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Everything posted by OneHandClap
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OneHandClap replied to Terell Kirby's topic in Spirituality, Consciousness, Awakening, Mysticism, Meditation, God
There's two sides of the coin for "mystical insanity." One is beneficial and accentuates "normal life," and the other is destructive and unhinged (see Connor Murphy, or even Charles Manson for a more extreme example). There are plenty of enlightened people who are still able to play the social game and live with others properly, after all. Here, "losing one's mind" is a way of expressing the loss of conceptual frameworks and beliefs about reality. This can be profoundly liberating. Then there's the shadow side of losing one's marbles, in which one becomes completely dominated by new beliefs about reality, while simultaneously believing they are ascending higher and higher. At the end of the day, there is always freedom, but within the relative domain... having a psychotic break and spending the rest of your life being spoon-fed lithium and other tranquilizers is diametrically opposed to the outcome most of us want through liberation. If we're so "woke" that we're having trouble driving, working, or talking to our loved ones, we have gone too far. Time to back up and rebuild. Nobody wants Connor Murphys running amok. -
OneHandClap replied to Godishere's topic in Spirituality, Consciousness, Awakening, Mysticism, Meditation, God
All I can offer about this whole mahasamadi/void thing is that nothing bad can come of it. If it doesn't happen... voila, you're alive and back to normal human life. If it does happen and all of reality dissolves into infinite unity-bliss for the rest of eternity, well, shit, who are you to complain? No more need to pay taxes or get prostate checks -
OneHandClap replied to BipolarGrowth's topic in Spirituality, Consciousness, Awakening, Mysticism, Meditation, God
Yes, 0 to 1 is tough. Especially if we come at it with the "push hard" mentality. The surrender aspect is probably the fundamental skill for all jhanas, but once one gets it down, it seems to speed up until the phases you listed here. -
OneHandClap replied to herghly's topic in Spirituality, Consciousness, Awakening, Mysticism, Meditation, God
Like Shambhu, I've also been in contact with Lama Lena. Dzogchen has a lot of great practices. You could also read some of Chogyam Trungpa's books (guy was a bit nutty, but his writing is great). Smiling at Fear is probably his best-known work. Look into the practices of trekcho, mahamudra, and tonglen. The last is something you can do without any help, and the other two are quite easy to learn from a teacher. Tibetan Buddhism is also famous for its in-depth work with dream yoga, or dream meditation. -
OneHandClap replied to Gabith's topic in Spirituality, Consciousness, Awakening, Mysticism, Meditation, God
bruh I'm pretty sure this is the language those blue people spoke in Avatar, lol. Happy if it works for anybody but this is just positive affirmations with some nice-sounding "speaking in tongues" between the phrases. -
Agreed. Everyone here should watch Robert Sapolsky's talk on depression. It is very easy to label depression as a temporary thing that we can snap out of, but very few people understand that some people (not all, but some) are born with severe chemical deficiencies. We don't expect diabetics to stop taking insulin because it's something to "get over," so we shouldn't ask it of depression, either. Some people have perfect childhoods, exercise, eat well, and meditate, but still struggle with mental health.
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OneHandClap replied to Godishere's topic in Spirituality, Consciousness, Awakening, Mysticism, Meditation, God
Beautiful! I started with the gitas and loved them, but nowadays find a lot of solace in Dzogchen teachings and Buddhist methods in general. They're all just words anyway - points to reality itself. Many paths for many mind-streams. I am so grateful you found something that pulls you toward the Source. May all beings be happy -
OneHandClap replied to Godishere's topic in Spirituality, Consciousness, Awakening, Mysticism, Meditation, God
This correlates strongly with my own experience. At a certain point, I had to let go of God as a term. It was causing more suffering than alleviating it. Spent a long time hating on Buddhism for dismantling ideas about Hindu things such as Brahman, but at the bottom of the barrel, I understood why they phrased it that way. Trying to turn reality into an entity leads to infinite intellectualization. For some, it may be a great pointer ( @Moksha, you clearly are doing wonderfully with God as an anchor term), but for many others (such as myself) it can breed some fear. All depends on personal relationships with language and conditioning -
OneHandClap replied to Godishere's topic in Spirituality, Consciousness, Awakening, Mysticism, Meditation, God
One of the scariest experiences of my life was a moment of radical solipsism on LSD, and second to that was a similar thing on DXM. Total void. Nobody else. I was Jesus, I was my mother, I was Trump, I was Hitler, I was everything and everybody entertaining myself in the vast nothing. Shook me up for a good few months, made it hard to function like a normal person and go to work and all that. Then one day, I just realized that it doesn't fucking matter. At all. If you make the choice to love, all the questions disappear. The struggles cease. The answers are silent yet blindingly obvious. Love yourself, love others, love reality, love the absurdity. If you can learn to love hell, is it really hell? Anyway, these experiences were a definite reason I shifted from "all is God" to the things Flyboy is suggesting above - that is, the negation of all -isms. The primordial wisdom at the heart of Zen and Dzogchen. Nobody on the path, nowhere to go, nothing to attain. The great and boundless perfection. As long as we are clinging to any type of framework about reality/God/infinity, we are bound to suffer. True realization is beyond literally every conception and dualism we can apply (including being alone, existing, etc). -
I wish we managed to get further than that, but it's definitely still true in some sense, lol. There's a lot of shit in the modern day that is just updated in form from its past incarnations. We're still dealing with horrific abuses of power and questionable use of national funds. Granted, I would still not choose to yeet myself back into the past. As you mentioned, there was a lot of nasty stuff back in the day, even if we just skip back 80 years or so. Things are always going to be a mixture of shitty and wonderful. Happiness is always possible. But the real difficulty in accepting/loving being alive today is just detaching from all the needless stuff you have that occupies your attention and makes you unhappy. This choice is maybe harder than ever in an age of endless entertainment, but it's still a choice, not enslavement.
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No, beta blockers are mainly for heart health, but they have practically no side effects, unlike SSRIs (AKA antidepressants). Beta blockers are often used for public speaking or big events, but they can also stop a physical panic attack. By the way, I would tell her to take it very, very easy on the MDMA. She can really mess up her serotonin levels doing it more than once every few (2-3) months. I believe even the creator of MDMA said twice a year, or something to that effect. Maybe four times? I forget. But yeah, she should definitely not do it more than once in a blue moon.
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OneHandClap replied to Godishere's topic in Spirituality, Consciousness, Awakening, Mysticism, Meditation, God
Although I am more of a Buddhist slant than Hindu/Advaita (emptiness vs fullness, you know the drill Same thing anyway), I agree wholeheartedly with your stance here, and with the general push against solipsism. People are quick to take individual perception as belonging to God, who then becomes centered as themselves. Ergo, everyone is their imagination except themselves, since they are God. But God (or Self, or consciousness, or reality, or whatever term we want) is not bound by this stupid duality of One Real vs the Imagined, or One vs Many viewpoints. The Absolute transcends self and other, here and there, this or that. Neti neti. Believing that our body/perception alone is real is one step along the path for some, but definitely not the end. -
Honestly, I would not recommend psychedelics for stemming panic attacks. They are not good tools for preventing or stopping a mental tailspin if somebody is predisposed to anxiety. Occasional tripping can loosen anxiety/depression over time, but it's not a great first-line approach. There is a class of drugs called beta blockers that can be useful if their anxiety is mainly physical. Beta blockers are not addictive, not prone to overdoses, and have practically no side effects other than lowered blood pressure. They're really useful and better for the brain than something like benzos, for example. If your GF has consistent panic attacks, beta blockers may help to rewire the brain and deal with the anxious thoughts separated from physical stimuli.
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OneHandClap replied to Mz Hyde's topic in Spirituality, Consciousness, Awakening, Mysticism, Meditation, God
This is a good contemplation, and one that can lead to extremely profound states quickly. I've posted in other threads before, but an easy way to do this is to view each sensory field as "not me, not mine" and as a totally random happening that you cannot control. If you relax the need to modify the senses over and over, it will result in a loss of clinging, and subsequently a detachment from that sensory field. -
OneHandClap replied to BipolarGrowth's topic in Spirituality, Consciousness, Awakening, Mysticism, Meditation, God
Yes, this is precisely what I was trying to convey. Well put. I think many people are quick to "script" their experiences after reading about jhanas. Best to just do the practices until one can become proficient and stable in each jhana, IMO. -
OneHandClap replied to HypnoticMagician's topic in Spirituality, Consciousness, Awakening, Mysticism, Meditation, God
At this point, I have no idea what you're even trying to argue. Lol. AI is capable of sentience. -
OneHandClap replied to HypnoticMagician's topic in Spirituality, Consciousness, Awakening, Mysticism, Meditation, God
Okay, so we can call it whatever, then. An artificial person. A person. A robot. The terms don't matter; it's the metaphysical supposition that artificial beings can be as conscious (or more conscious) than organic ones. -
OneHandClap replied to HypnoticMagician's topic in Spirituality, Consciousness, Awakening, Mysticism, Meditation, God
You're correct. It comes about from a combination of matter and clinging (a very Buddhadharma approach). And I see no reason why an AI is incapable of that exact phenomenon. Also, why does an AI even need an ego? We have never been able to converse with intelligent beings other than humans about their experience of consciousness. For all we know, we could find aliens who are naturally enlightened and think we're all completely braindead for all our suffering. I doubt it, but it's possible in an infinite universe -
OneHandClap replied to HypnoticMagician's topic in Spirituality, Consciousness, Awakening, Mysticism, Meditation, God
"Bind an ego" What are you even on about? "Ego" is a naturally occurring construct as a result of clinging. Anything is capable of clinging. It sounds like you believe in a soul. -
Yeah, any video that seriously labels itself "EXPOSED" is a hard pass for me. These dudes make big money trying to sell people conspiracies. As for taking a third dose... maybe? It doesn't matter much to me. The vaccine didn't affect my life in any way other than letting me socialize without restrictions.
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OneHandClap replied to HypnoticMagician's topic in Spirituality, Consciousness, Awakening, Mysticism, Meditation, God
Anytime! Yes, him and I are probably quite divergent. He is a smart guy, and I like a few of his ideas, but obviously I disagree with his AI premise. My major point is this: if we believe other organic beings are sentient (that is, other humans are similar to us in terms of the capacity to have an inner life), then we should not rule out the idea that inorganic beings can also have an inner life. There is nothing particularly special about the chemical meat soup of the brain, IMO. If we could fully recreate it and its electrical activity with silicone, we might see a similar thing. So if we do believe humans have inner lives, we should also consider that machines may someday, too. The harm of treating a sentient being as a lump of metal would be far worse than the opposite. As far as the brain activity argument, I think that's because most brain activity is survival oriented. Monks who slow their brain activity through jhanas or whatever else are quite conscious, but they are not exactly in a position to draw up plans for a suspension bridge. Conversely, those who use a ton of brain power shrink their awareness at the cost of boosted calculations, yet still remain aware on some level. So I don't know if brain activity density is a good metric for assessing "inner worlds." -
OneHandClap replied to BipolarGrowth's topic in Spirituality, Consciousness, Awakening, Mysticism, Meditation, God
Yeah, it sounds like a lower jhana to me. It can take full-time monks years to hit 5, let alone 6. Take it slow, feel out each one, and try to practice sustaining them for long periods. It will help a lot with moving to the higher ones. -
OneHandClap replied to HypnoticMagician's topic in Spirituality, Consciousness, Awakening, Mysticism, Meditation, God
For the pee part, it's a non-starter. If we built a machine that needed to excrete fluids for survival, then yes, that machine would "pee." If we built an exact replica of a human being out of inorganic parts that did everything a human body does, it would also pee. And if we simulated every single electrical zap of a human brain, yes, I do believe we would have human-level consciousness in an artificial medium. I'm not a fan of Bernardo's content, so I don't find it very surprising that I disagree with his analysis here. Those who believe AI will not be able to develop sentience seem to be strongly attached to humans as the pinnacle of consciousness. They don't want to believe that a dumb, silly machine could ever be "more human" than them. There are dozens of other AI experts (not just computer engineers) who believe AI can and will be conscious. -
OneHandClap replied to BipolarGrowth's topic in Spirituality, Consciousness, Awakening, Mysticism, Meditation, God
When you reached the 5th jhana, how was your awareness of body? Typically there is zero perception of bodily sensations at that level. -
OneHandClap replied to HypnoticMagician's topic in Spirituality, Consciousness, Awakening, Mysticism, Meditation, God
What is the difference between artificial and organic? There isn't one. Awareness is awareness. You're just playing word games here. If we build a highly advanced program that suddenly gains an ability to recognize itself and the environment, then it is indeed a "conscious AI." Sure, we can call it a "person" if we like, but the fact remains that we are discussing the ability for an inorganic creature to have sentience.