if you have the genes for a psychotic mental illness that psychedelics or weed will trigger those genes.

Here’s an old video where I describe what some of my manic episodes were like: I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder type 1 with psychotic features. Psychosis is essentially just behavior so far outside the norm that it is deemed unacceptable by society caused by radical states of consciousness.

It’s basically what happens when dopamine and serotonin are at increased levels usually for a sustained period of time. Systems that affect adrenaline and cortisol can also go into hyperdrive especially when there is reduced sleep for a while. This definitely creates different states of consciousness and doing consciousness work can blur the line between psychosis and awakening. It’s pretty common for people who do this work to experience both psychosis and awakening at the same time.

I would go on an eight year long spiritual quest culminating in a severe reduction of symptoms and need for medication. Wait a second, I already did that ?

Not wanting anything at all.

You can essentially use non-experience in place of nonexistence when reading my posts. A lot of people seem to resonate with source in the same way I think you’re describing it here. To me, source = appearance as I see there as being no other moment than this and nothing other than what is perceived, felt, thought, sensed, etc. in this moment. So essentially whatever you experience in the moment is the source of that experience in my view of things.

There will likely just be another experience of some sort. The specifics of what that will be like are impossible to know.

I’m not talking about nothing, nothingness, void, or anything of the sort. I’m talking about nonexistence. I’m talking about the lack of consciousness, the lack of experience, the lack of anything whatsoever. It is completely the opposite of anything experiential. Nonexistence is impossible to be experienced, and if you view experience to be all there can be, then nonexistence is certainly impossible in that framework. I hardly ever talk about nothing, nothingness, void, etc, so if you interpret me as saying something about any of those things, it’s likely that there’s a misinterpretation/miscommunication or difference in definitions.

I’m essentially saying the same thing. Existence is the only thing that can have a perspective. Nonexistence doesn’t exist from the perspective of existence. Nonexistence cannot have a perspective. There is no experiential thing that can contact nonexistence. Nonexistence is pure imagination. But there can be a strong appearance of nonexistence actually occurring in a sense, and this appearance of nonexistence can have profound effects within existence.

I could talk about that for an hour easily, but here’s a good thing which encapsulates a lot of what I might say: From https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two_truths_doctrine#Madhyamaka “Nāgārjuna based his statement of the two truths on the Kaccāyanagotta Sutta. In the Kaccāyanagotta Sutta, the Buddha, speaking to the monk Kaccayana Gotta on the topic of right view, describes the middle Way between nihilsm and eternalism: By and large, Kaccayana, this world is supported by a polarity, that of existence and non-existence. But when one sees the origination of the world as it actually is with right discernment, "non-existence" with reference to the world does not occur to one. When one sees the cessation of the world as it actually is with right discernment, "existence" with reference to the world does not occur to one.[29]” I would say that what is is neither existence nor nonexistence. Going through cessation showed me that whatever I am or this is transcends and includes both of these polarities. In another sense, I would say that existence and nonexistence cannot have any true relationship. They can never touch one another to have a relationship. There can only be the appearance of a relationship from the perspective of experience/existence.

1. If Infinity was the first that ever existed, how did it become aware of itself? “Infinity” is the first, middle, and last thing to ever exist, and it is simply what is experienced right now. There is literally nothing else than what is now. 2. Did Infinity imagine itself before it came aware of itself and, if so, how would this be possible? Infinity never imagined itself. Infinity never became aware. “Infinity” is experience as it is this very moment. And by the time you read this sentence, that very moment you first read “this very moment” in the previous sentence, the moment you thought occurred never did occur. This is the illusion of time and memory. 3. If my consciousness is a microcosm of Infinity, would it not be more accurate that "I am part of Infinity" instead of "I am Infinity"? (Like a drop of water being part of the ocean, I assume doing a 5-MeO trip is like the drop of water dissolving into the ocean.) There is no microcosm or macrocosm. At best, there’s simply a cosm, if you care to put a name to it which never works.

From Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha written by Daniel Ingram: ”Fruition (phala in Pali) is the fruit of all the meditator’s hard work, the first attainment of ultimate reality, emptiness, nirvana, nibbana, ultimate potential, or whatever extrapolative and relatively inaccurate name you wish to call something utterly non-sensate. In this non-state, there is absolutely no time, no space, no reference point, no experience, no mind, no consciousness, no awareness, no background, no foreground, no nothingness, no somethingness, no body, no this, no that, no unity, no duality, and no anything else. “Reality” stops cold and then reappears.” This is the closest thing to nonexistence you’ll ever be able to reach. The problem is, that not existing takes absolutely no time and happens in no place and there is no experience of such a thing, so there’s nothing to stop existence from being experienced again. Experience and existence are not things that stop existing. They are a self-containing whole with no opposite. What you have to realize is that nonexistence doesn’t exist by its own definition. For it to exist or in any way mingle with existence, it would be just another form of existence. If you wish to reach cessation/fruition, MCTB is probably one of the most useful guides to get you there outside of contact with a teacher who has reached it and helped others to also reach it. You can read MCTB for free here: https://www.mctb.org/mctb2/table-of-contents/foreword-and-warning/

It’s about time people stand up to Joe Hogan. Thank God this man had the balls to finally say something to his face.

It can be a useful tool to think about situations in different ways even if there’s no spiritual force or anything of the sort truly associated with it. It’s a fun exercise to do tarot readings for yourself too.