taotemu

How does enlightenment / self-realization manifest in the finite human perspective? How can we determine if someone is enlightened or not from the "outside"? How do we know if a guru or master is enlightened or not? The words they use? How they live? What they do?

My advice is to NOT take 5MeO-DMT. Your psyche is too unstable and the results could be catastrophic. Don't look for a quick fix of your problems, but work on eating well, sleeping well and getting exercise. Make your life as simple as possible.

Wow! Awesome report. LSD is powerful medicine and cannabis does seem to work synergistically with it in powerful ways. I have mixed the two only once but I didn't experience anything like you shared. But I can appreciate how it takes the come down from the LSD trip (8 hours in) and launches it into a whole other space that neither drug can do alone. Perhaps my next trip I'll be more deliberate about it and combine the two before I move into solitude to help focus consciousness.

Fair enough. I don't know the man, and as you point out, I haven't studied his work in depth. I get that this is advanced stuff. I wouldn't even consider putting in this much time otherwise. But when a few weeks into learning about him and his teachings red flags are popping up all over the place I don't see much point in diving deeper. I'm open to being proven wrong about Leo, but based on my less than a month being active here I keep looking for reasons to stay. I've gotten some great insight from other members here and my ego has enjoyed the banter and debate. Is that enough to stick around? We shall see.

This is a profound sign of growth. Probably something to be celebrated. I don't consider Leo to be my spiritual teacher at all. He is my 5MeO teacher and that is why I first came to Actualized.org. It is a drug I had never taken but wanted to. I was looking for someone who had a lot more experience and Leo sure fit that bill. I was intrigued by him and what he had to say at first. I have watched a few of his videos and have interacted with him here and frankly I'm not impressed. I get that he has helped many people. I guess I'm just in a different place. I get the impression that most of his students are much younger. I'm 55 years old and have been doing spiritual work since I was 15. I have worked face to face with masters and Leo just isn't there yet. He just simply lacks maturity, wisdom and integration. The stuff that takes decades to really get. There are reasons that most masters are 50 + years old. His over confidence and narcissism are major liabilities to his future. There are no shortcuts. Not even 5MeO-DMT. Beware of unearned wisdom folks.

Speaking from experience, I believe that Leo has way overdone psychedelics. It has created an ungrounded delusional state. He reminds me of Donald Trump. Tons of confidence, charisma, bravado and simple one phrase answers to complex issues. And the non-critically thinking people around him (on line) just accept it and follow him because he states things with such confidence and confirms their existing bias. So much about him just screams of narcissism. He can't see it of course, because he is convinced that he is right. Also the idea that he claims to know more than the masters... "I know more than the Generals" and "I alone can fix it". Yet where is the evidence? Does Leo offer in person lectures or retreats? Does anyone know if he isn't just some lonely millennial living in a basement in Las Vegas tripping on drugs and turning it into an online business? Leo displays none of the qualities of an enlightened master except insight. He takes himself way too seriously. He shows no humility. No grace. No compassion. He admits to being dependent on drugs for his "enlightenment". It is a very fragile state. At some point something will humble him. Arrogance like his always attracts tragedy eventually. I hope it doesn't destroy him because I do think he has a lot to offer the world once he can integrate and ground his insights and experiences.

@Flyboy @dearleo123 Nothing you can say and do will get through. You have to recognize what you are dealing with in Leo. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narcissistic_personality_disorder

I agree. But we can learn from anyone, that doesn't mean they are spiritually enlightened. Ok, so how does that deep understanding manifest in the world? How can another person get that someone has a deep understanding?

Based on what may I ask? So the only way to the highest levels of consciousness is with 5MeO? But I thought psychedelics weren't real. It is all a dream. When you realize that consciousness is right here and right now, you stop looking for levels. THIS is it. There are no freaking levels. That is just a story built by your ego. Consciousness is immediate, eternal presence. The best psychedelics can do is light a candle so you can recognize fire. Once you can recognize it you don't mistake the candle for the Sun.

How do we trust that the experiences and feelings under the influence of psychedelics are real? I know they feel very real. I know they are powerful and amazing. I know they can be profoundly loving and positive. But to me it seems a bit of a leap to build a whole metaphysics around a drugged state of mind.

@Christoph Werner My one trip on 5MeO has basically "cured" me of my desire to take any more psychedelics. I won't go so far to say I'll never take them again. However, my experience showed me that I was basically chasing something that is already right here and right now. I realized that it was all ego. Wanting to achieve something or experience something. Transcendence.... God realization... call it what you want. But the joke is that it isn't someplace else. It isn't some psychedelic experience away. Just stop chasing. Get quiet. Stop striving. It will come to you. You will wake up to it without effort if you can quiet the ego enough. And paradoxically enough, it was my use of LSD that showed me how. But now I don't feel much calling for it.

Not quite. I'm aware of the Void. I'm a student of Taoism and so "objective reality" is fuzzy at best. The ego lives in the world of dualism and the "ten thousand things". I guess what I am looking to avoid is the nihilism that the ego generates in the face of nothingness. Because I recognize the paradox that from nothingness arrives the world. Yet the void of nothingness is absolute love. Impossible to describe with words of course. But experiencing it, it becomes self evident. Damn. Got me there. LOL

Agreed. But the only way we know this is based on his behavior.

I agree. I live on the fringe of consensus reality already. Of course survival is a big deal to the egoic self. Nothing wrong with that as long as there is not an unhealthy identification to it. I love that Joseph Campbell quote! So very true. But the difference between madness and mysticism is how well one can swim. One drowns, while the other swims.

Truth is Truth. But realization of the Truth and integration of the Truth is ALL about behavior. Hitler may have had consciousness of the Truth, but it doesn't mean a thing if that realization isn't reflected in his behavior. Truth will be Truth regardless if we are conscious of it or not. But consciousness of it makes all the difference in how we live our lives. If not, then there is no point to any of this work. Just go out and live your life and quit worrying about anything outside of materialism and ego.

LOL, again with the projection. Follow your own advice and open your mind. You think you are conscious of "Truth", yet based on the videos of yours I have watched and your behavior here I don't see it. I suppose you could say the same thing about me, and that would be fair. This isn't my first rodeo however. After 45 years of spiritual work and many direct and powerful experiences and realizations of the divine I can recognize the Truth from BS. I am still a work in progress and make no claims to being enlightened or more conscious than anyone else. I am completely open to learning from those who have a greater spiritual mastery than I do. That is what brought me here. I am open to learning from you and the others here. But don't expect me to just swallow BS that has not been thought through or integrated properly. I'm not interested in learning spiritual insights from someone who is blind to their delusions and dangerous narcissism. I'm not fully integrated with some of my spiritual and psychedelic experiences, which is probably why I recognize it in you. I'm your mirror, and you are mine. Perhaps the biggest difference between us is I recognize it and you don't. You have all the answers, you have full consciousness and realization of the Truth beyond the Buddha and Jesus or anyone else. Nobody can teach you anything. That is a spiritual dead end. That is pure ego.

Good luck with that. It is grounding that separates a spiritual master from a kid tripping. If you don't care about grounding, just go live in a cave and trip out on 5MeO all day.

This is an interesting perspective. I suppose with the perfect use of psychedelics this could be the case. My concern would be those cases where the trip sends people into delusional insanity. It can happen and it largely is determined by the state of the mind and the ego strength of the user before the drug. Ego strength is not necessarily a bad thing by the way. It allows us to navigate consensus reality with some skill. Make money, be a good person, raise kids, make the world a little bit better. The problem with the ego is about over identification. In my own experience with psychedelics the experiences were more akin to dreams. Something that can be deeply meaningful, insightful and can seem very, very real, but not something to be taken as "true" in a more literal sense.

Leo you make no sense. If the psychedelic is imaginary then why do you say the only way people can understand your teaching is to take them? You could touch far more people if you could actually integrate your experiences. It is clear you are ungrounded. You call it "materialism" as a way of dismissing criticism. I am NOT a materialist. But I do get the nuance of the appearance of the material world that we are operating in with this discussion. You think in black and white. Huge red flag that you haven't understood what has been revealed to you. How is your mind open? You project so much. Empty your cup my friend. Thinking you are superior to everyone else just causes separation and makes any further growth impossible, not to mention completely contrary to everything psychedelics and spiritual work has revealed to me.

Ah, thank you for this. I tend to agree. As Jesus said, you will know it by their fruits. Yes. I agree completely with this. That has been the value of psychedelics in my life for sure. I tend to feel more grounded, more loving, more compassionate in my day to day life. I don't take myself as seriously and I feel more available and present to the other people in my life. I don't make any claims about being enlightened or that I will become some kind of superior being... Just chopping wood and carrying water. Ordinary life lived with mindfulness and intention. Anything beyond that is just ego I think.

I have experienced profound ego death on LSD. I know very well what you are talking about. I'm not at all suggesting that psychedelics can't be a powerful tool in spiritual work. I am however suggesting that having an ego death experience or an opening of consciousness does not make someone enlightened. I have experienced the difference, and taking more psychedelics won't help. My problem is in how these experiences get interpreted by the ego after, and then how they get integrated by the sober mind in ordinary life. This is nothing new. Sages and seers have struggled with the integration of these experiences for eons. This isn't easy stuff, I get that.

Things that exist, exist. This is a tautology. Just like saying, "Things that are white are white". It is a sentence that adds nothing to understanding or meaning. What is real is real. Nobody would argue otherwise. So when someone says, "A psychotics experience is just as real as a normal person", it only confuses things to say this statement is true. If what you mean is that the psychotics experience is being experienced, that is a true statement. If, however, you use ordinary language, this is clearly NOT true. Call it Absolute vs. Relative if you like but it only adds to confusion. This a HUGE problem and why how we use language is so important when talking about anything that is outside of common experience. It is a kind of laziness turned into ego games of one-upmanship. Or it is a sign of someone who has not fully integrated their experience. So when I asked the original question, everyone understood what I was asking. How can we trust the psychedelic experience? And then I get answers using tautology, that is useless. An honest answer might be, "How can we trust ANY experience?", or "The psychedelic experience is outside the reach of language itself and so it is just something one must experience first hand to understand", or "The only useful measurement of their reality is through their utility." Those are more useful answers. But what happened on this thread is BS language games. To me it shows a lack of real understanding and in the case Leo, a complete lack of integration, which flies in the face of what he actually claims about his own level of consciousness. Integrated experiences have had time for the person to formulate language around. Leo is clearly a very intelligent and articulate man. So, what Leo is doing is more akin to gaslighting. I asked the original question because I do not see any application of critical thinking when it comes to psychedelic experiences. They are just accepted as "real". Arguing that they are real in the "absolute" sense is undeniable and worse than useless, because it only creates confusion. Are they accurate representations of "Reality"? Can we trust "enlightenment" achieved in a drugged state? These should be important questions, and I don't see anyone asking them. Just blind acceptance of confirmation bias or perhaps it is a case of Dunning-Kruger effect in the case of Leo. He is a neophyte playing enlightened sage. Anyone who has actually done a lot of work in these areas can likely see it.

@Leo Gura Thanks for showing me the level of your actualization. It is clear you are out of your league here. You have had some profound insights and then jumped into teaching them without the maturity or time to fully integrate them into your life or really spend the time to understand what they actually mean. I recognize you now. You are teaching what you are trying to learn yourself. I've seen this before. I've done this before. I've been doing spiritual work longer than you have been alive. It is clear to me now that you are embroiled in ego and duality and it flies in the face of what you teach, and likely what you have actually experienced. I suppose I needed to see it for myself. I like to give people the benefit of the doubt. But your critics are right about you. You are just a guy who took a shit ton of psychedelics, chasing enlightenment, parrot other masters and are now trapped in a messiah complex. However, you have only had drug experiences. Beware of unearned wisdom. This is dangerous stuff because you are not grounded. You are in a fragile state. You project on to me and you don't even see it. You have no idea who I am or what I know. I just hope you are able to integrate and ground your experiences because you do have a lot to offer the world once you are able to do so.

I can certainly see this. Language games. Wittgenstein deconstructed all of Western Philosophy by recognizing how language is used to create philosophical confusion. It seems the only honest thing to say about this topic is that language can not possibly grasp the psychedelic experience. It is beyond Truth and Falsehood. I'm OK with the mystery. Utility is probably the only objective measure of their effects.

I have no doubt that my experience is delusional. That is the whole point I'm trying to make. How can we best dissolve delusion? I completely reject the notion that all experience is Absolute Truth. The pure subjective is NOT Absolute Truth. It is true that the experience is being experienced if that is what you mean. But that is useless in any honest investigation or seeking of Truth. I am lost in my own mind. As are you. As are we all. But that fact isn't helpful in dispelling delusion. We can't escape mind... Well I suppose we can in ego death. But there is no metaphysics there. Truth may be naked to pure consciousness. Great. Now what, once we are back into the world of ego, time and space? Building a metaphysics around this experience is absurd. The Tao that can be spoken of is not the eternal Tao. Whereof we can not speak, thereof we must be silent. Quit trying to build metaphysics around experiences beyond language time and space. Again, I grant you that all experiences are real in that they are being experienced. What they represent is the world we live in. A schizophrenics experience of life is their experience, clearly. That is a tautology. However, their experience is not an accurate reflection of the underlying reality. Not to acknowledge this is a huge problem. Well, that is pretty arrogant. I understand very well what I am talking about. Perhaps you are projecting onto me your own confusion? There is SO much nuance and layers to this idea of everything being a dream. Certainly this holds true in Hindu and Buddhist mythology. But within the dream is delusion. The dream has it's own structure, rules and laws (physics). This isn't OUR dream. It is the dream of Brahman, or God. To just say it is all a dream implies that within the dream everything is up for grabs and there is no order or structure, which is clearly not the case. Delusion exists. You made it pretty clear that you think I'm delusional. How can you reconcile that statement with the fact that my experience is Absolutely True?