BipolarGrowth

For me, a big step in my spiritual development was learning to sense the more subtle layers of normal, sober sensory experience. I think a big trap is to get caught up in seeing the sensory content of a psychedelic trip as being beneficial to awakening. If you go into some crazy DMT realm with drastically unordinary sensory content, it’s important to realize at some point that the unusual sensory content is essentially useless. What should be understood is that the degree of sensory change experienced in a psychedelic trip is only valuable if you can extract the insight that consciousness, awareness, reality has infinite potential and this potential is being realized no matter what sensory content is being shown. If a psychedelic trip seems more profound than sitting sober in your living room drinking your morning coffee, you don’t have any idea what is actually taking place in the most ordinary moments of human life. The incalculable majesty of reality is present at all times. The only thing that changes is one’s ability to recognize it for what it is.

Where did you find this? I’d be quite interested to see the source for this claim. Keep in mind that Buddhism was originally an oral tradition for a long period of time, so those who claim to know precisely what the Buddha taught are on shaky ground. The Theravadins love to speak that way. I personally like to view the interpretations of modern Buddhism by their own merit rather than counting them as valuable based on whether the teachings were exactly what the Buddha taught. On that note, I’ve found the idea and practice of anattā quite valuable in my path. A few years ago, I was attached to the idea, experience, and practice of consciousness being absolute and highly valued teachings about Atman/Brahman. Nowadays, it certainly feels like realizing anattā to different degrees is a further evolution beyond the position of putting Atman/Brahman on a pedestal. I’d say that identification with a Self of any sort is not the highest realization. Ideally, practices more focused on the Atman/Brahman side of things can essentially take you just as far as seeing anattā, but the issue is that if the view of a real self is held onto too closely, you run into issues of attachment and clinging which can cause resistance to “the Truth/the Highest/the deepest realization”. I know that what I’m about to say now will go against the belief of many here, but my path has shown me that Consciousness as people typically view it is not absolute. This gets into murky territory as far as descriptions go, but Hinduism, Buddhism, and Taoism all teach of something beyond the experiential realm people typically refer to as Consciousness when it is seen as absolute. I first ran into this on an unexpected awakening experience in the summer of 2021. This is what Daniel Ingram and Frank Yang call “cessation.” There are many different views and interpretations of cessation, but one of the most important things I learned immediately upon reaching that “state/non-state” was that consciousness is not everything, and it is conditional. The interesting thing about this is that those claiming that Consciousness is absolute have a great point. Consciousness is absolute, from the perspective of consciousness. Consciousness itself is an experiential thing by its very nature, as is your normal human self. Consciousness cannot be destroyed because Consciousness IS by its very definition. But this does not account for the other side of the duality which can be accounted for — what IS NOT. For example, the number zero isn’t actually a thing. It’s the absence of a thing. You can count one chicken, two chickens, three chickens, but you don’t actually see and count zero chickens. Regardless, zero chickens is relevant, and it can be verified by understanding what IS there to be counted. Verifying this “state/non-state” called cessation works in a similar fashion although this is of course oversimplified, and the example will not do what I’m pointing to any justice unless someone has encountered this for themselves. I attest based on my experience that the reality of something beyond consciousness can be verified, and it is not wise to trivialize this realization. My spiritual practice of 7-8 years was child’s play up until the point of that realization, and my state of consciousness altered at that time in a way that has never reverted back since which undoubtedly can be felt as a great improvement. I’d say there’s nothing wrong about speaking of Consciousness as Absolute if what that means to you also includes what I’m referring to which is outside the bounds of the lower-tier realization of Consciousness as Absolute which doesn’t account for the unconditioned, that which is beyond the experiential realm. If one’s notion of infinity is not including this, that person still has much further to go as I know I’m nowhere near the end of the road, and even I have seen this.

Another thing to keep in mind is that once you can have a consistent sleep/wake time, your body will begin to spike your cortisol (stress/get your ass up hormone) around the time you wake up. The first few weeks of getting up early will be the hardest. Once your body has that sleep/wake pattern established, you will often struggle to sleep past the normal time you wake up. For example, I tried to sleep in until 8 am today rather than 6 am, and I was up around 7 am. I couldn’t have fallen back asleep at that point if I wanted to as my body had already started pumping the cortisol. This is another reason why it is recommended to wait until an hour or so after waking up before consuming caffeine. The stimulant effect of the caffeine and the stimulant effect of the cortisol will compound each other which is one reason why your energy can crash in the afternoon.

My experience with management has taught me a few things. First, people need to see you as competent at your job and in general. If people cannot deny that you know what you are doing, and in most cases, are better at your job and their job, they will follow and give respect even if they don’t like you personally. Another important thing is that you must give consequences for bad behavior or performance. If some people know that you have no effect over their livelihood and income, they will not cooperate well. I have a friend who told me “if you can’t fire them, you’re not really their boss.” There’s some truth to that statement. I’m not sure what power you have in your position as a team leader, but I imagine it is a type of lower management. I’d say that lower management can be a particularly difficult position because you might not have all of the tools to enact consequences for bad behavior. Doing what is best for the company is often not what people would want. Some people want to put in as little effort as possible and still get paid. I had issues with one person in specific, and I racked my brain about how to get them to cooperate as well as how to ease tension between us. I eventually befriended him, gave him other work opportunities, told upper management to give him time to improve to try to save his job, and he still ended up getting fired because of poor attitude although he did start to improve. I recently heard the idea that most of the time it is better to focus your efforts to the employees who are doing well. Trying to turn someone around who is underperforming is usually a lot more difficult than letting that person go and finding an employee who is better for the position. Prepare to be disliked by some if you are doing your best for the company. If you are a highly agreeable person, not enjoying conflict, this can be quite uncomfortable. There’s no trick to leadership. You have to do your best to navigate all of the rough waters a leadership position brings to gain experience in how to best handle situations in the style that is most effective for you.

This is what worked for me. I used to identify as a “night owl” staying up until 4 to 5 am every night when I worked as a closing restaurant manager. Just woke up at 6 am to start getting ready for work. Having a fiancée who makes you breakfast in bed every day helps, but you might have to “bring home all the bacon” to get that deal lol This video game character wisely brings up one of my favorite perks to waking up early.

This is a dream. This is reality. This is illusion. This is truth. This is God. This is consciousness. This is life. This is hell. This is heaven. At the end of the day, this is simply this. Any further view layered upon this is something you are fabricating. When THIS has to be described or equated to a concept, folly has already occurred. When you add layers of meaning, it is like adding a condom between you and This/God/whatever other name you want. Regardless, there’s nothing wrong with playing these mind games with yourself.

This is quite similar to an example I’ve heard a few times pointing to non-self. We all know what a pile of sand is. We all know what a grain of sand is, but when does a collection of grains of sand become a pile? I wouldn’t consider two grains of sand to be a pile. 10 grains of sand is still quite small. 10,000 appears to be a pile by most people’s view. Where in the chain from 1 to 10,000 does the sand become a pile? There’s of course no objective answer to this. We make a subjective judgement as to what we deem to be a pile or not a pile. A similar question could be asked about a human body. Where does the body end? Is it at the skin? What about the heart’s electromagnetic field which extends a number of feet past the skin? Do bacteria count as the body? If there are roughly 10 cells of bacteria to every 1 human cell, which of those are considered part of the human body? I would imagine a human body without a single cell of bacteria would not survive. Are good bacteria necessary to the function of the human body part of a human body? If you have your appendix removed, at what point is that no longer “your body?” If we say the instant it was removed, what if it were a different organ necessary for your survival? As you see the necessary organ being pulled from your body, would you not cry out “that’s mine?” Is the more abstract notion of space part of a body? What is a body without space?

This is a good source for learning more on modern geopolitics as well as some history thrown in at relevant times. This is a great source to learn about medicine and human body functioning from a medical doctor presented in a rather entertaining way. Brian Greene has some great book on physics that are written to be understood by the general population. https://www.amazon.com/Elegant-Universe-Superstrings-Dimensions-Ultimate/dp/039333810X I could keep finding some recommendations, but I think the most important thing would be to find things you are naturally interested in. Reading some dense, boring books to become more knowledgeable can work, but how serious are you about gaining more general knowledge? Unless it’s one of your main life goals, I’d lean toward sticking with sources you enjoy or find entertaining. When learning naturally becomes a pastime for you, it’s going to most likely create more long term results for you than trying to brute force learning. My first impression on reading this is that you might be overplaying the role of ADHD. I could be totally wrong on this of course, as it is your life we’re talking about after all. I say this because I think limiting beliefs resulting from clinical diagnoses can do a lot of harm. I’ve also been diagnosed with ADHD. Maybe it is difficult for you to stay focused on one topic for a sustained period of time. This doesn’t mean you can’t become quite knowledgeable. If you have a lot of different sources to learn from, I’d think it’s fine to hop around rather than sticking to one. If you spend small spurts of time on learning from different sources, in a few years, you’ll probably have a pretty good general knowledge base. Find ways to make learning fun.

What do you suggest I do instead? Am I not the sort of person that you’d have in mind while giving disclaimers against psychedelic use? I know full well that you wouldn’t consider these people Awake.

Edit: The whole point of this post was to show that trying to dissolve suffering is not the way suffering actually is transcended. It is far more about equanimity rather than aversion to suffering. Aversion to suffering is not what brings any success in a reduction of suffering. Aversion = suffering. Resistance = suffering. I’d never quote this as some amazing quote on the description of awakening. From jan_kasimi on Reddit: “The point is not to be fully free of dukkha, it's to be free of trying to be free of dukkha. As long as one is trying to be free, there is still the conception of a self which in turn causes dukkha. For non-liberated beings, trying to avoid dukkha is what drives their actions. Liberated beings have no goals of their own because they (realize they) don't exist separate from the world. Kennet Folk writes about his final realization: One day, walking under a pepper tree in the desert, I gave myself permission to be enlightened. I had been practicing obsessively for twenty-two years, including a cumulative three years on intensive retreat. I thought of myself as a professional yogi. On this day in New Mexico, reflecting on the question “have I suffered enough?” I gave myself permission to be done. I was acutely aware of everything around me — the sights and sounds of the desert, the feeling of heat on my skin, the warm breeze on my face, the pulsing in my veins. It suddenly occurred to me that I was done. [...] I felt like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, clicking her heels three times, and then waking up to find that she’d been home in her own bed the whole time, safe and sound. I called my mother the next day and told her what had happened. “I think I’ve just wasted twenty-two years of my life. The ride is over and nothing much has changed. But I have never been happier. There is peace.” The essential realization that comes from this process is that there isn’t anyone here to get enlightened. You work tirelessly for years to get enlightened, only to find out that you couldn’t possibly get enlightened, because there isn’t anybody here for it to happen to. Contemplative development, in its purest sense, is learning to see yourself as process.”

No, I’ve actually been a lot more stable than before. I had a couple hospitalizations/psych ward stays last summer and was out of work for a few months, but it used to be a lot worse. I haven’t used psychedelics since the summer of 2021. This has made my mental health far more predictable and easier to manage. I used to resist the side effects of psychiatric medications, eventually coming off of them and usually taking psychedelics around that time which ended up putting me in the psych ward several times each year. I had a craving for mystical experiences and insight which I couldn’t experience that well without psychedelics, but my baseline consciousness rose substantially after a few events/“attainments” in 2021. This higher baseline now means that I can fulfill my spiritual desires much easier without the need of substances. The higher baseline consciousness also combats a lot of the side effects of psychiatric medications that used to make me feel sort of lifeless.

I know precisely the kind of unholy mess I might wind up in if I don’t tread lightly with this stuff. Maybe it’s not that much of a surprise that obtaining unearned wisdom over and over again and dealing with the consequences is actually a path to wisdom. But yeah, if you aren’t prepared to lose $100,000, get a criminal charge, be contained in a psychiatric ward against your will, sully your reputation, lose friends, and strain family relationships, you should listen to @Bazooka Jesus

Doctors in psych wards have been some of the most “stage orange” people I’ve ever met. The medical model functions as anti-religious and anti-spiritual. In their eyes, any state of consciousness you’re experiencing cannot be due to spirituality or spiritual practice, it’s always due to mental illness

@Water by the River I read Majjhima Nikāya 121 (Cūļasuññata Sutta - The Shorter Discourse on Voidness/Emptiness) the other day, and it seems to cover the “solipsism” concept fairly well. I wonder what your take is on this. “…There I heard and learned this in the presence of the Buddha: ‘Ānanda, these days I usually practice the meditation on emptiness.’ I trust I properly heard, learned, applied the mind, and remembered that from the Buddha?” “Indeed, Ānanda, you properly heard, learned, applied the mind, and remembered that. Now, as before, I usually practice the meditation on emptiness. Consider this stilt longhouse of Migāra’s mother. It’s empty of elephants, cows, horses, and mares; of gold and money; and of gatherings of men and women. There is only this that is not emptiness, namely, the oneness dependent on the mendicant Saṅgha. In the same way, a mendicant—ignoring the perception of the village and the perception of people—focuses on the oneness dependent on the perception of wilderness. Their mind becomes secure, confident, settled, and decided in that perception of wilderness. They understand: ‘Here there is no stress due to the perception of village or the perception of people. There is only this modicum of stress, namely the oneness dependent on the perception of wilderness.’ They understand: ‘This field of perception is empty of the perception of the village. It is empty of the perception of people. There is only this that is not emptiness, namely the oneness dependent on the perception of wilderness.’ And so they regard it as empty of what is not there, but as to what remains they understand that it is present. That’s how emptiness is born in them—genuine, undistorted, and pure…”

The main course of Nonduality just ain’t as tasty without the appetizer of Duality. Not to mention the dessert of “no one did all that seeking to go absolutely nowhere.”

Try listening to this translation/audiobook if you haven’t yet: It always seemed to give me great results. I loved listening to it in depressed states just lying in my bed in the dark not moving. It allowed me to resist the moment less. I’ve listened through this over 100 times. The more the better I would think. Listening one time leaves a lot more room for the ego to freak out and try to take control again. I like to meditate alongside listening to these, raising mindfulness and looking more into my True Nature. Here are some other audiobooks I’ve gotten a lot out of:

Well, it seems like you are the expert on this, so who am I to say differently? I’ll give my take on what you said, and if you want, you can clear things up for me further. Are you saying that raising Consciousness and God Realization have no relationship whatsoever with suffering? From videos and teachings you’ve given in the past on this topic, it seems like God Realization and awakening tend to bring about states of intense bliss and lessened suffering. This is going quite a ways back, but if we consider your video on 30 days of back to back 5-MeO, you seemed to be reporting awakening that was closer to peak bliss and further from suffering than prior awakenings. Whenever I have seen you report a new depth of awakening, it appears to me to in part be you seeing this new level as more awesome and profound which I would think comes in part from you resisting Consciousness less and allowing yourself to sync up even more fully to God. Also, avoidance of suffering sounds like a form of aversion to consciousness. The path to less suffering is about becoming less averse to suffering to actually reduce it. Resistance felt to be coming from an individual ego self seems to rather predictably create states of lower consciousness rather than higher consciousness to me. I think of it in this sense: less aversion to what consciousness is appearing as in a moment and less desire for consciousness to be something other that what it is currently presenting itself as ends up lessening the illusion of an ego which in turn allows God to see God as God without a fake personality trying to break up the union of God with God which is already the case yet less noticeable with an ego in the way. Bliss can relax the ego so it can be seen through easier and more fully.

Buddhism is all about getting out of suffering through awakening. Leo might critique this saying that getting out of suffering isn’t the highest goal. Well what is the peak of God-Realization or really any spiritual goal? You can desire to get out of sin to experience salvation. You can desire to get out of illusion to know truth. You can desire to get out of the hell of being a temporary self with temporary pleasures to instead see the heaven that there is no self who could lose anything. Suffering is the primary catalyst for awakening in my experience. You can say you want pure understanding and that is your goal. Why do you want pure understanding? Because you’ve found that you dislike a lack of understanding. You want to move away from what you dislike to what you enjoy, value, and experience as positive. And what is more enjoyable than a peak transcendental moment of awakening? As humans, we’re all caught in wanting to go from something deemed lower to another state deemed higher or better. The beauty of awakening is that you can see how nothing needs to be done in that moment. The goal is reached. No further engineering of existence to fit what you want is needed because you have seen that the highest possible thing you could ever want is already in the palm of your hand. The moment my spiritual journey really began was when the suffering and depression of self repression through crippling social anxiety led me to make the decision to be 100% authentic for just one day. This triggered my first manic episode, and from then on awakening became the way to transcend my mental illness and actually feel good for once. We just want to feel good. We can throw whatever justifications or intellectualization on top of that base truth that we want, but this basic truth remains regardless. People who suffer cause more suffering for themselves and others. People who feel content and at peace are able to help those lost in the miseries of life and offer their abundance of positive emotion generously.

If most people aren’t making themselves feel better, and you are? Who is in the wrong? The saying goes “hurt people hurt people.”

If humans keep an idea, philosophy, mode of being, practice, teaching, or activity for thousands of years, humans probably find that thing valuable.

A person could potentially grow and develop more in those six months than their entire life beforehand if they went balls to the wall. It also depends what you consider success in this scenario. Reaching higher levels of consciousness in six months of real work in line with Leo’s teachings than the person had ever reached before is highly likely in my opinion. If we’re talking about what modern society generally views as success, the person in question might seem worse off than before the six months began. I’d say that’s pretty much how my first six months went at least.

The main objection I have is that some in Theravada become fundamentalists who discount other forms of spiritual development as well as practices and teachings in later forms of Buddhism. Theravada is a great tool for a specific goal — ending suffering.

The Four Noble Truths 1. There is suffering/dissatisfaction/stress/anxiety/lack of fulfillment inherent within life/existence. 2. The cause of this suffering is clinging which arises from desire. 3. There is a way to end suffering. 4. The Noble Eightfold Path (worth looking up) is the way to end suffering. The three marks or characteristics of existence are 1. anicca - impermanence (everything changes, nothing and no one lasts forever) 2. dukkha - suffering/dissatisfaction/etc. 3. ānatta - non substantiality of the self/non self/no self There is a process through which ignorance leads to suffering called dependent origination (worth looking up). The lasting eradication of this ignorance is full awakening. Brahman/Atman is not the ultimate truth or realization to be had. Consciousness is not permanent, some ultimate truth, or your true self. Gods are lesser when compared to one who is fully awake. The cultivation of unwholesome thoughts and states lead to suffering and ignorance. The cultivation of wholesome thoughts and states support awakening. Wholesome = free from the five hindrances of greed, ill will, ignorance, sloth and torpor, and restlessness. Emptiness isn’t focused on as much in Theravada as it is in later forms of Buddhism, but it is the idea that nothing at all has inherent existence or exists on its own. There is no self nature to phenomena. Everything leans on other parts of reality in order to appear how it does to us. Consciousness doesn’t exist on its own for example. It arises with craving, clinging, ignorance, material form, feelings, mental formations, and perception. Looking into dependent origination is a good way to see more what is meant by the term emptiness. Put simply, the experiential world is a sort of magical illusion with many parts working together simultaneously to convince us that the individual parts of reality as well as reality as a whole is a solid, real thing. Seeing emptiness takes the bite out of suffering and also dismantles the illusion of the self. Nothingness in Buddhism typically refers to a specific meditative absorption being the seventh in a series of eight meditative absorptions called jhana which are temporary states that reduce suffering and fabrication. The jhanas are seen as very central tools in Theravada Buddhism as they are wholesome states which provide a temporary refuge from the hindrances.