Elia Gottardi

What actions should we take in the meantime? How to behave? I feel powerless but I don't want to just roll over and let humanity destroy all the good stuff we created so far. I wish i could detach from all of this but there's nowhere to escape humanity from, since I am humanity myself!

@pointessa This is profound!

Thanks for your reply

Let's say you've reached a point where you KNOW that you have to swallow some bitter pill about the nature of reality. You've pinpointed it as the cause of your suffering. You KNOW that swallowing this pill will end (or significantly reduce) your suffering. But yet, the pill is too bitter to be swallowed, and you can't. You want to, but you can't. Too afraid, too weak, too whathever. You are trapped in this hellish dilemma. How do you swallow it? Instead of getting angry at reality for "having you to do it"

Though questions, thank you. I'd say: being responsible = checking if actions are congruent with values. But what are values? In this context, I think I mean: values = identity. But identity = concept. So, damn... Because when I follow this rabbit hole too deep, it feels like the end of life and it burns so much that i retract automatically, to maintain my sense of self, I guess. Maybe, deep down, I want this enlightenment thing because of the rewards it entails for me. But the end of me is the definition of this enlightenment thing, so there cannot be any reward, at least not for me. I still cannot swallow this, I guess.

Recently I'm trying to apply the saying "there is no self inside of you" as literally as I can. This dovetails nicely with saying that "you're not in control". So, basically it seems that it is possible for my body/mind to go around, think and do things without "me" being there monitoring or even "do" it. I noticed that, when I'm driving my car, I can "go away a little" and see that my hands are turning the wheel on their own when necessary and my eyes are checking the rear mirrors, as they always do, even if I'm not "there". (I have to say that I don't have the balls to completely let go of control while I'm driving, but this can be applied to less dangerous life circumstances as well, and I notice the same: life seems to be able to happen in "autopilot") So my question is: Am I responsible for my actions? Who's responsible? Will I do bad things if I go away completely? Will I make people upset? Will I cause damage? How can I check what I do when I'm gone? It's confusing and a bit scary. What do you guys think about this? Or am I on a dead end and just masturbating and bullshitting myself?

Hello, I have done exactly what you're planning to do, and I have experienced exactly what you fear. A year and a half ago I heard about 5-MeO from Leo and got very curious about it, almost obsessed. I started looking for it on the black market but found none (very luckily, in hindsight, because if I had took it alone at my house, only god knows what would have happened, pun intended). Anyways, what I did find was an Ayahuasca retreat, so i went for that, thinking it will prepare me for 5-MeO. Ayahuasca was my first psychedelic and it was great, it shattered all my naive materialism paradigm and introduced me to this whole new realm of possibilities. I did a couple of cerimonies, when I found a retreat with Octavio Rettig (on a Leo's post, here) in Spain. I went there to meet the mighty toad of dawn. Now, it might not sound like it, but I had researched the SHIT out of the 5-MeO experience and non duality before doing it. I knew all Martin Ball's video's by heart. But gosh, I had NO IDEA of what I was getting into. Even if I spent my LIFE reserching and studying it, I still would have had nooooo idea. Ayahuasca did NOT prepare me for 5-MeO. Moral of the story, my two 5-MeO trips were HELLISH, i mean, pure hell, like you said. I don't remember anything of them.... but I do remember. It took at least one year for me to recover from the trauma. A year of post-rationalization and mental masturbation. Like my ego trying to reconfigure itself, putting that experience in a conceptual box, in order to control it. Usless to say, it didn't work. What I wanted to say, is that I now fear tripping again on 5-MeO the most. I also know that I should, because I do want more of that, and it's just right there, behind that smoke pipe. Yet I don't have the courage to do it. BUT: those terrifying 5-MeO trips were the single most important, deep and TRUE experience of my life. It grew me so much and you know what? Even if I'm clearly not ready to do it again now, I know deep down that I will. I just have no choice now. I have to grow to that readyness. But hey, what can you do. It really is like opening Pandora's box, I just can't put it all back in. I hope this story helps you deciding, let me know if you need more details byebye