FirstglimpseOMG

You made me laugh out loud! I'm fascinated however, by the possibilities with mocro-dosing acid or mushrooms, etc. Need to do some research. I'm wondering as well if you can micro-dose for months and then go to a full dose and have full effect when desired. Likely, as by micro-dosing you haven't so radically depleted your fun brain chemicals. The thing is, I often forget how awesome and fascinating life is, and when I do get into altered states - I actually do feel the God-consiousness strongly when I go for it. It's that realization that brings the tears and exposes the love for all all all all. Also, when in an entheogenic altered state I am not inspired, I AM INSPIRATION EMBODIED, fueled by pure love and fascination and beingness. I could play guitar and keyboards all night while barely being able to wait to draw, paint, 3D model, and then I want to bask in music for hours and hours, lost and in love. Then I want 4 hours of slow intimacy with someone that wants the same. I feel a bit weak sometimes, when I realize that a substance will catalyze my love for life and all manifestations within, and I so easily and habitually draw down into a morass of self-doubt and mickey-mouse living when not all enhanced and altered. Splitting fine hairs here, I know - as it all points to a lesson to learn, and a realization that if I can rule my world like a majestic god of creation and pure life consiousness when tripping along, I have everything within me to achieve this bliss of creation and love for all 'isness' every day, regardless of tabs, blotters, and fun fun fungi. They sure are awesome pointers though eh? But, you know... people regularly dose their day with big-pharma commercial crap ssri's, for just that same reason; reduced self-sabotage and enhancing day to day functionality.

@cetus56 interesting thoughts. We are here to experience life. If our confusion about this life results in a premature, massive trauma to our bodies.. we've missed the point I think. I would imagine that your health in a video game only becomes trivial because you have an instant reset. I also imagine that while alive within this world, the deepest despair or existential crises provide the most meaningful chance for self-reflection and growth. I'd say that shortening life needlessly is a tragedy, but apparently there are no mistakes in life. Figuring it out as I go lol.

I think the big lessons likely occur on the come-down as the ego remembers itself. Watch it come back in with love and amusement. Then have a laugh at it next time it wants to be all bitchy and flat about life.

1 + 1 = 1 7, 000,000,000 + 1 = 1

Anyone who can make you feel so awesome about your lower self trying to live from your higher self.. damn.. Plus, he's not all lovey-dovey words for the sake of effect, his other vids delve deeply but lightly into the mechanisms and counter-intuitive ways we sabotage our selves - I need all the help I can get!

@Martin123 Thank you for the pointer to these vids by Matt. I had seen one of his videos months ago, but these were inspiring and refreshing! I think the two Love Revolution videos might be a regular day-starter. I often start the day looking for some inspiration from my favourite teachers.. these few by Matt don't seem like they could be any better to set up the realization of another miraculous day. Thanks again, authentic inspiration straight from LOVE - can't buy that.

I was actually entertained for a while...

I believe it was Mooji who said this. I couldn't remember so I googled the phrase before posting but all I got were pop song lyrics. It certainly isn't mine, sorry. It sure hits the mark though.

The one you are looking for is the one who is looking through your eyes.

It seems much more dramatic and demostrative than closing your eyes to disappear reality, then opening them to re-manifest. Yeah I know, I should be meditating rather than playing eye games but.. I need all the little 'aha's I can stumble upon!

Hmmm, a mini aha moment maybe. Watching a Rupert Spira video, sitting in my comfy chair, winding up for the day, slowly. As I become absorbed in the message of the words and the images moving on the screen, pretty much everything outside of that small visual field of immersed focus begins to dissolve in no time. Like a special visual effect in a movie (only natural, organic and completely underived). I get spots and fuzzy splotches and flashy undulating star-fields and constantly morphing clouds of nothingness roiling around as an undefined mess of random pastel explosive arrays of fireworks within watercolour fringe-fields. Closed eye visuals occuring with open eyes, everywhere that my intent, or immersed focus is not. You've all seen it once you focus intently on an object, especially a lit, animated display screen. You notice for an instant or two as you slightly de-focus on the content of the screen that the rest of your visual field had dissolved into a staticy, undefined, mass of unformed light and colour - scrambled, changing, much like a colour version of screen static before you hooked the signal into your T.V. The further away from your narrowed field of attention, the more frissonic and ethereal, a phosphene of the unmanifested. It's not a visual effect is it? I've often wondered lately what it would look like if I could move the body-mind just slightly faster than the speed of light, and whirl around quickly enough while walking down the street to observe the world manifest from nothingness behind me. I had assumed that that sort of immediate, obvious reality busting was beyond my capabilities, but we just may witness the unmanifested turn into our reality every time we focus in on an object closely and intently, to the exclusion of most everything else, and then zoom out a bit, remembering to notice, and not discount the dissolution and resolution of 'matter', as a visual quirk. Waddya tink?

Consider checking this one out, it's short but it's gold. The title may not seem directly relevent but Gary touches on the two centers in the brain that end up controlling 9 sub-networks. One of these centers is simply active to create the sense of 'self' and 'other', and the other center's function is to create the sense of 'self' within 'linear time'. Psychedelics and meditation are known and proven to shut these two networks down. The sense of being separate from ANYTHING else, and the sense of past and future are referred to as special effects. Check out some of Gary Weber's lectures, (usually not too long) over at Science and Non-duality or youtube in general. He addresses all this stuff in more detail, and as it sinks in I can pretty much guarantee that you will be blown away. Try this first though, many inspiring and 'aha'-worthy answers in one vid. Inspiring and Truth-wringing answers always with Gary and Rich.

Some folks can smoke pot and never have it become a big deal. I'm really just suggesting that if you are ready to regain your life, grow, transform, transcend the low stuff or the low consciousness about it, and just discover some peace and happiness to work from, if you struggle, (many are I think, I do) maybe adding anxiety at this time by quitting the weed habit won't help at all. Just as much can be said for eliminating it, dealing with the added bumps and to keep moving along the path to freedom and contentment, sweetness and joy and happiness. It's a very personal preference I'm sure, and you reserve the right to enjoy or change up your habits as you see fit at any time. And it's not a destination I don't think, the whole enlightenment thing. It's a sinking into your heart and a recognizing what mind, body and ego are, and what you aren't, minimizing all this friggin' needless and useless suffering, and allowing your true nature to shine through, and I believe for most people it's slower and incremental. Doesn't mean someone who's trying to lose 100 pounds isn't joyful and inspired after losing the first twenty.

It doesn't take too long with chronic weed use to leave you much more 'less than comfortable' when you aren't buzzed. You could have an ideal life situation, all the riches and success you could ask for, and just suffer like a poor anxious little bitch when your dealer's late, or out of weed and no backup, or you dump your last 2 joint's worth of grinded-up bud on the green shag carpet. Experimenting with substances can be amazing, but relying on them for mood is a fool's game. I wouldn't change too much at once. If you smoke daily and want to get back into meditation and having mindfulness really working for you, just smoke like you would, calm the fuck down, and begin to get back into the practice. You know the meditation and mindfulness were solid, effective practices for you before. Let that be motivation to get past this bumpy part and get it working for you again. I quit a pack-a-day cigarette habit after discovering non-duality, just because of awareness plus disgust. But I aim to wean myself off the weed as a habit, as I move along here. I'm not sure I want to juggle withdrawal and the initiation into spirituality simultaneously. I'm determined that the mindfulness and desire to transcend needing weed for mood will see me on top of that in the near future. Mind you, there's something to be said for not dicking around and just quitting weed and taking on the practice of meditation and mindfulness again, but it sounds like you are already dealing with a fair bit of anxiety and that pervasive need for distraction. I suppose you just smoke a doob, notch all the monkey-mind shit down a little, and start getting honest about what you are trying to escape from or distract yourself from, or not face. It's all about you and your reactions. What you focus on. The value or importance you attribute to what you focus on, and what you decide to do about it. Probably best to really forgive the ex in your heart, until it's real (lovingkindness meditation and metta for that). Those borderline personality disorder bitches will destroy and leave you a shell for about a year, but they absolutely cannot help it within their world of dysfunction, it's just what they do. Look up the frog and the scorpion tale bud, & forgive both her and yourself. The colour bleeds back into the sunsets after a while though, and if you're off of their radar, you can put the pieces back together. I don't know where you are in all the aftermath of the abuse, but the only way arou d it is through it. I've been there. I cycled grief over and over until about 10 to 12 months after breaking free. It would have killed me, I finally bailed as pure survival. And yeah, I mean the emotio al rollercoaster of confusion and guilt and gaslighting, and pure batshit craziness would have killed me, it wasn't and doesn't need to be physical abuse. The goofiest thing, and I can promise you this, is that once you are out of it and cycled tnrough the grief cycles (over and over, yes, but diminishing in intensity and frequency as you go), and have built some sanity back into your day-to-day, you would not trade a second of it all for anything. It's a fine balancing act to get over it without bitterness detracting from the re-instatement of beauty and grace in your life. Anyway, long-winded me says; If you were there in the land of contentment and beauty and spiritual growth before Miss 'me me me' came along, you have not wandered as far from it as you think. Apologies if I read too much into the abusive relationship thing. They can kill you or leave you with PTSD as effectively as a tour of duty in a full-out war zone.

Speaking of hell... A man gets sent down to hell and meets the gatekeeper, who provides a quick orientation before leaving you to your eternal damnation and misery. "Contrary to popular belief," he says, "there are two sides to hell. There's eternal fire or eternal shit, and you do get to choose, after a quick preview of each aspect, come with me." He leads him to a huge iron door that opens to a blasting inferno, fire forever and no relief, forlorn tortured souls writhing in agony and screaming pain. The gatekeeper leads him to another door, where he is allowed to glance in. There he sees throngs of poor souls standing knee deep in shit and raw sewage, just standing around looking miserable and lost. "I'll take the shit side!" exclaims the man, "it looks way better than the fire side!" And so, in he goes, and off goes the gatekeeper. The big iron door slams shut and a lower demon appears from a side room. "Alright everyone, coffee break's over, back on your heads!"

Oh, and dive into the content of Leo Gura's videos if you haven't, especially the latest year, all the enligntenment stuff, all the sage stuff, all the meta-info he brings. He somehow makes it serious and fun and engrossing at the same time. I learn really well when I am entertained, and Leo's knowledge, style, sense of humour and charisma has helped me take it all in.

Hey Kloof, glad my ramblings got you thinking. Too much thinking sets you back, I'm finding, but like Leo mentioned 'You gotta start somewhere.' I'm just trying to figure it all out my friend. I have some decent intuition, a bit of an affinity for 'soft and fuzzy' instead of 'hard and prickly', and a big big curiosity that keeps me on the path. I imagine everyone has these qualities. Or is capable of discovering them. I cheat a lot and I'm really rather lazy so far when it comes to meditation and concentration. Working on that, actually started concentration exercises last evening. I'm lucky if I manage a minute as a novice here. It feels good to do it though, like a coach potato realizing his legs are for walking and running and not a platform for a tray of nachos and a beer. Contemplation I seem good at, and I mean sitting comfortably and casually for hours, intensely curious and contemplative, pulling on anything new I've learned from people who seem to 'know', and I guess using self-inquiry to some extent. Lately this often brings in 'Aha!' moments, whether it is a mini aha that is part of the scaffolding to the bigger aha's, or a pretty big sudden understanding or realization. Sometimes a big aha is only an accumulation of little aha's that were swirling around trying not to conflict with each other, finding a common ground of slightly larger truths to build on. Sometimes my scaffolding is so poorly worked, just plain 'wrong' and my apparently elevated being so tenuous, that I have to go back down & dismantle sections so I don't fall on my butt over and over again. I know it's time to actually install a regular meditation habit and build on it. Concentration too.. when Leo asserted that the mind meditates much, much better after being 'slapped around a bit first' by concentration practice, it made such good sense. I guess with me it's been like this: Growing and intensifying curiosity about existence, cosmology, physics and quantum theories (thoroughly from a layman's standing, holee), and a general sense at 53 of pissing my life away as a dreamer, capable of so much more, and unsure why I was half-assing LIFE when I KNEW I had every inch of intellect, intuition, experience, and creativity to be rocking it, put me on this path. (Why aren't I rocking it, I know I can do anything I put my mind to, why aren't I, aaarrgh!) Got totally interested in physics and cosmology in the meantime but was just really 'surfacing' it until I realized that some of the top physicists and thinkers of the world had started talking freely about universal consciousness, a unified field, a world, not of electrons, but of 'potential electrons', just dancing in and out of existence, available to form into anything as the observer of the 'material' world evokes it all, nano-second by nano-second, just by being conscious. Or consciousness! Observer-based science is fairly new I think, but it is, hands down, one of the most fascinating areas of study I've ever been exposed to. Intense curiosity may bring you to the path of non-duality and spiritual awakening, and serves well to keep you on the path. All the new ways of looking at things and thinking about things, all the magic and mystery make it seem less like work all the time, and a few little aha's motivate and inspire us to keep going, rather than becoming too discouraged at the daunting challenges ahead. Watch for becoming lost in endless concepts and theories though. As a beginning and entry point into this world of spirituality, curiosity and mental hand-wringing and study and educating yourself and watching a thousand videos and using mind mind mind to feel your way around for the first few aha moments, works as initiation and motivation or a while, but then it's obviously time to ACTUALLY begin the empirical investigation. Understand that there is no big heavy goal in the future to set, and no way of progressing very much further until you do a bunch of emotional labour, balanced by the lure of mysticism and the real magic of life. If you neglect the meditation, concentration, self-inquiry, and are lazy about implementing other tried and true non-dual practices, you will bog down like me. I now have to actually consistently begin to master meditation and concentration, and whatever else resonates with me, and quit thinking about it. But I had to use intense curiosity to fuel the search. Man, if you are all entranced and curious about all that you are finding interesting and inspiring in this forum, with Leo's content, and in general within the non-dual world, and are in education mode, watch and read as much Gary Weber, Rupert Spira, Eckhart Tolle, John Hagelin, Francis Lucille, Mooji, Adyashanti, Leonard Susskind, Sahdguru, Wayne Dyer, Dr. Joe Dispenza, on and on. I find that the people on here who may inspire you have an arsenal of teachers and teachings they draw from, and you'll get a feeling for their genuine, excited endorsements of sites and channels and specific vids. It's a big world of love, discovery and joy, and may be the movement and momentum that saves the world when nothing else has a chance to. At the very least you get to rock your world positively and joyously and spread that feeling and power around. Welcome!

Dude, I have a dysfunctional ex-wife, nothing scares me any more. Thank you for sharing though, I'm going to get into it. I did have a weird experience last week after a shower. When I was standing well to the side of the mirror I had to extend and reach for the towel, so only my forearm and hand appeared in the mirror out of nowhere, no face or familiar image to attach to a 'me'. Instantly I was sort of startled and amused at the same time; "Who the hell's arm is that?" I'll practice and return with tales of great adventure maybe, thanks again.

@electroBeam Well, not to be light about it, but I bet wherever you go, you'll be back, intact. I might have to try this mirror work.. I want more mysticism and scary adventure and less Youtube guru fixation.

What if you kept going and it didn't hurt?

This is likely a much better place to be than thinking you know things when you simply do not. Knowing that you don't know is apparently a great way to begin this journey. Thinking you know, or pretending you know, when you do not, is likely a sure way to stall the process of awakening. I can't remember which Actualized.org video it was where Leo asserts that knowing that you don't know, and embracing confusion for long periods of time, rather than fighting it, puts you ahead of the game, rather than immersing you further into delusion.

I think this is somewhat what you're after in this work, in a big way. Fuck all the labels, when love just wants to 'go', wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee...!!

@Shin The welling up of that essence like never before is the best thing ever for me. My mind struggles with subtle but critical distinctions on this path, but along my journey now, when unconditional love senses an inch of give, it takes a mile every time. I just go with it. I could be full of shit, but it sure feels like the 'no words to describe God' God, is pouring through this vehicle as soon as it senses an opening. Pretty awful to get tired of crying tears of joy.. bwa ha ha ha haaa. Oh, and in my feeling, or intuitive assessment, any sadness or trepidation during your 'God release' is just ego going "Oooooh shit, I can't compete with that, quick - plan B! Is there a plan B?!" Good on ya bud, you worked for that release. You likely can't expect a memo before the floodgates start crumbling because you never know when the openings will happen or what the trigger might be. Good for you. The world changes just a little more in the 'right' direction.

My understanding is that there is no causality in the universe. Also, I'm not sure there's anything static or not about the absolute. My understanding is that the absolute has no 'qualities' or quantities, therefore we miss the mark when attributing any qualities to the absolute other than infinite, loving, potential. As far as I can tell, the Absolute, Infinity, Source, God, The Unified Field, whatever the label, is the pure potential of life, unlimited, unbounded, uncoloured and unaffected by whatever 'objects' are manifested; you, your car, your house, the tree, your 'mind'... I really don't claim to 'know' anything. It's early in this new search, experiment, practise, path, for me. I may just be having trouble relating to what appears to be your strong identification and attachment to the feats and deeds of 'mind', while I struggle to understand what's going on, let alone transcend it. I may also be misunderstanding your larger context. Is there a larger context? Are most spiritual or non-dual seekers not tryng to understand, then transcend the body-mind? In identifying strongly, or at all I guess, with mind, does the quest for truth, spirituality, non-duality subside for you? Also, are you sure you're not suffering.. until you do some suffering? I don't want to project my experience of suffering onto you, your blanket statements just throw me off. I may be missing the point, isn't the human condition what we're trying to transcend? Isn't the mind what ultimately messes with the natural radiant beauty of life itself, despite the mind performing brilliantly most of the time, (until it comes to existence and reality)?

@Salaam In my opinion and understanding, The Holographic Principle very effectively and convincingly explains how we interact with others in a world of no 'objects'. Leonard Susskind et al have it down. It baffled me for a while too, as to how something physical, but brand new & never seen before outside of my home by anyone, ever (like an original painting or sculpture.), could be seen and enjoyed by another entity in a world of no real objects. How can a new object be recognized and interacted with when prior to it's creation (from no-thing), it did not exist in any perceivable manner? Like if I painted a picture and left it on your doorstep and you stumbled over it upon leaving for work and said, "Oh a painting, very nice."... how do you perceive matter within consensus reality when there is none, and how is any self-consistency maintained when the individual seemingly evokes his world from Nothing AS he moves through it?!! The Holographic principle explains that there is self-consistency in evidence when two observer's worlds overlap, as in a Venn diagram. The two Holographic regions, defined by the light-speed and dark energy-couched boundaries for the observers, overlap due to the (consistent) information encoded in and projected to each observer from those boundaries. It takes a quantum leap of insight to get there. Speaking of quantum mechanics and insights, I honestly wonder how it is that you base your hypothesis on one set of current quantum theories, mis-understanding, and subverting those even, then further the misguided play of ignoring and/or not researching and considering other major quantum theories. If you're going to quote and hypothesize from a quantum mechanics perspective, why not include and understand the bigger quantum picture and not just cherry-pick the aspects that work into your story? I may be totally wrong in my explanation and understanding of what the craziness of quantum theories points to, and I may even be completely (okay, not completely) deluded considering the reality that science really does go out the window in the LARGER CONTEXT of no-self, but if I'm basing my reality on quantum mechanics, accurate or flimsy, I'm sure as hell including the whole thing.