FirstglimpseOMG

I guess we have the power to create our own little mini, personal strangeloops. Positive or negative. Any dipshit can create crappy loops to experience... Let's go higher.

My pleasure bud, as I said, I freakin' struggle with it. In my experience, the more mindful you are, or aware, or whatever you call it, of the negative patterns as they occur, the better and better off you are and the easier and easier it gets. The being aware part I mean, not so much the changing of those patterns of negativity - I find that a little more 'worky' lol. But you're well on your way really just by watching those crappy patterns arise and any strivance to cut-down on the shitty, constricting feeling-tone that accompanies them. I was bad... I was clenching my gut & neck in the present when remembering shit from 10 or 15 years ago, (or last week), that I had never, ever un-clenched from back then! I find part of the un-clenching of it all is catching yourself as you admonish yourself with patterned harshness and disgust, stopping right there, heave a sigh, and go higher & lighter. The best of the deal is pretty soon you're radiating that back outward to the world (Metta lovingkindness meditation happening just by default lol).. lots of easier forgiving happens, sort of a natural result of understanding, it's win-win. Less and less constriction is soooooo goooood.

I tend to do a lot more 'being' in the now when immersed in a 'shroom trip or some similar substance. Very much in that-flow-state. Looking at a clock seems funny, useless, unimportant, the numbers seem irrelevent. Holee, the sun's coming up, what a night, what a beautiful sunrise, (tears of awe) WEEEeeeeeee!!! Time as an appearance eh? I hadn't really included time in there consciously either. Crazy cool. That whole 'appearance' thing is effective. Might have to re-watch the video where Leo talks about it, it got me going then I got distracted from the contemplation.

Contemplating this is sweetly slippery. I sense that you can bring so many angles into the discussion of our sensation of sight. 'They' put sight up there at something like 75% of your sensory field input, it's the biggie. (Until you lose your eyesight somehow, then a large part of the section in your brain that used to run your eyes dedicates itself to integrating & processing your braille input, it can't use your eyes anymore so it lends a hand to your fingertips. No pun intended 'til I realized it was punny.) I wonder where in our discussion here lay the distinctions most folks make between 2D & 3D. I imagine my current field of vision with two good eyes open features a 3D effect. I can look at a lamp on a table, realize there's a backside to it all and see this play out in 3 dimensions as I walk around behind it to confirm this. Now, if I close one eye and do the same thing, the same impression of a backside to it is there, I can confirm this by walking around behind it.... but the whole experience is a little flatter, right? Sort of like booting around first-person in a video game, on a flat monitor. You know to scoot around behind the barrel to whack the enemy but there's no natural depth of field to it, it's implied but not experienced on anything more than a 2D surface. Hmmm, it'all very slippery. We're in the 'wakey wakey' part of the forum here. If it's interesting and fun to get all curious & definitive about the features and workings of vision, are you peering down the rabbit hole or already sliding? What are you looking at? Are you biologically 'seeing' all that big world out there, supposedly in your visual field? Photons hitting the retina and converting to electro-chemical impulses that are zipped around a bunch of different regions of the brain, all responsible for a different feature of vision and then re-assembled into an (almost) real-time movie in a little spot near the back of your skull, about an inch in from the top of your neck? It's pretty dark in there, if you really think about it. What the eff is really going on? (What's our context, how big-picture is our thinking regarding our sensory field?) What are we seeing? Is what we are experiencing in our sensory field coming into us? Are we going out to it? Is it to us, or of us? Definitely fun...

Sorry to be out of step replying to DocHoliday's query, you posted while I was typing away lol. <<< EDIT Oh I agree fully that time is a useful tool, and we need clock-time (yes, I'm an Eckhart Tolle fan) in many ways to functionally navigate and coordinate within our world. Regarding my cognitive dissonance remark, I may have mis-used or even misunderstood the term in reference to our discussion. I think what I was trying to say was.. if I watch the pot of boiling water intensely, waiting for the water to boil, and I really, really want it to hurry up so I can have an egg for breakfast.. what happens - it seems to drag along excrutiatingly, very possibly causing anxiety or frustration (working on that, lol). Now, if I go into another room and think up an appropriate forum-post response to an interesting topic, type it out, hit submit, & head back into the kitchen, I'm all delighted (gotta get out more), the water's all boily & ready for my egg, just like quick quick magic that seemed to take no time at all. Point being that just what the hell is the 'subjective' relationship to 'time', how is it so easily malleable within perception, and if it can be so easily manipulated within experience, how real can it be, and just how deluded am 'I' to be paying that much attention to it as a fundamental part of (that section) of my day? Just how much delusion enters into the equation when I think time is passing at a certain rate when my perception, therefore my experience of it, is so easily warped, or dead-wrong (within this context)?

I imagine the nature of our human construct; 'time' is just and only that, a construct or concept, and in my opinion it is false. Sounds a bit like a cut & paste response right? Not so fast, fellow travellers. What if there is no time. I love quantum physics, and I've done my best to date to integrate it into my understanding of reality as we perceive it, but spacetime is to me, likely as much a construct, hence; illusion, as the rest of the ego-centric human fallacy. I'm coming to understand that pure, unadulterated consciousness operates outside of spacetime. Space and time may be features of perception, but how can they be intrinsic to reality when all of reality, including our spacetime, is coached within some (no) thing that is infinite and eternal... without beginning or end? I imagine we can negate clock-time at will, depending on our state of consciousness and our abilities to see past illusion and operate from a deeper understanding, to whatever degree and frequency. Lol, go ahead & chuckle at my use of the word 'frequency' within a post where I claim there is no 'time', but I'm attempting to make a fundamental point about the non-existence of time 'passing', or progressing in any linear or 'real' way. What if time as the average joe understands it, only exists within, and is very possibly completely dependent upon cognitive dissonance? I dunno, I may have missed the subtle sub-contexts discussed here, and am only repeating what you folks have already said, in so many words, but let's go to our perceptions of time, as this may be where the secret lies. How does time work? I think it may only, ONLY work as illusion. Yes, everything we percieve with our senses and (ahem) intellect are illusions. Not that they don't exist, it's just that they are not what they seem. How deep are we striving to go here? If the way time 'works' is pure illusion, more and more easily manipulated by the (hopefully) growing levels of consciousness that we are certainly capable of realizing, can 'time' simply not fall away as a concept or construct altogether? What if it's simply erroneous, and there is absolutely nothing ever more than: now, now, now, now, now, now, now, now....!!?? Sure, if you care to punctuate your 'nows' by the femtosecond, feel free, but I'm thinking that if past and future do not exist, then neither can the title, or label; 'TIME' really be meaningful? (I know, detecting anything by the femtosecond is impossible without a sweet laboratory setup, it never works when I try to be cute, but ya get the gist I hope.) And yeah, if you're buying me lunch at 1:00 pm at Larry's House of Debauchery on 5th street, Tuesday, I'm using clock-time to make sure I don't miss out, but if I'm single-guy reclining in my chair after my daily responsibilities have been met, I'm a-tossin' it. ? You made reservations, right?

It's been a while since I've discovered a new person to inspire and enthuse. I caught this by accident and went to sleep last night literally crying tears of joy, never done that before. Something about this one went straight to my heart, like lightning might, I am so in love with this woman. I think it was when she exclaimed "The universe has got your back!" Tears of joy again as I write! Consider giving it a try, it's short, and I'd love to know how it made you feel. I need more of THIS! ...H.O.P.E = Heal Our People and Earth...

...Just realizing it for the eighteen-hundredth time...

Ah... my distinctions ARE quite arbitrary...

@DocHoliday Well, your response is certainly appreciated. Every tidbit of real wisdom helps, it may be incremental, but it all goes in, thank you.

Maybe 5-me0 time has come, I am researching effective sourcing of this stuff, but that's another thread...

But Leo... (& DocHoliday)... Do we always go to the biggest picture possible? The largest context? I guess if you can, you do, but what about those of us who may not be able yet to experience reality with any consistency in a non-symbolic manner? I'm not sure about a great many aspects of non-duality, but as I work and play towards the deepest realizations, am I remiss in feeling (not just believing, by now, I think lol), that this finite bodymind was in-formed by pure, loving, empty (full, full, full) consciousness, and continues to co-create 'reality' from a limited perspective. I may be still climbing a tenacious and wobbly, creaky scaffolding, but it's all I got man, I can't toss it yet! Or can I.... won't I just faaaallll down to full-on, crappy ol' consensus reaity again? Sure, I'd love to just crash beautifully and effortlessly into the Godhead but I haven't sourced any good psychedelics lately, and my meditation practice needs much more work. I kind of struggle, wondering, in the presence of folks further along the path, if I'm remiss in my approach here, and just hanging onto arbitrary, small-minded aspects of the much bigger context of all this. I have a wonderful, all-encompassing, awesome, unbelievable, understanding of non-duality and my True nature, but I struggle to realize (okay, actualize) this. I could very well just be lazy and subsequently still quite deluded of course. Love the discourse though, thank you all. (I know, I know, how about just shutting up & meditating?) ?

Awesome topic and replies, very cool stuff to contemplate. I might just throw all that science right out the window in one context (Thanks Leo, I finally 'got it', that took some contemplation muscle & some time lol, holeee...), and ask this; What if all those visual goodies were very much 3D, but weren't made of anything.. weren't physical things at all. What if rather than perceiving 'things' (buildings, roads, cars, trees, dogs, the sky, moon & cosmos, other people, your arms legs, torso & other good parts) from the outside in, you simply, miraculously and mystically created all of it, ALL OF IT, from the inside out. With your perceptions not being perceptions 'of' something, but the perceptions themselves being what all reality is made of? Oh man, I invite you to have fun with that. Want some context & framework for that one? -- I like Rupert Spira's take on this: Perception IS reality. Lots on Youtube or the S.A.N.D. site of him discussing the nature of perception and the nature of reality, enjoy if you're so inclined, months of awesome contemplation to be had. Careful now, your mind may get good and fucked.. in the most delicious way. ?

Hi beautiful beings. That internal narrative that beats up on itself as it realizes it's being a limited, small-minded, reactive (as opposed to being 'responsive'), shitty-assed dickwad about the smallest things in it's day is an early aspect of conciousness-raising that I am thoroughly familiar with and I continue to struggle with. It's actually kind of cute when you begin to recognize that it's just the same ego-centric self-narrative voice in your head having a wee identity crisis while it interrogates or admonishing itself. It just snuck in the back door and joined with itself for a quick little conference when you weren't looking. (To paraphrase Eckart Tolle, I'm not that clever myself, lol). To help you relate or to clarify context I will happily share a few awesome (eww) mini-convos I often entertain in my headspace, often out loud it seems (even more entertaining). BTW - it's fun when you are alone, doing dishes, but I might advice against the out-loud thing in the presence of others. Shinzen Young might smile & wink if he overheard you but most folks will slowly shuffle away, avoiding eye-contact, maybe see if you have a cup so they can toss a few coins in to help you through your day, lol. D'oh! *** "Well that was a brilliant move, you half-wit dipshit, now look what you've done.. have fun undoing that while you deal with the fallout... REAL smooth, dummy." *** *** "Oh that's real nice there, mister spirituality, maybe we can disparage or name-call, or play the blame game with anyone else we perceive to have slighted us in the past, today, or next week even, regardless of the crappy feeling-tone it produces - that I'm pretty much guaranteed to want to spread around a little.. it's download-day I guess, who can we existentially shit on next, do you think, mister 'I'm so on the path? Nice work, half-witticus-dipshiticus!" *** (Notice the voice talking to itself as if there's ANOTHER ego that's less-than the primary ego-mess. How many people are in there!??) It really doesn't seem much different than unconscious religeous-based self-flagellation. But there's a way out, a way to notice your 'small 's' self doing this and to turn it on it's own tail constructively... Do the same thing, but treat your ego with loving kindness. Make it a conscious admonition, not an unconcious, reactive, old mold 'giving shit to yourself' kind of thing. See how it feels... (Big difference, superior outcome likely, in my experience.) Easy to do fairly consistently? Not so much.. but I imagine if connecting with and benefitting from our higher selves was easy and didn't take all kinds of clear-seeing, patience and well-applied emotional labour, we'd all be doing it, Trump would be your car-wash guy, and that crazy little bugger in North Korea would be on Oprah's Super-Soul Sundays with an interpreter, apologizing profusely and begging to be shown a better way.. "Well 'Kimmy', it just so happens you're in luck, let's bring out our next guest; The Dalai Lamaaaaa!!" Sorry, I digress. So, a better way of mindful self-admonishment may sound like this: "*Deep sigh*... Okay, that didn't feel right, not with what I know now. I bet that person said or did those things because they were overwhelmed by their day or present circumstance and acted out unconsiouslyy towards me. Sheesh, it likely wasn't even personal, it could have been me or the next person they shit on, I don't need to take that to heart. With a little more practice I imagine that incoming lower-vibrational stuff will pass right through me anyway, my own frequencies have been higher and higher lately, with the work I'm doing. I'm surely not above this person, but I know I can transcend the whole mess with a little more consciousness. Shit, I betcha if I meet up with so-and-so again tomorrow and throw them a big warm smile and a 'what, me worry?' shrug things might change up in a nice way for us both. (And if not.. once again - I'll be less of a target next time, and even if I find myself in the middle of a directed shitstorm again... pfffffft, on with my day in my own awesome way. Fuck yeah, this feels better!!" Like I said, it's work, but it sure helps.

Perception is reality. Rupert Spira says so.

It can take a fair bit of 'stretching' the mind to get closer and closer to an understanding of this, let alone going past the intellect to experience it empirically. Maybe consider digging somehow further into the true nature of reality and what your consciousness actually is. Question the most basic assumptions about existence and consciousness. Try and see them as integral to each other, they are in fact, the same thing. Leo Gura has the video goods on all of this, but you have to open up your mind RADICALLY to get it right, and somehow be eroding and dismantling your intricate web of beliefs. Time to undermine the most basic, obvious, unshakeable assumptions you have always just naturally held as solid and unquestionable. Consider Leo's video episodes; A Rant Against Naive Realism, or the Enligntenment and No-Self videos, and force yourself to ingest the information as literal. The videos can force a major shift if you open up to the pure fact that Leo is speaking completely literally, not in any metaphors or allusions. The mind will pretty much refuse to play..but you are much bigger and much more than mind.

Oh yes, and a trip report would be great if you feel like sharing when you're all 'consensus reality' again lol.

Set & setting can make a nice difference when anticipating altered States. Little things can be fun and very novel and 'enhancing' while tripping through the rooms of a house for the evening or afternoon. Candles, tealights, incense, background music, pre-made smoothies or whatever treats you might go to as you are coming down. Sure, set an intent for your trip, but remember - during your first trip you may be pretty amazed overall at the 'melty', 'morphy', 'warpiness' of most objects appearing in your experience.. don't be surprised if you spend a few hours just being surprised and amazed as your visual field goes for a shit, your body sensations start feeling like you're experiencing them for the first time, and now, rather than just monkey mind, you have flabberghasted monkey mind with technicolour, horizontal mushroom-cloud orgasms bursting euphorically out the back of your head.

Looks like an amazing book actually. I will have to add this to the library, thank you.

Lol, you still the man munching back handfuls of truffles and having the inspiration and acuity to bring forth art! Nicely played, badass, thanks for sharing.

If it was purchased at a store in Amsterdam, maybe it was the mushroom truffles, which are apparently somewhat less potent than the above-ground stems & caps? I don't believe dried magic mushrooms are legal there any longer, whereas they can still sell truffles, which are the underground part of the shrooms I'm guessing. Some twit dove or fell off of a building there a few years ago while on shrooms, hence the ban.

From what I'be been gathering, the subconscious mind is how your body does the things you are unconscious of. Beating your heart, growing your hair and nails, operating your organs, regenerating your cells, on and on. I think our ego patterns and indoctrinated webs of belief are a part of the subconscious system as they inform our body, without us mostly being very aware of this. I think ego has become part of the subconscious, unnecessarily. But I'm often confused.. Also, try to remember what is illusion, in the larger context mind/body is not what you are.

@zazed Nicely put, thanks.

Sometimes, methodically and honestly figuring out what you are not, goes far to reveal what's left after the stripping down. What's left, to the extent in which you realise and allow it to shine, is far, far beyond words. The work to fully realise your true nature, and to begin to truly live from that place, is seen as a path. All the while, the simple fact that you are conscious(ness), and able to ponder anything at all, or just be aware and alive, is the most unexpectedly awesome, unfathomable (almost, phew!), pure mind-splitting miracle. I think unenlightened life is real for most folks. Being something amazing and unbelievable and having no clue that you are that, is the default mode I imagine. Sure, there may be sparks and pointers and clues presented daily, but for many the light never shines through the muck. I do find it a stretch to classify the low-consciousness individual as enlightened. I wouldn't call the homeless, miserable, beat up derelect sitting unwittingly on a wooden crate holding millions of dollars; rich.

I would say the conditions for disaster and harm were likely already present, long before any drugs were ingested. He could've just as likely have been triggered and sent over the edge by stepping in dogshit earlier, or a store clerk pissed him off. Entheogens are a mirror of the self, not some evil substance causing people to not be themselves. I have a former buddy who is stellar to be around when sober or slightly buzzed, that regresses every time he over-indulges with alcohol, into a blunt-force trauma mofo with a questionable I.Q., an ugly, ugly, low-brow, childish lash-out of a frustrated, repressed, ignorant, mad human being. Notice I said former buddy. I hold him accountable for his ways in my book, and have completely disacccosiated. However, I do not blame Heineken for his abusive nonsense, he gets to hold that bag all by himself.