The0Self

Considering only 19% of the country wants abortion completely illegal, and 20 states are about to completely ban it, I'd say this could be the democrats' saving grace... As horrible as it will temporarily be for women. And humanity.

Sure. I remember a phase like that. 24/7 I was just constantly automatically inquiring "What IS everything?"

If it's finite then it is by definition subsumed by the infinite.

Yes and I in fact do. Doesn't mean I accept their actions as perfectly okay in society -- that would likely be a sort of spiritual bypassing or denial.

Sure, but then some awakenings are abiding and some are not. So there's still that distinction. I don't mean the abidance of a transcendent state of consciousness. I mean an abiding shift in what you take yourself to be i.e. not the abidance of a state or experience.

Obviously.

It can be useful to distinguish between Spirit (or Presence, or Truth) and Mind. Everything is only one thing, but without other and thus is not a thing (not a thing in itself, separate from other things), and we could call this Spirit. Mind could be essentially synonymized with thought. Sounds like a pointless distinction... until you realize that Spirit is the one thing that can't be thought of. So what is Spirit? Whatever can't be thought of. Whatever can't be described. It's here now. It is that which is the case.

That certainly describes an awakening experience (enlightenment experience; what Culadasa would call an "insight experience," for reference). I think the most useful way to define an awakening is this... Awakening = an irreversible (permanent; abiding) shift in perception, on the level of identity (what you take yourself to be). By this construct, not all awakening experiences are awakenings, but all awakenings are associated with awakening experiences, even though an awakening is not an experience.

@EmptyInside Glad you liked 'em!

Yeah I was giving him the benefit of the doubt. That is until he outright said he thinks homosexuality and rape are both bad lol. But he was just being honest. We have to start somewhere. Could just be a blind spot he has, or typical SD stage blue-orange progression.

Nice. Well, that's what this work is all about. Bad, and bad for society, are different though. Ultimately, nothing is bad. But pedophilia is clearly bad for society, while it's much harder to make that case for homosexuality. But homosexuality being bad on some level is baked into pretty much any straight guy, until it isn't. I lucked out by never being outwardly homophobic, but like any straight guy I unknowingly had inward homophobia. I just imagined myself having gay sex until it no longer induced disgust -- a nice open mindedness exercise... it won't make you gay unless you were already gay. If anything it made me more straight lol.

It's hard to really compare what it's like now to what it was like, because I can barely even remember. 1. Ongoing perceptual filters create the sense that you're separate from everything. 2. It is possible to live without that. All preconceived notions of awakening were incorrect. I thought I'd be propelled through life by some divine force without any effort and choices would no longer be possible because free will would collapse. Choices still happen, but no one does them. And it's not like I lost the ability to make choices -- every time I thought I consciously made a choice, that was actually just a thought, so I as a finite identity never had the ability to choose, only since there is no real finite identity in the first place. What I used to call "my choice" is now seen as obviously not different from the entire universe. So shame and guilt no longer happen, at least not in the same way -- the usual sense of "could've done otherwise" is completely gone. It's not a loss of function, but a freeing-up.

@DrugsBunny I stand corrected... That's fine. But why do you consider homosexuality bad?

Maybe. But you could just be reading something negative out of that. For instance, if one is straight, even if not (outwardly) homophobic, they still might have the same level of disgust over themselves partaking in homosexual acts (inward homophobia), as the disgust over themselves partaking in murder -- because both are simply unnatural for their character. If one has this disgust, they have to start somewhere -- imagining oneself having gay sex until it no longer disgusts them is probably a good way to relax inward homophobia, and the only ones who would be afraid to do this are probably homophobic (perhaps even closeted) in some way. Obviously they aren't in the same moral category, but "moral" is obviously not the only category there is. The rapist is simply playing the role of the rapist. If there was no trouble to solve, everyone would be bored out of their minds. Obviously if you understand God, you probably aren't gonna be the rapist, but it's simply a role -- plays a part in the play of God.

@Preety_India My ex gf wasn't diagnosed (at least she didn't tell me, and I didn't ask) but I'm reasonably certain she has BPD -- and she often mentioned something along the lines of "most people don't understand how problematic personality disorders are," as if she had some kind of information she was hinting at, whether intentionally or otherwise. She was a great person. Had to break it off though, primarily because of escalating unfounded jealousy on her part. I'm fine with jealousy, but when your girlfriend gives you a dirty look and you immediately know it's because we must have just walked past another attractive woman and gf is (angrily) accusing you of being attracted to that woman... for the tenth time... That's just too much. I loved her authenticity, but whenever she was angry she'd pretend she wasn't angry (and then she'd apologize later) -- so she lost control from time to time. It was a good relationship though and it ended pretty well. We were on good terms for a long while after (and still technically are) but we ended up just not talking (it's been years), since the physical chemistry between us was way too strong and we'd often just end up sleeping together, again and again, despite resolving not to... She was a Scorpio, if that means anything to you . She was really into astrology. BPD is sometimes constructed as "pathological vulnerable narcissism." Vulnerable narcissism is completely different (practically opposite) from what "narcissism" usually refers to though (grandiose narcissism). "Pathological grandiose narcissism" is NPD, which is practically the opposite of BPD. So I'm not calling you a narcissist, as it's commonly constructed -- actually the opposite.

It would still be an assumption that a particular finite God is trustworthy. But if we're talking about an infinite God then obviously we can't say anything about it because it's by definition all there is. The wager is just one of the ego's games. It totally glides over the exactly equally possible scenario of the opposite being true. But if the ego can believe it to feel more comfortable, it will do so.

It could just be related to spiritual practice. If it is on one side only, that could be a neurological issue, but if it's just basically like a background sound, that's just how reality actually is. Most people just don't notice it. Ignoring it is probably the best way to deal with it but that's just a guess -- I don't know how it is for you. If it actually feels like a single high pitched tone, that's likely an eardrum perforation but could be neurological. If it sounds like white noise then, while it could be neurological tinnitus, it could just be the sound of silence (the nada sound), which just seems to come with the territory of spiritual practice and psychedelic use, in my experience.

He is. You've inspired me to make a post about him on High Consciousness Resources.

Now that he is deceased, I'm surprised his identity has not yet been revealed.

Cheers

Perhaps keep in mind that all existential questions ultimately aren't real questions, but veiled declarations. For example: Why is there something rather than nothing? The question essentially assumes there is a real difference between something and nothing. "Your experience" is reality as it is, appearing as it isn't. Endlessly pondering these questions is not what actually answers them. Even meditation itself can be mere bliss-consumption and not conducive to answers. Keep staying where the rubber meets the road, once you find that -- perhaps via meditation, then investigation (or noting) meditation, then inquiry into what you know absolutely for sure / how you might actually not know what you thought you knew for sure. Any awakening that happened in the past, and isn't here now, can be said to be incomplete. Let's define "an awakening" just to be sure what we mean here. An awakening = an irreversible shift in perception, on the level of identity (what you take yourself to be). The true nature of your self, and the cosmos, is exactly synonymous.

^^^ Definitely. @iboughtleosbooklist Jim, Tony, Kenneth, Andreas, Ariana, Tim, Richard, etc do in fact transmit nondual realization. However, not only is that not as far as enlightenment goes, but for most seekers, actually hearing the message by just consuming (let’s call a spade a spade) nonduality meetings is like winning the lottery... and even if that happens it is frankly a long, long way from enlightenment. Don’t pretend the ball isn’t in your court. Whatever you think nonduality (and enlightenment) is about, it’s not about that — it is utterly beyond anything conceivable. Probably the most common mis-hearing (understandably) of the nondual message is “there’s nothing to do and nowhere to go” which is simply not true. When nonduality is recognized, identity is over (it has finality to it, unlike basically any other awakenings) — the experiencer apart from reality stops happening. It’s not that choices don’t happen anymore, it’s that there’s no chooser (or material universe) separate from choices. Saying anything about this is still just a story though. But waking up goes so far beyond nonduality, even though nonduality has finality to it. Paradoxically. As soon as you authentically want to wake up... you don’t need to read or watch or listen to anything ever again — you’ll have everything you need right here. Perhaps find a real teacher — one that you resonate with — such as Adyashanti or Angelo Dillulo MD.

Yeah anything above 70-80mg is amazing, but the hole kicks in at a little over 140mg with me, so yeah Lilly's 150mg bottom range makes sense! Perhaps an extremely brief (momentary) k hole peak with a little less (maybe 125mg), but holing for any length of time takes 140-170+ mg, in my experience. As far as extending the peak duration with higher doses... I'll illustrate, with basic pharmacology, the extent to which that is the case: 1. both r and s (and racemic) ketamine are very short acting and rapidly cleared -- 30 minute half life. 2. it has an intranasal tmax (time to peak concentration) of 15 minutes. Therefore, if you took exactly double the amount of ketamine required to very briefly (momentarily) k-hole at the peak (as in took around 125x2=250mg), you would be coming out of the k hole right at 15+30= T+45min. I've gone over 200mg in one dose and the hole still never lasted up to the 60 minute mark post-dose. Used 400mg in a sitting once, purposely avoiding actually falling into the hole or completely losing bodily control, while getting as close as possible -- extremely hard non-holing trip that lasted a few hours. For shits and giggles, if you took quadruple the dose that would theoretically give a momentary k hole peak, 125x4= 500mg (NOBODY EVER TAKE THAT ALL AT ONCE , as if it would even be possible to absorb that much intranasally all at once... and you wouldn't be able to spread it out since you'd be incapacitated), you would be coming out of the k hole right at 15+30+30= 75 minutes. One additional half life (30 minutes) worth of duration per each doubling of the dose. Maybe some got stuck on a dry spot of your nasal lining and absorbed later? Lol that would be unheard of though. Perhaps a significant amount of the drip was absorbed orally -- that may be what happened as it would have a longer duration than IN, and especially long if gastric emptying was slowed due to recent food intake... <-- If you laid down on your back right away, that could have easily happened -- you always want to keep your head leaning slightly forward after IN administration for as long as is safe (before you must lie down lest you risk injury). If there was still complete lack of possession and control over your completely-still-and-incapacitated material body past the 60 minute mark... I would highly doubt whether it was ketamine... But beyond 2 hours of clock-time?....... If the whole dose was insufflated in one go (or at least within ~10 minutes) I would bet it was a longer acting ketamine derivative -- DCK has been really common, especially around half a decade ago. Unless you have some kind of genetic modulation of how you process ketamine, or had taken something that interferes with its clearance. 140+ mg definitely can be quite a harrowing reset. I usually only took around 40-100mg (intranasally). Though I did k hole several times with well over 140mg. Sometimes 400mg in a sitting, but over the course of a few hours, certainly not all at once. 70-100mg is a nice dose for insight, without quite the craziness and potential danger of k holing (140-200+ mg) -- though you still need to lie down... after a significant amount of the stuff absorbs of course (for >2-5 minutes or as long as is safe) while sitting up first with head angled slightly forward or straight (if head is angled back, it drips to your stomach real quick). Before I got into spirituality, the k hole was completely different to how it presents now. It was like an alien astral projection world with divine entities then, but now (as of a year ago) it's completely indescribable -- infinite; timeless.

Repost it (or rewrite it) while taking the feedback into consideration maybe. Sounds like a valuable contribution.