Pav

Tried one out for the first time a few days ago. It was nice. I didn't really hallucinate that much though, no outer body experiences like Feynman had. For the majority of the session thoughts kept appearing, at first the content of these thoughts were of the same nature as before entering the tank (ie thoughts about what I was planning on doing in the near future; thoughts of the people that I love; thoughts about the sensory deprivation experience; and thoughts noting and conceptualising any interesting occurrences in the tank), minutes in the thoughts got a little stranger, I began thinking of Feynman as an old friend, and I can remember thinking that the tank was too small and that they should fill the room with water instead, which I quickly realised was impractical. These thoughts were occurring at quite a slow rate, since my mind was already calm prior to entering the tank, but at some point my brain seemed to have given up thinking all together, leaving to perceptions and no thoughts either, just blackness (for a period of time which is impossible to say, since your brain has no references with which to use to keep track of time, it may have to 10 minutes or it may have been 10 seconds). I experienced no visual hallucinations, but I can remember having a slight auditory hallucination three times throughout the session lasting only a few moments, I would hear a rumbling noise, the type you heard from a star destroyer's engines in the old Star Wars movies. I also had the sensation that I was flowing down a stream of water, and even though I knew I was lying horizontally my proprioception began playing up, a few times I felt as if I was vertically upright. Once I got out I felt different for about an hour afterwards. This feeling is difficult to describe. All the new sensory input was a little overwhelming, as if my brain was not used to keeping up with so much information. My mind felt clearer, although I believe this feeling was merely an illusion since I did not notice anything which wasn't normally their. All my muscles felt very relax and my skin felt smooth. I highly recommend this for meditation purposes. It would be especially useful for those who find themselves easily distracted by external stimuli.

@FindingPeace

Just sharing some interesting content I've found, enjoy. Aldous Huxley in The Door of Perception: (https://www.erowid.org/psychoactives/writings/huxley_doors.shtml)

Richard Feynman on sensory deprivation tanks: https://www.dmt-nexus.me/forum/default.aspx?g=posts&t=51786 It sounds interesting, I'm keen to try it.

Because Learning itself is fulfilling. Leaning is to be valued for its own sake. It is a virtue, like creativity, beauty, compassion, love, passion, justice, curiosity, openness, playfulness, and many others. These are top values, there is no higher reason for pursuing them, they are valued because they are inherently valuable.

You accept that the world is as it is. When your landlord takes your money, you accept that this is the situation. There is no point getting angry or neurotic over it, or obsessing over how things should be different. You accept that this is the situation without passing any judgements on reality or your landlord as a person. While accepting the situation you may also be taking steps to fix or improve the situation if that's what you would like to do. You can be accepting of the world while also having an influence on it. There is no dichotomy here. Maslow on acceptance in self-actualising people (from Motivation and Personality, chapter 11 http://s-f-walker.org.uk/pubsebooks/pdfs/Motivation_and_Personality-Maslow.pdf ):

There is a system of the brain responsible for keeping track of time. Hallucinogenic substances can mess with this time process to produce some interesting changes in your perception of time. Often when I've been on a psychedelic time will lose all meaning (it's impossible to describe this is like) and I will lose the ability to keep track of time, whether one minute or one hour has passed it becomes impossible to tell. An interesting experience I had on LSD was where time began to gradually slow down, it felt as if it was about to stop but then it became fast again. What is time in the external world? I have no idea, it's a real mystery. Something interesting that's been discovered by time, which you may have heard of, is that time is relative (special relativity). Time is slower from a frame of reference which is travelling at a higher speed than one at a lower speed (time is also slower when under stronger gravity). So if you're travelling at a very high velocity one year may have passed for you, but for someone who is stationary, decades may have passed. You've got to remember that what you are perceiving is not how the external world really is (assuming an external world exists). Matter and energy interact with your body in certain ways which cause signals to be sent to the brain (ie touching a surface may cause nerves to fire, sending an electrical signal to the brain), your brain will then process these signals to produce the sensations you are experiencing. All of your perceptions of the external world are just representations of the external world produced by the brain; colour, sound, coldness, ect do not exist in the external world.

Yes, absolutely. Why would they not? I think it's quiet immature/low conciousness to think that people with differing genitals are unable to form friendships. Also there's is nothing "just" about a true friendship. A true friendship (ie not the crappy surface level friendships most people have) are very deep and intimate.

One thing you should realise is that beauty is completely subjective. Surely you've noticed your taste in men/women has changed over time? Perhaps you've got an ex who you found deeply attractive at the time but no longer hold that attraction for? Or have you ever seen a persons attractiveness melt away before your eyes once they opened their mouth and revealed their personality? Something interesting that I've noticed on LSD is how profoundly it can alter your perceptions of faces, it can sometimes be a little disturbing. My own hand will start to resemble a monkey's paw. Everybody will look so ape-like. I think normally your brain is always processing the way you perceive human characteristics, particularly faces, to make them seem more human. I believe a substance like LSD can alter this processing, or maybe even cease it altogether to reveal their unaltered appearance. Nobody looks beautiful when you're in such a state, they all just look weird. I guess my point is to be more concerned with inner beauty, with inner beauty outer beauty will likely follow. Of cause sexual attraction is important in sexual relationships, I believe the attraction will be far greater and far more satisfying when coming from a genuine emotional connection with your partner.

I think only truth she knows here is that a memory of me providing food at the bowl exists. That I will provide food again or that me and the food exist are all beliefs. I see no reason why experimentally learned beliefs and those learned from others have any fundamental difference, neither of them you can know.

@FindingPeace There certainly are many beliefs people hold which cause suffering and these should be removed or altered. At a first glance (I will have to investigate this further) it seems that most of these are distorted beliefs with no basis in reality or are subjective value judgements. It would be hard (perhaps impossible?) to suffer when your knowledge conflicts with others or reality if you recognise that beliefs are just models and are not truth. Something interesting which I've observed about beliefs is that the thoughts themselves are not the belief, rather there is an associated 'feeling' (or maybe another deeper unconscious processing) which underlies that thought. Have you ever cut off a thought mid sentence before it makes any sense, and yet still knew meaning behind it? Or had moments where you just 'know' something without having to verbalise it? Sometimes when I'm on mushrooms I will begin to strongly feel beliefs which I had previously known verbally. Maybe our pets are just thinking in emotions? When some spiritual teachers speak of eliminating beliefs or eliminating your thoughts could they mean to use these feelings instead? I think this could be dangerous since these feelings are not truth either but can be incredibly convincing. In one of his lectures, Terrence Mckenna talks about a psychologist experimenting with nitrous oxide who suddenly realised the meaning of existence and quickly wrote it down. When he reviewed what he wrote afterwards, the note said 'everything smells like burnt walnuts.' Very often when on psychedelics you will have a profound realisation of some ultimate truth about the universe, but when you go to examine this truth you realise it was all nonsense. To be honest, when some spiritual teachers describe their profound realisations, their descriptions sound strikingly similar to the pseudo-realisations I've experienced on drugs. But maybe our pets don't think at all and are just acting on instinct and psychological conditioning? I don't see the value in living in such a way though. I think it is better to place your awareness on what's going on in your life, examine things logically with the help of models and beliefs.

@FindingPeace From what I can tell the only truth you can know is that your perceptions exist in what ever form they came in and that there is awareness. You do not know if your perceptions are an accurate representation of an external world, or if an external world exists since these are beliefs. If you accept what modern science tell us, then you can see that your perceptions of the world are inherently wrong, since colour, smell, feeling, sound, ect do not exist in the external world, they are merely representations of matter and energy produced by the brain. It's rather apparent to me that some beliefs are more useful than others for real world applications (eg the concepts of modern medicine for curing and preventing diseases or the concepts of physics and engineer for constructing things). I believe everybody ought to recognise their beliefs as beliefs and realise their inherent inaccuracy, but I'm struggling to see how it is in anyway desirable to do away with all you beliefs and models of the external world entirely. Could you please explain it to me? My cat will often sit next to her bowl when she's hungry, it seems like she believes I will bring her food if she does that. She may not hold the beliefs in words like most humans do, but rather experience her beliefs in the raw "feeling" which underlies thoughts in humans.

Maslow makes the distinction between two different types of love; deficiency-love and being-love. D-love is needy, possessive, and neurotic. Infatuation (the "in love" experience) is a form of D-love. B-love is completely non-needy and non-possessive, it is admiring rather than needing. You love the person for as they are without needing anything in return (or needing love in return). B-lovers are independent of one another and do not get easily jealous or threatened. It is the love between a healthy mother and her baby. Perhaps you love some close friends and family in such a way? As for your original question; it is good that you are not needy or looking to possess someone and I would try to avoid the "in love" experience if possible. Personally I think simply seeking to fulfil your deficiency need for sex will be quiet unsatisfying in the long run. I think you could have much more satisfying sex with someone you have a genuine emotional connection with.

1. Why can't you be present with an ego? It seems to me that being more present is something you can develop separately through mental work. Also, it's possible to look at the future in excitement, and the past with gratefulness. (I haven't gone through those videos yet we may still be talking about different things) 2. Instead of doing things to chase some future goal, acquire some possession, or validated your self image, you can do things simply because you love to do them and you value them for their own sake. It's a different way of thinking and a shift in your perception of the world. Happiness has little to do with external circumstances; it's to do with your psychology. No matter what your situation, you can become happy with the right work on your psychology. Ego isn't the only factor here. 3. Because you accept that fact. You don't see death as a bad thing. It makes no sense to worry about something you have no control over. You are going back to the state you were in before you were alive, so you haven't lost anything, you've only gained, you've had brief opportunity to experience life which is remarkable!

I agree there is no way for me to know currently know what it is like to be enlightened. My experimentations with hallucinogens have shown me just how unimaginably different altered states of conciousness can be. I'm not against enlightenment or anything, I am very fascinated by it. I just want to provoke more discussion on the topic to learn more about it, because Leo's posts seem very dogmatic about it.

My emotional state is positive the majority of the time. I have passion and love for life and feel grateful for getting the chance to experience all this. I would say I'm happy. Maybe we don't define happiness in the same way? Could you explain what true happiness is to you? And could you explain why you believe people can't be happy as a separate self? It's quiet confusing when you say you can't be happy without enlightenment because it just doesn't fit in with my own experience.

I'm not sure you would need to completely disillude the ego in order to switch to a state of being. From my own subjective experiences, it seems that being cognition comes from your mind set and thoughts, you can switch to a being mind set instantly. I can definitely see how many peoples egos can prevent them from reaching this state but that doesn't mean that it can only be reached without an ego. I may have a different understanding of the ego, but it seems like people are talking about two separate things; one being the last thought you identified yourself with, and the other being the feeling of separateness from the world (ie. the feeling of being an observers behind the eyes or the boundary of your skin). It seems that the first is what causes the egoic drive you mentioned, but this can be easily altered (or toned down) to the point where it no longer interferes with being-cognition and you can eliminate any drives based around no having enough. This can be done by altering you thoughts, since after all your idea of your self is just thoughts from what I can see. For example, thoughts of "I need to do this to acquire this (which will then validate my image of my self)" can be replaced by "I am going to do this because I love to do this (regardless of any external outcome and without striving to validate my idea of my self)". As for the second definition, I don't see how getting rid of this in it self with give happiness. Personally I don't think I feeling like I'm an observer behind the eyes any more, and as far as I can tell that hasn't changed my emotional state. I once had the experience where my boundary between my skin and the world dissolved, and no happiness came from that, literally the only thing that came from that was that I no longer had a sense of distinction between my body and the world (although I was on mushrooms at the time, so maybe the enlightenment experience is different). On the other hand I have felt an intense love for everything in the world and a feeling that the world is overwhelmingly beautiful and perfect just as it is. In this state nothing could affect me negatively, I could have died just then and I wouldn't have cared, no matter what happened everything was still perfect. But as far as I can remember I'm pretty sure I still had an ego in the times that this has happened (the distinction between my body and the world was still there and I still had ideas about my self). I think experiences like the one I described above come from your underlying beliefs about the world/your thoughts (this is what created those beliefs). I do view the world as beautiful place and I think it is utterly absurd that I even get the chance to experience all this and I feel highly grateful for it, all I can really do is experience the little time I have as richly as I can and to impact other around me in a positive way. I think that the mental state mentioned earlier was the emotion associated with these beliefs being brought out much more intensely, and was not directly related to ego. Overall I would say that I am happy despite having an ego. There are occasions where I feel down, but this does not necessarily both me as much as it used to, I just see it as part of my life experience. It's thinking which can get me into a bad mood, but it's also thinking which gets me out of one and can also make me feel passionate, grateful, joy, and love. Maslow mentions in Toward a Psychology of Being that these people had the experience of self-transcendence more often (ie peak experiences, getting absorbed in your work, b-love). But I cannot recall him saying that these people had no ego or were enlightened. I think switching to a psychology of being is a complete shift in your perspective which is achieved through how you think. Instead of seeing people for what they can give you (love, affection, companionship, validation), you view them as they are and are capable of loving without seeking anything in return, you can love people for who they are, not for what they can give you. Instead of doing things because you are deficient in some area and looking to acquire the thing you lack, you can do things simply because you love to and you value those things for there own sake. I believe that this sort of shift is cause be changing the way you think and your beliefs about the world (and of cause your behaviour must be congruent with your thoughts, your brain will notice otherwise), and are not directly related to ego. I think stopping your thoughts altogether will leave you in a calm and peaceful state. I can definitely see the value in entering this state frequently, personally I would like to experience a wide range of different state than just this one. TD:LR My own experience has led me to believe that thoughts, emotions and behaviours are interrelated. There is some science to back this up; Coginitive Behavioural Therapy is highly effective in treating depression. I don't think must disillude the ego to be happy and I doubt the disilluding the ego in itself will necessarily make you happy, but I do see how thoughts relating to your self image can get in the way.

@Vishal Read The Six Pillars of Self Esteem by Nathaniel Branden. This book contains just about everything you need to know about self-esteem. I highly recommend you look into Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, based on what you've written it seems this will help you a lot. There are plenty of good books on CBT.

"It's a journey of the alone into the unknown. It's about placing your power and courage against that which is in the darkness." - African guy trying to convince a lecture hall fall of people to consume absurdly high doses of psilocybin mushrooms.

Thoughts have accompanying emotions and behaviours, they are interrelated. If you have a habit of judgement, when someone does something wrong you will probably have an automatic thought condemning them. When this happens notice this, bring your awareness to the fact that you had this automatic thought and counter it with a realistic thought. For example, when someone does something wrong you may think 'he/she is a bad person,' this judgement is illogical, counter it with a more realistic thought such as 'he/she fucked up but that doesn't make them a bad person, we've all make mistakes since no one perfectly moral, I'm sure there has been many times where they've done good things.' When you counter distorted thoughts like this with realistic thoughts, eventually (a few weeks) your automatic thoughts be replaced by more realistic and less judgemental ones. In this way you can become completely non-judgemental. This can of cause work on judgements you make toward yourself; 'I'm a failure,' can be countered with 'I didn't do very well on this particular task but that doesn't mean I'm a "failure," there have been many times in the past where I've done work I'm proud of, the fact that I didn't succeed this time gives me opportunity to learn from my mistakes and improve myself.' It is important that your thoughts are realistic and congruent with your behaviour, if you counter it with things you know aren't true (eg 'I'm great at everything I do') it will cause further neuroses. Awareness is vital, but it's not the whole picture. A change in cognition is required, or all you will end up doing is becoming aware of how judgemental you are.

I've made my ultimate purpose in life to experience life as richly as I can before I die and to be a positive influence on the people in my life. Happiness is fairly easy to attain, and there's a wide variety more emotions to experience besides happiness (eg. fulfilment or even the many "negative" emotions; they are just other life experiences after all). Experiencing happy emotions can be one purpose in your life, but there are so many more purposes worth pursuing for their own sake. There is so much to learn, so much art and music to experience or create, so many beautiful people to love and form deep emotional relationships with, so many places of the world to explore, so many different states of conciousness to explore, so many hobbies to get fully engaged with and master, and so much personal development to be had. You need to switch to a psychology of being (read Maslow's Toward a Psychology of Being); instead of trying to acquire thing due to lack (ie trying to acquire happiness), do things simply because you love to (for example, don't try to form friendships to try to attain happiness, do so simply because you love forming emotional bonds and sharing life with other people, work on your hobbies simply because you love working on your hobbies). Of cause your "life purpose" (meaningful creating contribution) is another large aspect of your life experience. I think self-actualisation (being in a state of being) and living a life of passion is what life is about. Happiness is just one experience in this and really isn't hard to get. Happy emotions come as a result of your thoughts and behaviours.

I think Leo idealises enlightenment too much. He claims that you can't be happy without it, but this is simply not true. Happiness, joy, passion, gratitude, love, enthusiasm for life, and contentment for the present moment are all things you can develop regardless of the state of your ego. They are the result of your thoughts, actions, and they way you choose to interpret the world and life. Leo says above that an enlightened person is "very grateful and at peace with whatever is happening and very in the present moment, and not acting all neurotic." These are things which are acquired by working on your cognition and behaviour. The overwhelming success of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy for treating depression shows how interrelated your thoughts, behaviour, and emotions are. I agreed that an unhealthy ego can certainly cause problems, but you can alter your sense of self in such a way that it does not interfere in your happiness or personal development. I'm not sure if Brendan if enlightened or not but I've never seen him mention it, and he seems like someone full of joy, passion, and gratefulness. It seems like a lot of enlightened people came from a situation of suffering, in which case I can see how enlightenment could bring peace. I can't say for certain, but I don't think becoming enlightened is going to make you happy in it self, I think they are going to have to put in the same efforts to acquire these mental states. I think Leo's believe that you cannot be happy without enlightenment will prevent him from being happy. I'm not sure what it means that you will gain truth from enlightenment, so I can't comment on that.