Jordan

I was watching some clips of Krishnamurti speaking. He claims in those videos that mantra meditation and all systematic meditation is not really meditation because it becomes a mechanical process repeating the same thing over and over. He says your mind becomes dull. I guess he is talking about it becoming automatically done instead of done consciously. He says that it should be more about observing thoughts and other sensations without trying to influence them. He gave an example, and I am paraphrasing: If you are feeling envious you should be able to feel that without suffering from it or trying to suppress it or distract yourself from it. Your observation should not contain anything from the past and done as if the first time you have ever observed something. So this makes sense to me so I will switch to doing something like what is shown in Leo's video titled something like "a guided exercise for realizing you are god." I also kind of want to stop masturbating so much which has been more frequent since my girlfriend has been in china for the last 2 months. My plan is just to add an hour to my required meditation for the day every time I get myself off. I might just end up having to do 3 hours of meditation per day instead of 2 haha. At least I will do something somewhat productive to balance it out.

From what I heard it is mostly mantra meditation with some breathing techniques. You are supposed to pay $500 or something to learn the technique from a qualified person. I didn't want to pay and didn't find a good explanation for free so I became uninterested in learning it. I have had some good results with mantra meditation on "Baba Nam Kevalam." It seems much easier for me focus and keep on track with it than other meditations so I do it if I am having trouble and feel like quitting.

I recently watched an interview with Andrew Huberman and he seemed to think nightmares are like your body's way of giving you exposure therapy to your traumas. If you watch at around the 20 min mark for a few min he gives his view on nightmares. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NKyyF9MQXn4&t=2444s I don't have much info on shadow work but I would start with doing contemplation and meditation on your fears to try to get to know how they work.

I plugged around 30mg of 5-MEO DMT today around 5 hours ago. My last trip was in January around 8 months ago. I have been meditating a bit on and off this year not being super serious in my spiritual practices. I would like to start a habit of 30-60 min meditation 2x per day. I would also like to start working out regularly again. I remember I got a small injury and stopped but didn't start up again. During my 5-MEO trip, I sat down cross-legged on a pillow on my bed most of the time. 30 min felt like 2 hours. I spend a similar amount of time eyes closed and open. I looked around the room. Most shapes and colors looked pretty normal but it was still a very different experience than normal waking consciousness. At one point I looked down at my feet and the shaped did seem to blend together and it felt like I was being absorbed into them. I felt pretty relaxed. I realized that it would be a good idea to take more interest in understanding people better and allowing them to feel understood. I had a strong desire to really deeply know about different topics that came up in my mind like work and my relationships. There seems to be a lot of value I am missing by just knowing superficial things about everything and not understanding deeper. I noticed many areas in my life where I don't have all the information and I was just making assumptions but it would be easy to have a clearer picture by taking an interest and asking questions. I looked at my body and decided it is important to know as much about keeping good care of it as possible. I should be doing my own experiments to see what makes my body as healthy and strong as possible.

Hey, I am going to journal my 5-MEO trips, meditation and health stuff like heavy metal detox, trying to heal my knee pain, getting back into rock climbing eventually exc. I originally created a post for information on what I need to know about taking 5MEO DMT. I started journaling there and I will copy what I wrote below. Trip 1 - Oct 22, 2021 I plugged 8mg of 5-MEO DMT today. It was an interesting experience. It was like my concepts of who I am and my life would be there then disappear for several seconds. I was just left with my visual field of my ceiling or hands and tingling through my body. I kept alternating between the 2 states. Thoughts would come up slowly like “Am I still breathing? Can I even move my body? Did I take the right amount? It would be followed with taking slow deep breaths, slowly wiggling my fingers or raising my hands to look at them and reassuring myself that I was careful and prepared. My vision was very focused I lost sense of time and worries about time came up but faded away quickly after realizing that it wasn’t important if time seemed to move slowly or not. It lasted right around an hour when I felt the need to get up and eat some food. The main insight I got was that the present moment should be a higher focus of mine over concepts like imagining what I did or will do at work. It really seemed like I am waiting my life by imagining instead of experiencing. I need to work on experiencing more which includes a more consistent meditation practice. It was a small dose. I think I will try 10-11mg next time in 2-3 weeks when i find a good time to do it. Trip 2 - Oct 24, 2021 I tried taking 5-MEO DMT again just 2 days after my first try. I felt like I did not take enough to get many realizations the first time but it was a nice easy start that at least got me interested in continuing. Today is Sunday and I decided to do 10mg to get a little more experience. I felt noticeably more nauseous than the first time. I think because it was early in the morning instead of in the afternoon, I was not able to focus as intensely because I was a bit sleepy. The nausea discomfort was distracting. I hope trying again later in the day next time when I have more energy. I think i will need to find a time in the early afternoon maybe 2 Saturdays From now to try 13-15mg. It also seemed to help to have the date planned well in advance so my body and mind had time to prepare for it. --- another post oct 26, 2021 I just wanted to make an update on some things that have seemed to change since taking 5MEO DMT this weekend. The first thing I noticed was that the sex with my girlfriend was really even better than usual. This happened before when I was meditating a lot. The second thing today after rewatching Leo's video "Guided Exercise For Realizing You Are God" I am much more aware of how my reality is being constructed over top of the present moment. There are infinite ways it can be constructed over what the perceptions are presently. During the drive to work today, I was just focused on the concepts that were coming up as they came up and how they were nowhere near the truth that was experienced right here. I still needed the concepts to know where to drive and when to accelerate or brake but I could see them as ultimately an illusion and makes me think that I can build a reality however I want over top of the raw sensations. Anyways. I will keep focused on this since it is very interesting to me and see what comes of this. Trip 3 - Nov 7, 2021 I plugged 15 mg of 5-MEO DMT as measured by my scale which was 2 of the 10-15 mg scoops. I wrote my experience here shortly after my trip but it seems there was a problem with the forum and my post was deleted. This was my 3rd trip ever. This time I had very little nausea which was a nice relief from the previous time. I believe this was due to lying down for the first 30-40 min. My body felt like it started to vibrate which I was getting used to from the first 2 trips. My sense of touch felt clear and very comfortable. At some points I felt like feeling up my body with my hands but most of the time I kept perfectly still. My vision seemed to blur out sharp edges but it still seemed like I was focused and seeing clearly. I asked myself what this was (referring to the present experience). I realized I did not even know what it meant to know something. It is not as simple as someone telling me and then believing it. I need to use my own awareness and intelligence to understand. I asked myself what I wanted and I had a strong desire to understand myself. I really felt like I lacked understanding of my beliefs, motivations and values. My priorities seemed to shift to awareness of my thoughts and feelings and seeing patterns in my reactions. I think in this way I can make better decisions on what I want to do with my life and how to spend my time in a way that lets me appreciate, understand and construct the reality that I want. Trip 4 - Nov 20, 2021 I plugged 3 scoops of 5-MEO DMT today which weighed around 20-21 mg total. It was a more intense experience this time. I felt it starting to kick in in less than 1 minute. I laid down semi prone for the first 5 min or so then went onto my back when I realized I the initial bit of nauseous feeling went away. I noticed that I was able to be very focused on sensations but it required me to give up my attention of other parts of my awareness. I could vaguely remember being human lying down but the details of my life were not present with me. That was not interesting to me. I was more focused on answering what I am, what I want. I noticed that it felt quite pleasant to lie down and enjoy the experience of existing. At some points, I could hear a loud noise like a generator that would slow down and speed up. When I focused it would slow down then when I switched my attention it would speed up. I looked at my hand for a bit and it looked like it was melting away . It sort of moved a bit like fire. I am not sure exactly how to describe it. It did not feel unpleasant though. I remember memories of advice from different people like Sadhguru came up saying something along the lines of if you put yourself fully into something then it will become a great thing. Other advice came up but I silenced it and decided I wanted to come up with my own understanding. Goal setting for me has usually been about material goals like make $10000 in one month in my business or "meditate everyday for 1 hour" but that might not be the best way to about living a good life. A good way to go about living a good life seems to be to figure out what I want to experience subjectively in the present moment and experiment on now to achieve that. At the same time, you will ideally fully accept the current moment as it is. Even accept the desire to change it. See the necessity for everything to be exactly as it is because it really is perfect from a big picture perspective. Part of experiencing things the way I want that is being able to experience deeply and not be caught up in worrying or making plans constantly. I remember thinking part of what is great about reality is discovering things for the first time that you did not know. It is interesting to me to think about all experiences as being unique and that lessons can be learned constantly from them. I am not sure if I should take more 5-MEO DMT next time. I might take the same amount or half a scoop more and have a clearer plan on what I would like to contemplate about. After 30-40 min of lying in my bed, I got up and took a shower. I contemplated what it meant for something to be true or real and what it meant to understand or know something compared to believing it. What would understanding how reality works mean in the present experience? In 2 weeks I plan on taking 3 scoops. I will keep doing my best to keep meditating and contemplating these questions until then. Trip 5 - Dec 12 I plugged 3 scoops yesterday so around 21mg freebase in 3ml of vinegar. I planned to just experience without any goals or trying to learn anything. It was nice experience. It took me into a state where I can focus on see hear feel and let everything else start to disappear. At one point I stood up and looked back at my bed. I was so focused on what I was looking at that I realized to could be in danger of falling over if I continued diving into my visual field. I sat on my bed and wondered what I can take away from this experience. It began to think about my priorities and that I should be prioritizing the health of my physical body and my mind higher than I am now. It seemed like it is much more important to maintain my body's health than I have been showing through my actions. I meditated for 1 hour before the trip and 30 min later on that day. The 30 min several hours after the trip I was able to get into a state very similar to when I was tripping. I did not follow my normal mindfulness or satisfaction meditation. I just sat there and surrendered to experience. I watched Leo's video today on heavy metal detox and I think this is a good idea for me to try. I will also be planning to continue daily self massage to try to heal my knee pain and meditation to improve my sensory clarity. I have been meditating an average of an hour per day for the last 2 weeks mostly doing mindfulness meditation with labeling and trying out the satisfaction meditation a bit. ----- I have had knee pain in both knees for over a year now that hurts sometimes when I walk and can get so bad that I can not walk any more. It seems to be caused by tight IT Bands which is from tight muscles in my but and upper quads. I tried 2 months of physio exercises and stretches and it kept getting worse. Massaging 2 hours a day instead of the physio seemed to really help a lot. It has been difficult to spend 2 hours a day massaging though. I plan to start massaging an hour before work and an hour after every day to try to get this dealt with.

I was never interested in reincarnation because it seemed pointless to me. Is it really "you" that is reincarnating if you don't have your memories or anything to do with your personality carried through? I did watch most of the first Bashar video linked above and I think it would be interesting being able to get information from outside consciousnesses telepathically but I don't like reincarnation as a way of conceptualizing it.

That was interesting, I have not seen much about channeling. She was talking with an interesting perspective on how energy works. I wish he spent less time asking about how things relate to quantum physics and quantum entanglement and stuff like that. I am sure he could think of more interesting questions.

Wow I almost started crying with joy/love reading the part about loving myself for no reason. I am at work though so I guess I should wait until I am in private to meditate on that.

Why do you think that awakening is the end of desire? I understand awakening as being extremely aware of the direct experience while accepting everything as it is. Even if desire or resistance is being experienced, it is completely accepted as pure goodness, love and truth. The concept of a separate self is seen as an illusion so the nature of desire will change but there will not be an end of all desire.

I find it more compelling if you are actually disagreeing with something concrete that people have actually said and show the context. Who is saying that raping babies is fine? I think people would say there is no good or bad and saying that something like that is bad is not being truthful. Saying that it is fine is also not being truthful either. Trying to be kind and helpful to manipulate people into liking you is kind of not the most loving or skillful way to live either. There has to be more context otherwise you can prove anyone wrong.

You understand or believe things with concepts but you only know things through directly being conscious of them right now. Some people use the word "know" when they mean understand or believe.

I lost my virginity at age 23 and thought I knew exactly what sex would be like but it really was much different than I thought. It is a bit hard to describe but the physical sensations are much different and you won't be able to just watch porn and imagine the sensations in the same way. I can get stronger orgasms from porn but I have a much better overall experience having sex. The emotions from being intimate and connecting with someone else that come up are different than you will experience from porn. Ohh I think you asked if what you see in porn is how people actually have sex. I am not sure how people have sex but for the sex I have, it is much different. It looks really stupid to me how people have sex in porn but it shows an angle that makes the girl look good. The sex I have is much better than the sex pornstars are having and I don't do anything crazy. It is about the connection you have with your partner.

Something I have been doing for many years is when I notice I am getting stressed, I take one slow deep breath inhaling faster than exhaling. Then I notice the difference between how i was feeling before and after the breath. It puts me in a much better mood \throughout the day. when meditating I like to take slow deep breaths and sit there after exhaling holding my breath so I can focus better with less noise, movement and pressure.

I like the method of going all out doing one thing while dropping everything else then dialing it back to start a habit. Emotionally it just seems so lame doing 5 min per day or something like that. It makes me not want to even start. I think the main problem for me is the time I spend on video games / porn. I need to cut down super non productive time and I think it will help a lot. I didn't end up meditating for more than around an hour at most per day these last few days. I have been working overtime and on my phone game too much. I will make my attempt again tomorrow but I do have some errands to run tomorrow morning so I'll see if I have the energy to meditate before that.

@Yimpa Yes, I think non formally meditating on just being aware of what you are aware of in the present moment as you go through your day is something I would like to do too.

@Yimpa When I meditate doing mantra meditation on Bama Nam Kevalam, I get vivid dreams almost every night. I seem to need to sleep less. I found sex 10x better doing mindfulness meditation 1 hour a day for 100 days several years ago. the effects fade after stopping. I keep falling off track. I will see if I can stick with it. I have been pretty good about meditating every day for the last week or 2.

Hello, I watched the video. I was just thinking of starting meditating 3 hours a day because I am annoyed at myself for spending too much time playing videogames. It is sort of like a punishment for myself haha. I have not sat more than 1.5 hours before. I did not decide if I will take a short break every hour or just try sitting without a break like you did. I will start tomorrow morning and see how it goes. Did you get any changes in your sleep quality or memory or other unexpected changes? I might have missed where you mentioned these things. Did it help in the ways you were hoping with your working memory?

I thought it was obvious that all boundaries are made up and don't actually exist. It is not like a boundary has a mass. Who is going around thinking boundaries are real here? They are useful for conceptualization though. I guess they are lies in the way we talk and think without realizing we are lying but we need to simplify things somehow.

Before when I was doing mindfulness with labeling 1 hour per day for 100 days I had something like that intermittedly. It is the same method Leo describes in his mindfulness meditation video. I started intermittedly getting extremely vivid imaginations just like dreaming but still being awake. It would sometimes happen when I was not meditating. I have not been meditating much recently so I lost the ability but it seemed to be mostly from mindfulness meditation with labeling technique and not other meditations I have experimented with. The part that seems to help is just labeling see hear or feel then spending the next 2 breaths giving all your effort into seeing, feeling or hearing what you are focusing on with as much clarity as possible. Just talking about it makes me want to get into doing that technique again regularly.

You could go to a community center and workout at the gym then go swimming and sit in the sauna for a long time. That is pretty cheap and can help you get rid of extra anger and energy that is keeping you from thinking straight. I prefer self massage with a lacrosse ball if you want to get rid of muscle tension.

This hasn't been my experience. I have no interest in having female friends unless I don't have a girlfriend. If a girl likes you a lot as a friend then she will help you get a girlfriend. It is very useful to have at least one female friend if you don't have a girlfriend. I had a very close female friend when I was around 20 and a virgin and had no girlfriend. I really enjoyed the time I spent with her. I didn't really want to have sex with her but was still open to it and she made it clear she just wanted to be friends. She would hang out with me and invite her girl friends along. Her friends often seemed to think I was cute. I am pretty sure she talked me up to them when I wasn't around. She moved back to Colombia and I haven't seen her in over 10 years but if we got back together I think we would go back to being close friends as long as it doesn't make our partners jealous. I think it worked with me because I find it a super turn off if a girl does not find me really sexy. I really have no interest in woman that I think don't like me in that way. The female friend I had, I would prefer to not have sex with her but I would probably do it if I was single and she really needed it because her heart was broken or something but make it clear we will go back to being just friends after she gets better. I am pretty sure that still counts as just being friends. Now I have a girlfriend that I have been with for 10 years. I find her sexier than anyone else. I have sex 1-3x a week with her still after 10 years and have no interest in being friends with or having fun with other girls. If something happened and I became single again and ready to date again, I probably would try to increase my social circle making several good female friends that we make it clear we don't want to have sex with until I found a girlfriend with their help.

Which Buddhist practices are designed to still or shut off the mind? Vipassana or focusing on one point? I think the meditation I have done has not decreased my thinking, I am just more aware of when I am repeating thought patterns and realize when it is unnecessary and start focusing on another topic. You think more about what you are thinking about. I have not noticed any memory troubles. I think it improves memory a bit for me. You are able to see you memories more clearly. I usually do mindfulness with labeling after focusing on one point but try out many types like vipassana, strong determination sitting, do nothing, fire Kasina, mantra.

Work is great. You trade 40 hours a week for food, shelter, safety and freedom to do as you wish with in the rest of your time with some money left over. Having police, free school grade K-12, roads, bridges, firefighters, trains, community centers, busses, an army requires taxes in some form. You need to contribute to get these things in return. Do you see an example of a better culture that does not require people to work? If you can't stand working where you work then find another job you find more interesting. I found after meditating a lot, I enjoy my work a lot more. I also appreciate money a lot more after working some overtime and know the value of it for me.

I scored 4. Maybe I should be more outgoing and believe in myself more haha

From my experience with around 15 trips it seems to be a temporary change in your consciousness. I have heard someone claim that after taking it daily for 30 days it has had a permanent effect but other people that tried 30 days in a row had some negative side effects. The consciousness carry over effects from meditation are much more obvious than 5MEO Dmt. You do get many insights on it though.