taotemu

I have not watched the video yet, but I wanted to comment. Suicide is an unfortunate failure of the mind over the body. Not in some moralistic way, but in that we are all built with self-preservation and that even when life is difficult and painful we fight to stay alive. Sometimes we can be convinced that death is superior to life. Death is a part of life. It is the other side of the coin of life. It isn't something to shun or embrace. It just is, and when the time comes we will all encounter it. Trying to escape life just to be back with Unity with all and pure love misses the point of life. Most people who have had a near death experience have no fear of death or dying, but also realize that this life is why we are human. To experience this life, not prematurely move on. That being said, I am not against euthanasia or even suicide in some extreme situations. Terminal illness with no hope of recovery with debilitating pain and no quality of life. Sure, let me check out. But thinking I will somehow be better off dead just because I'm depressed or facing challenges in life? No.

For me the come up felt like I was dying. I had a sensation of a tremendous flow of energy from my pelvis up into my head. I felt like I couldn't breathe even though I was in fact hyperventilating. The last thing remember was almost like the feeling of falling. It caused a sense of panic and disorientation. I was then "gone" for about 10 minutes. No sensations or experiences of any kind. I didn't exist. My next memories were holding onto my wife's face, desperate for some kind of anchor to orient towards. I had no idea who or what I was, I had no memories of a past, where I was or that I was even a human. Kind of like I was just teleported to this reality without any instructions or knowledge of anything. Slowly I became oriented again and I remembered who I was and that I had just taken a drug. The come down felt like an intense LSD experience where everything looked bright and colorful and every sensation was 10/10 intense. This lasted only 10 - 15 minutes and I was basically back to "normal". About 30 minutes later I started to cry from gratitude that I was back.

Of course nobody knows for sure because the only people we can actually ask are alive. Only those who have clinically died and been revived have a glimpse into what may happen. The theme of near death experiences are almost completely universal, which makes them all the more interesting. Of course skeptics will talk about how these experiences are just a brain reaction to the stress of dying. So it is impossible to know for sure. After all the work I have done, I can honestly say I have absolutely no fear of death no matter what happens. Zero. I love life, and don't want to die but when it is my time, I'm good to go. Having an ego death experience isn't the same as a near death experience, but the realization is still that there is nothing to fear about no longer being you. In fact if "feels" liberating. If death is everything that makes up me stops existing, why be afraid of that because I have no memory of existing before I was born? If death is a kind of transition back into the oneness of the divine (what I personally believe), nothing to fear there. If I somehow have a soul that carries my personality and memories of this life into the next life, nothing to fear there. So I have covered my bets and there is nothing to fear. Of course for a fundamentalist Christian who believes in eternal damnation, there might be fear. I don't know much, but I do know there is no such thing as hell as some place our souls are tortured forever. The is a belief created by people to control other people. One area where psychedelics have been shown to really help is with death anxiety for the terminally ill.

So the motivation is the experience / feeling of amazement? Nothing wrong with that, but for me that isn't what it is about. It is about being fully conscious and mindful of THIS moment. And at this moment I am amazed I am experiencing colors, textures and an egoitc mind directing fingers to type on a computer. I am conscious of a desire to appear smart and a desire to learn more. To me THAT is the "goal" of spiritual exploration. Mindfulness. No need to transcend anything. No need to go deeper into what we are. Just be here, fully and completely in THIS moment. Maybe it is the same thing you are talking about and the clumsiness of language is in the way.

@ROOBIO Just respect this drug. I didn't vomit or even get nauseous so each experience is different. Smoking freebase is the most intense way of taking it. It comes on like a nuclear bomb. Plugging the salt or snorting the salt may be more manageable. But for high dose freebase 5MeO smoked, just imagine taking 300ug of pure LSD and condense the whole 12 hour experience into about 10 minutes. That's 5MeO. Also, keep in mind I have only had one experience with this drug. Now that I have a whole new respect for it, if I try it again it will be MUCH lower dose. Oh, and regarding breathing, it wasn't an issue for me. I was hyperventilating (according to my trip sitter), but I FELT like I couldn't breathe. Probably a brain reaction to the feeling of dying.

This isn't my first rodeo. I'm not new to transcendence, psychedelics or working with "the void". My 5MeO experience was not about "the void" for me. It was about being so severely out of it I basically blacked out. I was chasing something. What thought I was chasing was ego death and oneness with the Absolute. What I got was a drug induced spanking and my only realization was that I was chasing an escape from being human, but the whole point of being human is to be human. If doing all this spiritual work does not manifest in your life, in maya, in the human realm of duality, time, space and ego, then what is the point? If all you want is to have a perpetual bliss of divine love etc, just kill yourself, take psychedelics everyday or go meditate in a cave someplace for the rest of your life. But then suicide and chronic drug use and decades of isolation are all just attempts to escape being human. Why not just embrace it? Be fully present and mindful / conscious of each moment AS a human? Why focus so much on transcendence? What are you trying to transcend, and why? Don't get me wrong. I'm not suggesting that occasional experiences of transcendence, divine love, unity with all time and space etc. isn't worth pursuing. My realization is that these experiences are not what this life is about. For occasional use only. We need to stay grounded and integrate these experiences with the here and now of human experience. Otherwise it is spiritual narcissism and can lead to losing touch with this reality, psychosis and even suicide. Be here now people!

Perhaps. The realization for me however was that this experience of being a human being, bound in time and space and illusion IS the reason we are having this experience of being human. This consensus realty we all experience may be the true hallucination, we are still having it. While it can have some value to peer beyond the veil to see maya for what it is, the purpose of being alive as a human is to experience being human, not flirt with nothingness. If you really think that a perpetual experience of Nothingness / God / Absolute truth is the goal, then suicide is likely the best option. But that is not why we are having a human experience. It is to live our lives, have experiences (both good and bad) within the relative matrix, share love and human connection and to value the beauty of this experience of being alive. There will be plenty of time for Eternity when we surrender back into the Void. But can you cook your dinner? Can you protect a hurt child? Can you make this worldly experience better for those around you? If not, then spirituality is really just narcissistic escapism. Being fully present and conscious in the ordinary is the goal of a spiritual practice IMO. Holding the hand of a dying loved one and letting the experience totally in, working on helping society and the Earth be better for everyone is the goal. Not experience transcendent states, live in bliss all the time or preach about solipsism, nihilism and spiritual narcissism.

I loved that episode of Family Guy. I have had some bad trips, and this cartoon captures the feel of it brilliantly, in my experience at least the visuals were never that bad. If you are not psychologically prepared for the possibility of such and experience, then psychedelics aren't for you. Oh, and at least in my experience, blissful beautiful experiences out number bad experiences 10 to 1.

When we are traumatized as a child (even sometimes as an adult), we lack any maturity or capacity to deal with it. The psychological energy of the trauma is then sequestered into the unconscious so we can continue to function in the world. When something happens that brings those traumas back into our awareness, be it therapy, a trigger or anything else, we will revert back into that energy. It is an opportunity, from the safety of the more mature ego, to digest and integrate the experience. It is hard work. But the alternative is a lifetime of neurosis, because that energy isn't going anywhere. Just know shadow work takes time. It won't shift overnight and the outcome of processing through the experience may not look like what you think. But it is a journey worth taking. Now it is also possible to transcend the trauma, but in my opinion that can't happen until it is made conscious, which brings us back to shadow work.

This. But, clearly psychedelics can be abused. When I first took 5g of mushrooms I had the most profound spiritual experience of my life. I fell into a deep sense of oneness and bliss. It was absolutely amazing and beyond words. I felt the afterglow for 3 - 4 days after. I felt "enlightened". Then it wore off and a week or two later took 7g wanting to get back to that state. My 7g experience was pure physical pain. I felt poisoned and was afraid I was going to die. I felt like I needed to vomit but the cramping was so bad I couldn't. I did much lower doses months after that and every time got severe nausea and vomiting. Last time was about a year ago, and on only 2g violently spent the entire trip throwing up. I apparently developed an allergy to them. LSD is different for me. I get profound insights and euphoria most trips with little to no nausea. But after my mushroom experience, I no longer have a desire to chase that next high. I do psychedelics 2 - 3 times a year now because I see how possible it would be to abuse them. My one 5MeO experience wasn't something I would desire to repeat anytime soon. It was just too much. I felt like I died and then came back. It didn't feel spiritual at all. It was just shit. I was SO grateful to be back, the only insight I got from the experience was that THIS life is "IT" and WTF was I chasing? I am now working on integrating that experience into my day to day life. I have basically lost my desire to do psychedelics again. I may revisit it again at some point, but from my new outlook on them, they don't have a strong pull anymore. So I totally get Endangered-EGOs concern about psychedelics. They are unlikely to cause any serious physical harm, but for some people they can really screw with them psychologically. If you have any signs of psychosis sober, then stay away from them like the plague. They are not a magic fix to the problems of humanity. They are not a cheat to gain enlightenment. At the very best, they can show you what consciousness is capable of for a few hours. It can give you a target to shoot for while sober. That is it. Taking them more than a few times a year, I would consider abusing them IMO and experience.

@Blackhawk I really doesn't matter what you do. It isn't about doing. I'm just giving suggestions for things that may help quiet your mind. The only impediment to enlightenment is our mind. A clear quiet mind is usually more likely to be aware of what is real, without being distracted by thoughts of past or future than a chaotic mind which is why meditation is often done. I had an enlightened experience once while driving in traffic. I was late and the cars were barely moving. I could feel the anger and frustration building in my body. Then I happened to look up at a power line where some birds were just hanging out watching all the stupid humans in their cars creep along. In a flash I realized how ridiculous all my stress was and I started to laugh. A sudden wave of peace washed over me and I felt fully and completely present in that moment. Of course that feeling wasn't enlightenment, but the perspective was. In that moment I had no problems. Not because my ego didn't have any problems... I was late and in traffic. I was still hot, my body still felt stress and my ego was still frustrated. But an awareness came over me that was "above" all that. But in reality there was nothing but the beauty of being alive. Of course that state didn't last for me, but it was a window into what was really true vs. my stories about things. I couldn't have "achieved" that state by the force of my will. It was more like grace. It came to me without me even trying. When it happens it is very much like a fish realizing it is in water. It is always there. There is nothing to do but realize it. @Carl-Richard I disagree it takes any time at all to become enlightened. It is a myth that so many buy into that only add to confusion and makes it seem nearly unattainable. It happens in an instant and without effort. It may take years to unlearn all the BS around it that is getting in the way, but it itself is as easy as your next breath.

LOL! There it is. You STILL think enlightenment is an achievement. Good luck to you. I hope you find what you are looking for.

This is the clearest statement you have made on this tread. No, you have no idea and you don't know anything whatsoever. By the way, neither do I. But I'm not bothered by it. The Earth continues to spin and I have nothing to do with it. Life is a gift.

Stuff is happening all the time. Go to a park and watch the birds. If you can do this with a calm clear mind you are FAR closer to enlightenment than chatting here, taking psychedelics or meditating. You mind is in a storm.

It is pretty clear your ideas of enlightenment are the problem. Suicide won't do it. If you are serious about suicide please contact 1-800-273-8255. https://suicidepreventionlifeline.org/

@Blackhawk You just need to stop. You are running around in circles with your mind. You just don't seem to get it. Enlightenment isn't an achievement. It isn't some altered state. It isn't some better version of your egoic self. You are a fish in the ocean looking for water. It is insanity. You would literally be better off doing anything but trying to get enlightened. Your mind is like concrete. There is no flexibility, no ability to stop and listen, no openness to consider all the wisdom being shared your way. Engineering is probably the best career choice for you. Tangible results using empirical science and technology.

The whole Solipsism discussion is predicated on the per-eminance of the subjective. I can't know with any certainty that anything other than my consciousness is truly real. Objectivity has a bootstrap problem because it itself is experienced subjectively (though consciousness). Now insert the psychedelic experience of compete unity without boundaries. This is still a purely subjective experience no different than my awareness of "world" apart from me when sober. So how can we know, with any certainty, that our psychedelic experience isn't just another kind of delusion? For someone on the street, who is just going about their lives, the language Leo and others are using here can sound down right psychotic. Playing devils advocate, how do we know that Leo's experiences and interpretations of them are not psychotic (delusional)? How can I possibly know that my experiences of complete unity and love, while my brain is awash with exogenous chemicals disrupting normal serotonin functioning, are experiences of higher levels of a reality just because they are powerful? Terrence McKenna was pretty convinced that DMT revealed other dimensions full of aliens, elves, self bouncing balls and other entities. He had come up with all kinds of bizarre beliefs about the future. Are these experiences of another dimension or a drug induced hallucination? Most people would probably say the latter. I have had profoundly powerful experiences on psychedelics. I have encountered "forest creatures" looking back at me during a few of my mushroom trips. They seemed as real as anything I experience with my sober mind. Do I think they were "real"? Probably not. I recognize them as projections of my altered mind state due to the influence of a drug. They are real in the purely subjective sense, that is true. But if science teaches us anything, how things appear, and how they truly are can be very different. So how can we come up with conclusions about the absolute nature of reality based on a drugged state of mind?

I understand this. What if what you are experiencing in this moment actually is enlightenment? Just sit with that. What if this moment being exactly who you are is what it looks like and feels like? It isn't something different. It is like a fish looking for water. It is all around, there is nothing to do.

@Blackhawk I think the problem is in what "enlightenment" has been portrayed to be. I don't claim to be enlightened so take what I say with a grain of salt. However, I have been on this journey of self discovery for about 40 years. I have advanced degrees in psychology and philosophy. I am a student of the human condition. I have studied Buddhism and Taoism as well as great teachers like Byron Katie, Mooji, Adyashanti, Allen Watts and many others. A couple of points I want to make that my help give you some hope and clarity. 1) Enlightenment is not a permanent state. I have had moments of enlightenment, but that is very different than "being enlightened" 2) Enlightenment is some better version of yourself. No, enlightenment is simply a shift of perspective. You see yourself and reality for what it really is. 3) Enlightenment is hard. This is your actual question. Why is it so hard to achieve? Well, it is and it isn't. What makes it hard is delusional thinking. Delusions can be VERY stubborn and if we are believing them we don't even recognize them as delusions. That is the problem. Extreme skepticism is the first step. Stop believing anything and everything. Question your most cherished ideas about who you are and the very nature of reality. This is where psychedelics can be helpful for some people. But they are certainly not necessary. Enlightenment is a destructive process. It isn't about adding newer and better information or having profound spiritual experiences to come up with a better version of yourself or a more accurate theory of reality. It is actually a process of removing everything that isn't true and real until nothing more can be removed. That is hard. That takes work. That takes brutal honesty and commitment. 4) Only special people can become enlightened. Actually no. Enlightenment is your natural state. You have probably experienced glimpses of it in your life when you become so present and focused time and space seem to disappear. Those times I have felt clearest and most enlightened I realized that there is literally nothing to do. Enlightenment has been there all along. I just didn't recognize it because I thought it would be very different than it actually is. 5) Enlightenment is some higher spiritual state. Enlightenment is as close as your breath and as ordinary as washing dishes. It is the complete awareness of color, sound, texture and taste. It is the witness to your stories, life and experiences. Enlightened people don't walk on water or have supernatural powers. They are simply 100% present in this moment. Completely aware of the self prior to story, personality and ego. If you are still being hard on yourself for not being enlightened, then the best advice is to stop chasing it. You can't chase it down. You can't wrestle it into submission. It is probably most similar to falling asleep. You have to just relax enough and surrender enough to let it happen on its own. Just live your life as best you can. Be a good and kind person in the world. Get off the narcissistic band wagon and just be yourself in service to others. Enlightenment will find you.

You should be afraid of taking 5MeO-DMT. The stuff can blow up your world like nothing else I have tried. It is a serious drug that makes LSD seem like a cup of coffee. Since you already have it, I suspect you will eventually work up the courage to take it. So my only advice is to start with half of what you think you can handle.... Maybe even a quarter. And you absolutely need a sober trip sitter as you could potentially die of aspirating on your own vomit, or seriously hurt yourself. My one and only 5MeO trip was with 20mg of freebase smoked because I'm basically a complete idiot and was somewhat cocky going in. I have no memory of about 10 minutes of the "trip". The come up was terrifying and I have done up to 340ug of quality LSD so I know a strong come up. If I ever do it again (I have 500mg of the stuff) I will probably take no more than 5mg. I have had ego death during strong LSD trips. I know what that is like. 5MeO spanked me and my ego so hard it is tough to compare the two. My one big insight from taking 5MeO was that this experience of being an ego and a human being was "it". That what I was looking for from the drug was actually a form of escape. Enlightenment isn't about escaping your humanity, it is about fully embracing it and integrating spiritual experiences with this dualistic / temporal consensus reality. In a way my 5MeO experience has cured me of my desire to do psychedelics again. I know myself, I will likely do psychedelics again, but not any time soon.

Ludwig Wittgenstein once wrote, "Whereof we can not speak, thereof we must be silent". Wittgenstein basically said that all problems of philosophy are problems with the use of language. Also, the first phrase of the Tao Te Ching, "The Tao that can be spoken of is not the eternal Tao". Same idea. Language is a means of communicating ideas, feelings and stories. It should be used to reduce confusion, not add to it. I often see language used in ways that only adds to confusion here. Saying things like, "I am God". Creates confusion. Normal use of language makes no distinction between "I" being the ego vs "I" being the spiritual God self (of which we are all a part of). Because normal language makes no distinction, it is our burden to make the distinction for the listener. I would NEVER claim to be God in conversation because I know how that phrase will land for most people. It is not the responsibility of the listener to create clarity around what we say, it is entirely ours. Statements like "I create Leo to awaken" is an abuse of language. It only creates confusion. A statement like, "Consciousness manufactures the experience of reality" is much more accurate. It is a completely predictable thing to see Adeptus reaction to some of what Leo has said because of Leo's careless use of language. I get how difficult some of these concepts are to effectively communicate. Knowing that, one must be exceptionally careful with the choice of words to minimize confusion. If something is simply beyond the use of language one must shift to myth, music, poetry, allegory or analogy. And sometimes these are inadequate to communicate. Then we are left with silence. When we throw language around in a careless way with these deep and important subjects, it just creates confusion.

Can you see how problematic this use of language is? It sounds completely delusional. Leo is just a guy. We don't create other people. We can recognize the unity of the divine and see it reflected back at us in others.

I agree completely. The whole point of enlightenment is to stop delusion, self deception and operate with complete authenticity of who we really are.

I frankly know very little about Leo or Actualized.org. I came to this place from a Google search about 5MeO-DMT, and Leo seemed to have a good deal of experience with the substance and some intriguing ideas about the spiritual implications of the psychedelic experience. I have watched a few of his videos, but I find that I quickly loose interest. They seem more like ramblings and he his slow to get to a point, almost like he is working out his thoughts on the fly. I'm a college professor and so it is my job to take complex issues and present them in ways for the average student to grasp relatively quickly. It isn't easy, especially when dealing with a subject that is well beyond most peoples experience. I get that. But when you have to sit through an hour or more to get what could be explained in 15 minutes, eventually many people just check out. Leo is of course free to do what ever he likes, and clearly his style resonates with lots of people. Frankly, some of Leo's videos do raise a red flag in my mind. There is a cult like feel to some of them. I alone can.... I know things you can't possibly understand... These are the statements of someone deluded, and certainly not what I would expect from someone who was genuinely a spiritual teacher. Byron Katie doesn't talk like this. Neither does Mooji, Adyashanti, Eckhart Tolle, Ram Dass or any other spiritual teacher I respect. I don't get a sense of much grounding with Leo. But then again, I honestly don't know him well enough to judge. It is just an impression from the limited content I have seen. From my own experience with psychedelics I know how ungrounding they can be. It takes me days, to weeks to feel like I have my legs under me after a profound trip. I know how easy it is to fall down the rabbit hole into delusional thinking if I'm not careful. The biggest insight from my one 5MeO-DMT trip was being a human being is the whole point of being a human being. Trying to transcend is really just a veiled attempt to escape our problems and the real experience of ego, the difficulties of life and being human. Nothing wrong with peeking behind the trappings of the ego and having profound psychedelic induced spiritual experiences. They have been of great value in my life and spiritual journey. But the point isn't to live in those states, but learn from them so we can apply the insights in the human level. So from my perspective, as an outsider of this group, most of what I have seen from Adeptus Psychonautica's videos are legitimate critiques. Maybe done in an dramatic or humorous way, but still largely valid. We can respect and learn from those with more experience that we have. But keep grounded and watch for delusional thinking and echo chambers.

No. Deep spiritual truths ground and contextualize your existence. Transcendence is just another form of escapism. If that is the goal, then the ultimate way to transcend is to just commit suicide.