spaghetti11

Based on my own experience of doing ayahuasca: One of the most important things when doing ayahuasca (and I guess this goes for all psychedelics) is to surrender to and accept the process, including throwing up. Wanting to control whether you throw up or not is probably going to be counterproductive for your session. Just try to let go of your resistance and accept the high likelihood that it might happen. The easiest way to throw up is to sit on your knees and bow forward with your head just above the bowl. Throwing up is also said to have some purification elements. After you're done throwing up you usually feel very calm/clear and ready to go deeper into your session. Regarding food: you should follow certain food restrictions starting around a week before you do the session. Be especially careful if you take any medication - there are contraindications with stuff like SSRIs/amphetamines and they should be completely avoided for weeks before the session. If the organizer of your retreat is not very clear about food/medication restrictions before the session, you might want to consider doing your retreat elsewhere. On the day itself ayahuasca is generally taken in the evening when it's dark, and you can have a (light) lunch and skip dinner. Hope this helps!

Just commenting on the quoted part of your post: Inflation does affect the lower classes more than the upper classes. People with a lot of money don't keep their net worth in cash, they have assets. Assets increase in "value" with inflation, so their buying power stays similar. Lower classes have most / all of their net worth in cash. With inflation, the prices in the supermarket / house prices etc will increase, but the people's wages don't increase (or at least not as much as inflation), therefore their buying power decreases.

Hello, The purpose of this post is to share my experience of RASA sessions with Ramaji. After reading the book “1000”, which had a lot of amazing info and insights, I was still a bit sceptical about the transmission part. When covid started, I decided to have another look into getting RASA (through Skype), as retreats etc were not really an option at that time. From reading reviews here on the actualized forum, I concluded that it was worth it to give it a try. In the comments on this forum, basically everyone who experienced RASA themselves said that it worked, while, if I remember correctly, most or all people who were against it did not have any experience with it. So apparently they reacted from their belief system about what enlightenment supposedly is and is not, and how it should or should not be “achieved”. I think that is actually a great metaphor for how a certain set of beliefs literally keeps the door closed for raising one’s consciousness, or for just experiencing something new/different. My intention is not to convince anyone that this is the best way to raise your consciousness or that everyone should do it. I would just like to add another “yes, it works” comment from someone who has direct experience with RASA sessions, and hopefully that helps people who are considering RASA to make an informed choice. My first session I started at 568, and about a year and 23 sessions later I was at 1000. The progression was very gradually for me (enneagram 5) – I did not have any major or sudden shifts. I started to notice stabilized differences after 700. While in the 600s I did have some periods of a few days where my consciousness/awareness was noticeably higher, but my baseline was not significantly different. In “The Religion of Tomorrow”, Ken Wilber suggests that more people may already be in the “subtle state” (which I guess is similar to 600s) than they realize. What keeps those people from noticing the subtle state it is the frequent involvement of the mind with modern technology, which keeps the mind on the foreground (unfortunately I didn’t mark the exact page where he says this, so I hope my interpretation of it is accurate). I guess this might be relevant to my experience of the 600s, as I spend most of my days in front of a computer screen. After 700s the different levels as described in the book "1000" were more distinct. Reaching 1000 also far from means that life is "finished" or something like that... Rather the opposite, as you will be less limited by (rigid) beliefs. Also, integration will take some time. About the sessions themselves: Ramaji is extremely humble and does not hold back with sharing personal experiences/stories. I didn’t really experience it as a teacher/student dynamic, but more like talking to a friend. He is also very generous with his time (every session went over the scheduled duration) and he makes sure to (try to) answer every question. Hopefully this review is helpful! Cheers PS (2 of) the other threads that I read were:

@Kalki Avatar Within a few days of the last RASA it became more and more apparent that whenever I look at something, I'm looking at my Self / through my Self, whereas before 1000 there is still a sense of a separate "me" "being one" with the environment. So it wasn't really instantaneously from one moment to the other. Everything being my Self is what I'm experiencing, which corresponds with the description of "1000", or the Absolute. What is also described is that there is no identification anymore with the I-thought. That part hasn't completely been the case for me yet, and I actually had a period of a couple of weeks, after my second-last and last session, where I had a lot of (sometimes overwhelming) thoughts running through my head. I expect that to become less and less as integration goes on (which could take up to 9-12 months after 1000). Regarding what's left to go: many things realizing that everything is the Self doesn't mean that sitting on your couch all day long eating popcorn is exactly as enjoyable as being out in nature for example. It is more like a sobering up and from there you can fill it in with things that are authentic, rather than doing things out of habit or should's / should not's. I guess there is no end to purification and deepening of your experience... I have also not experienced any psychic abilities or something like that, so one could still explore those things after 1000. You can basically explore in any direction you want. I guess the difference it that it doesn't come from a place of obsessive seeking.

Last year, after watching that documentary and reading the book "Earthing" (Ober, Sinatra, Zucker), I got myself a mat for under my desk and one for on my bed as well. My first experience was with the one under my desk, where I noticed pretty clearly a more relaxed feeling / deeper breaths, shortly after putting my feet on it. I probably had the same (noticeable) experience for a couple more times, but after some point I didn't really notice it anymore. With the one on my bed it was quite similar: when I lied down on bed I would feel more relaxed and noticed deeper breaths as well. After a couple of times I didn't notice it anymore either. Another observation was that around that time, I was experimenting with keto diet, and I would consistently get a rash shortly after I entered ketosis. When I was using the mats, this rash would appear more quickly after entering ketosis. Not sure what to make of that. I haven't used the mats now for a year or so. I did try the mat under my desk a few times this year, just to check if I would get the same effect, but it didn't come back (even after not using it for months). I know ~6 people who have tried it as well: 2-3 didn't notice anything, 3-4 noticed something in the beginning, but after that no noticeable effect anymore, just like me. Though I guess even if it's not noticeable there can be some benefits, but personally I tried quite a lot of things last year regarding biohacking etc, and at some point I decided to cut down on the never ending search of all the latest 'hacks'/tools/optimizations etc, and simplify my habits to only keep the more fundamental ones that don't necessarily need the newest tools and gadgets. Would be interested to hear your experiences after you've been using it for a month or so

For these topics the book Nonviolent Communication by Marshall Rosenberg is very powerful

I thought it might be interesting to make a booklist for novels that give a lively idea how it is to live in and/or be part of a certain culture. I'm not sure what a more accurate title would be, but besides novels I think memoirs/biographies could fit here as well, as long as it's from a personal perspective/experience, rather than a more "objective and dry" outsider view. I'll start off with these two: The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini -> Afghanistan (before and during the presence of the Taliban, dynamics between different groups of people within Afghanistan) Shantaram - Gregory David Roberts -> India