nexusoflife

@Prabhaker Thanks, you're absolutely right. My depression is contributing to the overall suffering in the world. The more I work on myself the more apparent this is becoming in my awareness. I am going to make an effort to break out of this mindset as I can see that it is not only counter productive for what I want for the world but it is destructive as well.

@Visitor Thanks for reading and responding to my post. You're right. I am ignorant and the extent of that ignorance is yet to be known. For If I had more knowledge and awareness of my own psychology and various areas of life I would not be feeling this way. I would know how not to fall into suffering due to external circumstances. I really appreciate the fact that you mention how being depressed is what the ego wants. I never really thought of it that way. However when I do self inquiry and meditation I can see that the ego gets a sort of sick satisfaction from suffering.

@S33K3R Thanks for taking the time to read and reply to my post. It's good to know that there are other people who have felt similarly to how I do. I love your last paragraph regarding collective awareness and individual awareness. Thank you for writing it, I really needed to read that right now. That makes me think about all of the people who are working on self actualization and those working towards making this world a nicer place to live.

@Nahm Thanks for taking the time to read my post and respond. Your references to the quotes of Rumi, Gandhi and Bruce Lee are indeed powerful words and are some of my favorite quotes about life in general. I'm glad that you bring up the fact that I need something like a serious goal or endeavor in my life to focus on in order to do my part to help the world. I really think that I should take Leo's life purpose course, lately I have been thinking about my life's purpose, what it truly is and it's level of importance in my life.

@Michael569 Thanks for your reply and taking the time to help me out. I think that you are absolutely right about finding a personal meaning and ways to contribute. I've been thinking about my life purpose a lot lately and I am beginning to realize just how profoundly important that is in a human's life. I think that Leo's life purpose course may help me out with this. Thanks for helping me to see things in a more positive perspective.

@egoeimai Thanks for taking the time to read through my post I really appreciate it. You're right about perspective being subjective. The more I meditate and read the more I understand this. The difficult part for me is developing the emotional development necessary in order to avoid becoming saddened every time I think about the circumstances of the world currently.

@JustinS That sounds beautiful. I can see how that video can have a deep impact on someone as it is beautiful as well.

I was first introduced to psychedelic substances while reading online back in 2014. At the time I thought that they could be a useful tool for psychological inquiry and consciousness exploration. However I did not seriously begin to research and learn about psychedelics until 2016. It was at this time that I learned of the powerful healing effects of various substances such as DMT, Psilocybin, LSD and Cannabis if used responsibly. Then recently in 2017 I finally used cannabis as my first psychedelic tool. What happened afterwards was one of the strangest experiences of my life thus far. Note I would NEVER use these substances for recreational usage. I seek to learn as much about myself and existence as I can and psychedelics are a tool to help me with this. For the past three years I have been meditating from 20 minutes to an hour each day, I’m raw vegan (I only consume fresh fruits and vegetables), I am a very intellectually minded person and I have also had a few profound unitive experiences via meditation. This was the next step in my journey of consciousness exploration. As far as set and setting is concerned I was in a good place at the time of taking this in. Initially I was nervous however I calmed my mind via meditation and I was around individuals that I knew, although they were recreational users. The cannabis was loaded into a water bong and I took three large hits and used 1 gram of the plant for this experience. Being my first time it was very difficult not to cough too much however I did manage to compose myself. I was determined to go as deep as I possibly could and knew the importance of THC absorption in cultivating an experience. As I took the third and final hit I could feel my perception of reality become distorted. I began to feel dizzy and nauseous. Those around me began to speak about activities to do while high. In my perception their voices became slowed and their movements slowed as well. I tried to participate in the conversation but this simply was not going to happen. I felt my body movements become slower and heavier. I began to stare at the plants near us with much intensity. The same connectedness that I felt in my meditative experiences was present here in this psychedelic experience as well. Within a few minutes I was compelled towards the ground, it was as if I was being pushed and pulled towards the ground at the same time. As I went down I saw what looked like a small bright orange smiling humanoid neon outline in my vision. I knew that things were about to get strange. As I hit the ground I passed out. Those around me at the time helped me up immediately and what follows was beautiful and very strange. It only took them maybe 15 or 20 seconds for them to get me up however in my perception it lasted much longer. My eyes opened and closed. All of the environment around me was heavily distorted and all of the vegetation was brightly colored and had that bright neon outline around it. The intensity of the sunlight was at least twice as radiant to me. As I felt them lifting me I wanted to go deep in this experience I had a thousand questions in my head and wanted to stay exactly as I was. In my mind there was a menagerie of voices from every trip report that I had ever seen online or read. I was various places in my mind such as waterfalls and fields. There was a bit of fear present from the ego, due to the weirdness of all of it, however it vanished quickly. I then heard a voice subconsciously that said, “Just let go”. I subconsciously responded (I was unable to speak verbally) “I will go anywhere you take me”. And so I completely let go of all control. I felt that in order to stand up I had to forcefully will my body to do so. By the time they raised me to my feet I saw those around me as beings of light. Their bodies were a bright blue light and they were shining so brightly it was as if the sun was within each of them. They helped me inside the house I knew that I was walking and awake but everything was so blurry and I was still very dizzy. I passed out again shortly after on a mattress. This time things got weirder. As I was out I felt very nauseous. I saw many strange psychedelic images as well. I don’t know how to explain it but I will try my best. I also had audio hallucinations. I believe one of the sounds that I was hearing was a fusion of my heartbeat and breathing, however it sounded very alien and esoteric yet beautiful at the same time. There were other audio hallucinations as well. As my eyes were closed there were hundreds of shapes, colors and figures constantly shifting. My body also felt very limp and strange. There were entities talking to me although I could not understand them. Although I do know that they were loving. They were not humanoid and their “bodily” shapes were outlined with bright colors. They had no other visible parts only the outline. The audio hallucinations continued. As I “slept” I could hear music from outside but it was so much louder and vivid than it normally would have been. It was as if it was only 20 feet away from me instead of a few hundred. Although the music was a genre that I am not fond of the pure audio sounds of the music and the rhythms I heard were made so beautiful by the cannabis. The closed eye hallucinations continued. The light beings that I saw from before were here again but were present as outlines. They told me about love and showed me love. What they said and how they showed me love, I do not remember. Then they took me through many places which I don’t know how to describe. I even saw the light entity I saw back in 2012 when my mother passed away. This was by far the most beautiful part of the experience. More things occurred after this and then there was just pure blackness. After three hours I somewhat awoke. I was still not fully lucid and reality was still distorted. I stayed up for about one hour. During this hour I listened to two songs that I prepared for this day. These songs sounded more beautiful than I had ever heard them before. I took down some quick notes of the experience and then went to sleep for the night. The next morning I woke up and I was so happy. Happy to be alive, happy to exist and happy to even experience existence. For about half of the next day I felt as If I had just finished a very deep meditation session. My mind was calm and content with experience. I know that this was far from the average experience one gets from smoking cannabis and I feel that this experience occurred the way that it did was due to a few factors. My several hundreds of hours of meditation may have had some sort of deepening effect on the way how I responded to the cannabis. Additionally I wanted a deep experience and wanted to use this as a tool for spiritual growth, mental exploration and consciousness exploration. The foods that I have been eating for the past three years may have also had an effect on it as well. Overall this was the strangest thing that I have ever experienced thus far in my 20 years of life and I really can’t accurately put into words exactly what I experienced on that day. What I can say in closing is this. We are loved. Despite all of the weird forms that I saw there was never anything to be afraid of. All of existence is ONE. I view this as a positive learning experience and hope to delve deeper into my mind and slowly deepen my understanding of consciousness with other psychedelics in the future. So to those out there with far more psychedelic experience than I do, what do you think of my first experience with cannabis? Any feedback would be appreciated. This video gives a good idea of what the various entities I saw looked like. Skip to about 4:15 in. These are the two songs that I listened to during this experience.

@Emerald I actually watch your YouTube channel, The Diamond Net! I really enjoy your videos. It sounds like you experienced a slight sense of unity from it. I am definitely going to look into edible marijuana and see how deep a psychedelic experience could be with it. Would you say that your experience with eating cannabis was similar to my experience?

@Wyatt Thanks for the information. Cannabis being comparable to psilocybin mushrooms is definitely huge in it's potential to go deep into consciousness work. I can see why your friend had an ego death experience. I am going to do even more research on this subject.

Atlanta, Georgia, United States. Anyone else interested in self actualization live here?

@JustinS That sounds intense. What was your experience like? If you don't mind me asking. Did you have a unitive experience?

@Nahm Indeed it was. High quality cannabis, meditation and completely letting go are what I think helped me to cultivate this experience.

@Leo Gura I actually have heard of an Indian brew called bhang in which the main ingredient used is cannabis. It has been used in religious ceremonies in Hinduism for thousands of years. I have not tried to make any of it yet but I am open to taking it in the future when I have more experience with psychedelics.

@nightrider1435 Thanks for the advice. I will definitely incorporate cannabis into my life and continue to use it exclusively for consciousness work. It was definitely an experience that I will remember for the rest of my life. Its great to know that one can go relatively deep with this plant.

This experience occurred after roughly 2 ½ years of meditating almost every day. I was driving home from work when it happened. All morning I was in a meditative and contemplative state of mind. I was about 3 or 4 miles from home. In my mind I was thinking of the incomprehensible number of universes and the incomprehensible number of different “me’s” in existence. I thought about what would happen if they all met. Many of them would be similar and many of them would be vastly different. Some of them would look identical and others would look vastly different. Then everything stopped. I had felt stillness before but this was infinitely deeper than anything I had felt before. The moment I realized that all of the different possibilities of the form which constitutes “me” could look the same and others would look completely different something profound in my mind snapped. In an instant and outside of space and time I was all life. My entire perception of reality was cleaned. I was all life on earth, in the universe and in all of existence. I did not feel connected to all life. Thomas Roger did not exist anymore. There was just awareness in a body and that’s it. There was only life and it’s happening. I watched in sheer amazement at all of the people who drove by me and each person I saw was also myself. It doesn’t even make any sense that something like this is even possible but it happened. My mind did not judge or comment on the people I saw. I was simply in utter amazement at the sheer beauty of the life that was happening. (All of this happened while I was at a red light.) When the red light turned green I had no idea how I was driving, how I was seeing or anything. I returned home in a state of utter amazement, bliss and gratitude. It felt like all existence felt this way too. I know that doesn’t make any sense but it did. When I entered the driveway and emerged from the car and saw the world from outside the windows I almost cried. The air was so crisp. It was an overcast day but it was so profoundly beautiful. I walked in front of my house and said this. “I had never really seen reality before. This is the first time I have truly seen life.” I began to be overwhelmed with happiness. Every tree, every person, every blade of grass, every insect all life was one. I completely disappeared and was all life. I was all life. I walked up to some flowers in front of my house and looked at a bee walking along one of them. This made me especially happy. I began to laugh. I smiled so hard. I was the bee and the bee was me. All life was one. I walked into my house and went into my brother’s room he was sleeping. When I saw him I became even happier as I was also one with him. I began to laugh even more. I realized that the same consciousness that he was experiencing was the same consciousness that I was experiencing. That I am experiencing. That we all are experiencing. All life is experiencing the same consciousness. The medium through which it is experienced may be vastly different but the consciousness, the awareness is the same. I needed to get something to take to my college so I picked that up and went back out to the car still in sheer amazement and happiness. As I drove the car I also realized that the same consciousness that mom experienced I too experienced at that very moment and my whole life. ( My mother passed away when I was 16 years old.) At this point my mind couldn’t take it anymore. I pulled over less than a mile from home and broke down and cried at the sheer incomprehensible, profound and breathtaking beauty of existence. After about five minutes of crying in sheer awe and gratitude I sat there for about another minute and continued my day. This lasted for about two hours then I slowly came back as a tiny individuated ego. However there was still a great residual after effect from what I just experienced. (to call this an experience is limiting, it is a state of being) This was by far the most magical day of my life as of august 1st 2016.

I have been vegan for three years and raw vegan for two years and I can honestly say that doing so has been the second best decision of my life next to meditating every day. The documentaries that I watched which helped me to transition were, Forks over Knives (for the health aspect), Earthlings (for the ethical aspect) and Cowspiracy ( for the ecological aspect). There is also a great website called https://nutritionfacts.org/ which cites thousands of studies on plant based nutrition and the innumerable benefits that it has for human physiology. Here is the trailer for Forks over Knives. There are also ethical end ecological benefits to consider as well. Over 56 billion animals are killed every year in the animal agriculture industries. This is the full documentary of Earthlings. Eating animal products(meat, dairy, eggs) supports this Additionally animal agriculture is the leading cause of deforestation, species extinction and greenhouse gas emissions via methane. Overall animal agriculture is a massive threat to the ecological integrity of the biosphere. By eating a plant based diet you are not contributing to any of that. Here is an excerpt from the documentary of Cowspiracy detailing the destructive impact that animal agriculture has on the ecology of our planet A word of advice to anyone that reads this. In truth what you eat does not dictate your ability to realize enlightenment or self actualize. However it would be logically consistent to refrain from animal products because of the massive amount of suffering that animal agriculture inflicts on life on our planet. Best of luck to everyone on their journey. A great thing to include with enlightenment is ecological synergism with the life that we share this planet with. Hope that this helps.

I have been vegan for three years and raw vegan for two years. My motivation is very simple. I want the highest level of health that a human can experience in life just as I want the highest level of truth that a human can experience in life. I only spend 60 to 80 dollars each week on my food. For the first month after I went vegan it was a bit difficult as I was not used to it but after a month it became very easy as I became used to it. About one year later I decided to switch to raw vegan and I failed twice. However after lots of patience and experimenting after two months I was eating raw vegan. I actually eat a much wider variety of foods now as a raw vegan than I ever did before. Tips from experience that I can give are as follows. Shop at Farmers Markets and Asian stores they typically have good quality fruits and vegetables and have very good prices. Make smoothies a part of your life. They are an easy way to get in calories and keep your day moving. Additionally there are literally thousands of plant foods that can be eaten raw. Durian, jackfruit, rambutan, chard kale, chempadak, papaya I could keep going. Variety is key. If you are looking to go raw vegan then make sure that you are consuming vitamin B12 for the health of your nervous system. I usually eat nutritional yeast in my avocado salads every day. Hope this helps.

I have been vegan for three years and raw vegan for two years, eating mostly fruit and I completely agree. I think that you would really enjoy the book Return to the Brain of Eden: Restoring the Connection between Neurochemistry and Consciousness by Tony Wright and Grahm Gynn. It is a great book detailing how frugivory assisted in the neural development of the human species. Here is a link to the author's YouTube channel. https://www.youtube.com/user/tonywrightuk/videos Hope this helps.

I have been vegan for three years and raw vegan for two years and I can honestly say that doing so has been the second best decision of my life next to meditating every day. The documentaries that I watched which helped me to transition were, Forks over Knives (for the health aspect), Earthlings (for the ethical aspect) and Cowspiracy ( for the ecological aspect). There is also a great website called nutritionfacts.org which cites thousands of studies on plant based nutrition and the innumerable benefits that it has for human physiology. I have only gotten sick twice in the three years that I have been vegan and each time lasted no longer than three days. I got rid of my asthma, cluster migraines, eczema and digestive problems from eating low fat raw vegan. It was difficult for the first month but after that it was very easy to do and your body will thank you for making the change. There are also ethical end ecological benefits to consider as well. Over 56 billion animals are killed every year in the animal agriculture industries. Additionally animal agriculture is the leading cause of deforestation, species extinction and greenhouse gas emissions via methane. Overall animal agriculture is a massive threat to the ecological integrity of the biosphere. By eating a plant based diet you are not contributing to any of that.

@Leo Gura I have continued my daily meditation and contemplation and have had another unitive experience since then. It occurred in march 2017. This one happened after four 20 minute to 1 hour meditation sessions that day. At the end of the day I decided to listen to some calm music and ,for some reason and I can’t explain why, while I was listening to this music the sense of unity and absence of self surged to an all-time high. I had a unitive peak experience. I went from quietly listening to this music to crying uncontrollably at the sheer profundity of simply existing. It started slowly and I lost track of time but it was so profoundly beautiful. I have no words for this. Here is what I can say. We are God. All is ONE. We have forgotten our true existential nature and have become lost and confused. We are beautiful. All life on this planet and in all of existence is unified. Every subatomic particle that makes up existence is ONE. Unity is all. There is no self in the way that we think of it. There is only awareness and experience for an organism. By the time I got up roughly three hours had passed. For hours afterward I was still shaking from just how powerful, profound and beautiful it is. I now know the true weight of that statement "Oh my god". Besides the peak experiences that I have had my sense of self has been greatly diminished compared to what it was three years ago when I started in meditation. I am not strongly identified with my life story anymore and a name is simply a social label to me. I see Thomas-Roger as a collection of thoughts, concepts and beliefs. The more I look at it this way the more I realize that the ego structure is only to be used as a tool for practical purposes. My demeanor has changed greatly in that I am a much calmer and quieter person than I was. Additionally whilst I have always had a love for nature nowadays I find myself stopping at some point every day and just being in breathtaking awe at beauty of the earth and existence in general, regardless of the weather or my circumstances. It is a very strange yet visceral and compassionate feeling to experience these changes that have occurred in my mind and life.