beaucoup

A while back Leo posted a blog post about Quentin Tarantino, explaining that he was a perfect example of someone who intuitively nailed the concept of life purpose in his life. I remember finding it very inspiring and interesting and wanted to collect a few examples of similar people. Therefore I thought it would be interesting and helpful to create a thread where we collectively collect examples of such people. So if someone comes to your mind who is a great example of what a truly purposeful and passionate life looks like, please feel free to share them here. Much love to y‘all n stay healthy!

"Nobody intends to build a wall", said East German leader Walter Ulbricht before the Wall was built.

What kind of growth are you talking about? How is that measured, now? What or who grows from where to where? And how is growth different from any other change? Havent you changed? Left behind what? And why behind? What will ultimately tell you whats true: the words of someone whose words you're giving authority to or your own experience, now? How do you know the content is amazing if you feel "left behind"? Wouldnt that mean that you dont actually "get" the content and could therefore not tell if its amazing or not? And what do you mean by the Truth? If you want an honest suggestion: drop all mental ressources like watching leos videos, reading spiritual book or whatever for a few months. Dont watch anything related to self-help or spirituality, dont read any of it (and dont read any other stuff aswell). And just look for yourself. Also, im not really expecting you to awnser those questions to me, but i would suggest you check for yourself. With love, Felix.

Thats true, but the wealth that is not being consumed or spent really has no value. Thinking it does is one major misunderstanding about money and wealth. Imagine you have 10 million in your bank account: what good will they do you if you never spend em?

I'm not into american politics but i dont think this is true. What is taxed by funding a UBI through VAT is basically consumption. The more you consume, the more taxes you pay. The genius thing about this system is that it recognizes one seldomly understood thing about money: that money has no value, if it is not spended. Which is why i think it's much smarter to tax consumption than to tax income or profits - because as i said: money has no inherent value when it is not exchanged for other usable goods. Ideally i would even go so far and say it would be the best option to only have a VAT, and no other tax. Might seem radical, but think it thorugh. Also this VAT would probably have to be much higher than 10%, coming close to 50% i guess - which wouldnt make prices higher though, because all other taxes which are currently payed and therefore make prices higher already, would be eliminated. Very difficult subject to describe in a few words, but here in germany there are some very smart yellow-typish thinkers on the subject of UBI. Learning about UBI changed my whole understanding of economics.

Ever since I first heard of psychedelics in a spiritual context and then finally took one myself for the first time, I believed in their potential as a spiritual catalyst and so on. Lately though, I've been coming across some concerns regarding the energetic effects of psychedelics. The main one being that most psychedelics are so energetically powerful that they have the ability to overwhelm the energetic system of the body and therefore damage it. Now, with this post I just intend to gather some opinions. Do you guys think there are energetic dangers to taking psychedelics? If yes, do you think that particular substances are more or less dangerous in this regard - and what do you think about 5-Meo in this context? And lastly - if you think there are energetic 'dangers' - what in your opinion would be the practical consequence of that? Not taking them at all, taking them in small doses, doing other energetic practices to open the system, or maybe just babystepping the dosages even more drastically?

@Shin i think it'd be a cool idea to use the socratic method, in other words, never introduce any concept or any belief or anything by yourself, but just ask questions, with the only instruction being that he should only focus on his direct experience.

I'm not too informed on the topic. But have you heard of the concept of receptor saturation? It means that at a certain dose, more of a substance doesn't intensify the effects but only prolongs them. Maybe it's something worth checking out. I know that it is said that LSD reaches recpetor saturation at approximately a dose of 1 mg.

I have to admit that a lot of my seeking and my pursuit of enlightenment is largely a future-directed attempt of escaping something, although I oftentimes honestly don't know what I'm escaping - and so I wonder: what is it that I really want to accomplish? What is it that I'm trying to escape? Or sometimes the inquiry is just as simple as, where's the problem? And even if i don't know, I assume that many seekers would actually have to admit that they are in one form or another just attempting to escape their suffering. But i'm not sure. @Faceless btw, I really enjoy your contributions on this forum.

Thanks for the responses everyone! @Keanu Actually those are exactly the kinds of concerns I was talking about, especially the one with the holes in your aura. Yet, I'm still skeptical about it. How do these energy healers you've talked to know about the damage psychedelics can cause? Have they had clients who were psychedelic users, or even experienced them themselves? And also, I'm a novice to energy fields and just starting to get into yoga, therefore, what really is an aura? And how is it effected if there is a hole in it? Dont wanna sound close-minded, It's just something I have no personal experience of, therefore the skepticism.

@Nahm If i was to relate it to an organ or something I'd say I was referring to the brain, or the nervous system respectively, yet I wasn't really talking about physical damage in the common sense - rather energetic problems. Here is a comment from Leo that he posted in the 5-Meo megathread a while back that expresses these concerns quite well. What is your take on that, regarding your own personal experience with psychedelics?

Yeah, I microdosed for a period of 2 months last year - although I did it with 1P-LSD. Look up James Fadiman - he's the leading authority on microdosing. Considering how much: a microdose is usually about 10% of a recreational standarddose - so in the case of LSD it would be somewhere between 5-20 mcg. For me personally 7mcg seemed to be my sweetspot. Considering how often: it is said that it's best to leave at least 2 off-days between dosing days. So day one you dose, day 2 and 3 you don't. Do's and don'ts: Be extra careful when driving. Also I would suggest you only take a microdose on special days - not on ur regular workday. For example I used to take them on days where some kind of unusual activity or event was planned that did not really require me to function or perform at my highest level. And I would also suggest you take them with the intent of staying mindful all day and using the enhanced cognitive and emotional sensitivity and the increased creativity for therapeutic or spiritual purposes. And just don't overdo it - still treat the substance with respect.

@solr You might wanna check out Byron Katie's "The Work". It really helps to uncover all your evil ways and false projections.

So, this is just meant to be a list of things that we kinda tend to believe in, even though they are merely fictional concepts we have agreed upon. In my experience, defragmenting those kind of concepts can be very useful to become more aware of the illusory nature of thoughts in general. So I just thought i'd compile it real quick and I would be very interested in what kind of illusions you come up with that you have personally seen through. Let's go: seconds, minutes, hours, days and years: we seem to live by these ideas, for exmaple in the year 2018, yet they are just thoughts. countries and cities: for example, what is New York City? well, it doesn't actually exist, just a name we give to a collection of consistent appearances. friendships, relationships, marriage and family: i suppose a marriage can feel very real when you're in it, but these are quite obviously just agreements. the spiritual path: being on it can easily become a part of ones idendity, yet it's basically just memories and visions of the future put in a larger context. objects like cars, trees etc.: what is a car? is it its pieces, its motor? is it the whole thing? if so, seen from with perspective? basically, also just a concept. personality: ones personality is really just an idea of being something stable and somewhat real, when in reality there is only behavior. other people/egos: this is one i've just theoretically seen through, but it's very interesting how everytime you see a human being your mind immediately creates some kind of concept to represent this being, and you usually equip this imaginary entity with some kind of responsibility. songs, books, movies: each of those is basically something that does not exist in the entirity that we attribute to it. This list could probably be as long as a dictionary, but I hope that this was intersting and insightful for some of you.

@MisterMan You might be interested in the Model for Awakening by Lyn Hunsted from the Temple of Authentic Divinity. http://www.templeofauthenticdivinity.com/model-for/ It gives an idea on how metta-meditation fits in with other spiritual practices, even with psychedelics - and what role it can play in Awakening.

@el_duderino I would highly recommend giving metta-meditation a try. Last year i had a period of a few months where i did metta daily, and man, tears of joy and love came quite regular, i also noticed it changing my behavior a lot, making me more understanding and forgiving, towards others but also towards myself. Now, this is how it went for me. Best is to find out for yourself, if this style of meditation resonates with yourself. Also, in my experience, music can be great to open one up for love - depends on the music of course.

Now, this may sound like utter Bullshit, but notice in your direct experience that you are actually not longing for/loving her. To do that, first of all notice what she is. She is merely an idea in your head. Just a thought, a concept. So there is this idea you have of her (which maybe stirs up some mental images etc.) and then there is this intense hopeful emotion, maybe a sense of desire or longing, you may also call it love, that you have attached to this idea. You have probably done so because of cultural indoctrination and so on. However though, notice that this love, or maybe this longing for love, that you are experiencing has nothing to do with her. You just practiced associating it with her so much that you cannot disentangle the two anymore. You personified and canalized this feeling of love onto her and you have probably done so because of cultural indoctrination. One way to realize that the notion you have of her and this intense emotion are actually independent from one another might be to imagine that she is dying, right now. It might really make you give up that attachement. And maybe then you realize that what you were actually longing for never was her. It was merely this emotion that you have projected onto her. And then you can investige further. What is this emotion? And so on ...

There's a lot of technological development and innovation going on in the field of psychiatry and neuroscience. For example: Transcranial magnetic stimulation is a procedure that uses magnetism to manipulate the neural activity. It can either inhibit or activate the neurons around the area it is aimed at. It is an up-and-coming psychiatric treatment and is already used as a therapy for depression and various other disorders. Neurofeedback. Commonly used for ADHD, but also for depression, OCD, anxiety disorder, insomnia, psychopathy and much more. It's basically a device that is giving you direct feedback on your current neural activity. There is also the possibility to use neurofeedback to enhance meditation. There is a program that is called "40 years of zen" somewhere in California i belive. Also there are devices being sold that claim to be effective for private solo-therapy with neurofeedback. It costs a lot of money though, and I think for now it's only effective with a professional neurofeedback-therapist. There is also Deep Brain Stimulation. It's basically a little gadget, like a pacemaker, that they put in your brain that then manipulates the activity of certain brain regions and neural circuits. It's being used of OCD in Germany, and for Parkinson all around the world. The effects it has on Parkinson-patients are extraordinary. I think it's also used for depression, dont know though. Nonetheless, I don't find these technologies too promising for raising ones consciousness. I guess the best technologies in that regard are meditation, self-inquiry and psychedelics. By the way, there is also a lot of new research on the clinical effects of psychedelics, which indeed is very promising.

Honestly, i am not qualified to speak on the matter, since i haven't taken 5-Meo yet. But i plan to do so and have already strategized on how to prepare. To me, my preparation has 3 main building blocks: 1. Become a more experienced psychonaut: I would very much advise you to try a few softer psychedelics first - just so that you get an idea of how powerful these substances can be. Even an LSD-trip can be a sort of once-in-a-lifetime experience for the average person. Therefore i would, in your case, have at least a few trips on milder psychedelics like shrooms or LSD (or any analogue of the two) under my belt, before going into the 5-MeO-Dmt-experience. Ideally, you already broke through duality with a stronger dose of shrooms/LSD. And then, i would also advise you to get some experience with regular DMT - it can get you acustomed to the quick onset-times and the intensity. 2. Contemplation and meditation: The more you have dropped your conceptualizations and beliefs about the nature of reality before going into the experience, the better. Therefore: meditate, self-inquire and contemplate and question every belief you come across. 3. Prepare to die: I think spiritual seekers often misunderstand and underestimate that the ultimate destiny of their search is the 'death' of their ego. And as you probably know, a full release-dose of 5-Meo will make you experience that kind of death. So maybe it's a good idea to live life knowing that you will die soon, as if you had some kind of deadly disease. Susanne Marie, a spiritual teacher from california, actually described that she was going through a phase of "knowing that i will die soon" before her sense of personal self finally fell away. And i want to make the case that it's good to prepare as much as possible for the experience. In my opinion, the problem in doing it with too little preparation (especially with too little prior psychedelic experience) is that you might just be shocked and overwhelmed by the experience, and therefore way to resistant to do 5-Meo again, which ultimately seems to be the best if you want to use it as a catalyst for your spiritual growth. But also: from all i have heard, there is no way to reliably prepare for the 5-Meo-DMT experience, since it is so incredibly more intense then anything you could imagine. I wish you all the best if you are going to try the substance. And until then, may you prepare to die. Oh, and btw: are you doing it with the guy from Psilohuasca?

From a medical point of view, it depends on the mental illnesses in your family. Schizophrenia, Bipolar Disorder and any psychotic symptoms are most definitely alarming. If you are talking about subtance addictions, alcoholism, depression or ocd, it would be fine to take psychedelics to my knowledge. However, don't go into a trip with an anxious mindset.

There is a theory by a psychologist called Baddeley. He said that our working memory uses a phonological loop to recode visual information into an auditory articulation while reading.

Congratulations on those subtle changes in yourself. Mindfulness can really be miraculous. Now to your question: The brain is a very, very complex system of interactions and barely understood. Also, bear in mind that especially in the field of neuroscience, we are dealing with a lot of very hypothetical constructs, causalities that have not been or cannot be proven. However though, let me outline what I have come across as some major changes in the brain that seem to go along with mindfulness work. Mindfulness meditation is thought to decrease the activity of the so-called Default-Mode-Network. As the name says, it is a network of roughly 12 seperate brain regions that is most active in our default-mode of being, hence when we think, daydream or do mundane activities. Gary Weber (you might wanna check out his videos on youtube) has also said that there are two regions within the Default-Mode-Network that are particularily interesting in the context of spirituality and mindfulness. One is a region that seems to be involved with the differentiation of Self and Other, the other is a region that is responsible for our sense of time, and our sense of Self within time. This would explain why a reduction in the activity of the Default-Mode-Network through meditation could lead to experiences of presence and unity. So, to sum it up, the Default-Mode-Network seems to be the neurocorrelate of monkey mind and ego. Yoga, and some types of meditation, have been shown to increase the concentration of the inhibitory neurotransmitter GABA, which is related to relaxation. It has been shown that mindfulness meditation increases gray matter volume (in the prefrontal cortex, as far as i know). High gray matter volume in the PFC has also been associated to high scores on psychological measurements of subjective happiness. And one thing on the concept or re-wiring. Basically, your brain is constantly re-wiring, whenever you experience just about anything. The ability of the brain to re-wire, neuroplasticity, is basically the fundamental precondition to learning in general. So, according to that, your brain is also chaning it's structure during meditation or mindfulness work - for the better though. Furthermore, it would not surprise me, if meditation effected the serotonergic system. It might do something to 5HT2A-receptors, but anyways, keep it up with mindfulness and have fun

Reading across this forum, there seem to be at least a handful of members on here who are awake. Out of sheer curiosity and just to get an overview, I wanted to aks you guys: what has worked best for you? Any method, practice or teaching that did the job, or at least did it better than any other method? Thank you in advance :-)

Humans are just some really strangely walking mammals. If you hear a birdnoise and associate it with a bird, there actually only is the sound and no bird. And even if you see the bird, it actually just is a sight.

Hey fellas, alongside daily meditation and such practices I've done a lot of research into the neuroscience of enlightenment, be it 5-HT7-receptors that seem to be involved in enlightenment, the pineal gland or the default mode network. However, I wanted to know if any of you guys came across technologies etc. that seem to support spiritual seekers? In particular: - has anyone of you done 5-MeO-Dmt or has had experiences of nonduality with other substances? - what do you guys think or know about the technology of neuro- or biofeedback to enhance mindfulness and increase consciousness? Let me know your thoughts, blessings to each of you.