TimStr

Hi folks, for those of you, that don't know what I am talking about, Turning is a spiritual practice of the Mevlevi branch of sufi islam. It was discovered by the persian mystic Dschalal ad-Din ar-Rumi and passed on by the mevlevi brotherhood. Side fact: Rupert Spira learned this technique and I think it is one of the main factors, that contributed to the depth of his realization. I wanted to ask if anyone is aware of people, that teach the turning, preferabely in continental europe? I am aware of The Study Society that teaches turning in London, but I'd appreciate any other tips, as well as any discussion on the topic. Has anyone of you tried it? How was it?

Nik Bärtsch is pretty far up the spiral. High stage yellow, tapping into turquiose. His approach to music is similar to Peter Ralstons approach to martial arts. In my oppinian playing his music literally works as a spiritual practice! He rediscovered the missing link between spirituality and music. Whats interesting about him is, that he makes strictly instrumental music, so the turquoise does not come in the lyrics, but in the music itself.

@Ampresus Many spiritual teachers talk about the bodily aspects of enlightenment. As far as I understand it there are a couple of different aspects to it: strong determination: Having a strong determination to make your body do "hard things", that can't be achieved by your self but only by your body, after you surrendered the self. An example would be the Mount Hiei Monks. They run 30 to 80km for 100 consecutive days. expressing spontaneity: Tuning into the just-happeningness of motion to find, that a self is not nesscesairy for movement of the body to happen. Shinzen talks about this: Martial arts: many martial arts like aikido and kendo are grounded on a non-dual metaphysics. Also Peter Ralston's Cheng Hsin (eastern) yoga: using the body for spiritual purification I hope this is good fuel for your research.

@okulele Thanks a lot. I will give it a try, teaching it to myself.

Here is an interview with poeple, that tried it:

@KenDo Get a bit into Rupert Spira, he has one of the clearest voices on inquiry. He hs a bunch of guided inquiries on Youtube. Ask yourself, who is the one, that percieves the memories. Who is the I that percieves the experience of a memory. Stick to your experience. Self inquiry is not a process of thought but a very close examination of your first hand experience. Don't think about who you are, but try to pin it down in your perception. Try to grasp it.

Yeah, I can relate to that. When a psychedelic starts to kick in, you're already in an altered state even before an awakening happens. Yeah, I am back in the realm of forms for over a week now and the realm of forms hardly changed. But it was hugely insightful to see, how I recreate all my egoic patterns, my addictions, self-judging, denial and so on.

Fuck. If you told me a week ago what I am going to write now, I would have laughed at you. On May 25th I realized absolute Truth. What I did: During the week, that passed I had a 6.5d solo retreat and with some intense 10 to 12h of daily practice. The weekend before (May 18th-20th) I went on a nice camping trip with 3 of my friends and fellow self-actualizers. We did some inner and regular self-actualization work together and enjoyed time in nature. This was a great preparation and helped me to put some space between practical everyday life and the retreat. My intent was to reconnect myself with spirituality and to go deep into the work. I combined several different practices, kriya yoga, labeling and do nothing meditation, holotropic breathing, walking meditation starting at 5am in the morning. On the 4th day I took 300µg of AL-LAD. I tried to time everything in a way that I was a least likely to get disturbed by my housemates. Here's my schedule: M = meditation SDS = strong determintion sitting SHF = "see, hear, feel" (labeling) Holo = Holotropic breathing Allthough I was able to follow through with the entire schedule without missing one single practice (which I am kinda proud of ), I ended up having a lot of what I would call half-assad sits and sloppy meditations. I had to move and open my eyes a lot, even during strong determination sitting, and I ended up getting lost in thoughts a lot. Nevertheless I was able to enter a state of great calmness by wednesday. I also did 1h of walking meditation 3 times/d, just walking around in a park next to where I live so I wasn't really that isolated from the rest of humanity allthough I didn't really speak to anybody. In case you might be wondering, I had psychedelic trips before this one. I was actually doing psychedelics before I stumbled about Leo and the concept of personal developement. And over the last 5 years I had a couple of mushroom and salvia trips, one 25I-NBOMe experience and 3 AL-LAD trips prior to this one (100, 200 and 150µg). What I experienced: The actual retreat and practice itself was rather ordinairy. I had to go through some emotional work and purging to enter a state of great calmness and equanimity on day 3. To cultivate this internal peace helped a great deal with preparing me for day 5. The holotropic breathing also did a lot. I typically fall asleep soon after the breathing is over after a state of trance where most of the purging seems to happen for me. After waking up I alway feel so relieved. On the 5th day, I prepared everything for the actual trip. I sat down and said to myself: "I am ready to learn! Whatever may come, I am open and will accept it." Then I orally administrated the 300µg of AL-LAD and listened to some music for about 35min to help myself relax a little from a mild pre-trip anxiety. As I noticed it starting to take effect, I turned off the music and laid down on my bed. I started to see visual phenomenon and allowed myself to get fascinated by the patterns of the ceiling above me. I just let myself ooze into them and start to get absorbed. Everything got more and more intense and suddenly everything (my whole visual field, but also the inner world of mind and the fields of sound and touch) collapsed into one giant mosic like totality. And then, I suddenly realized what happened. I was no longer there. There was just infinite formlessness. I became Truth. I should note, that the experience was profoundly beautiful and profundly shocking at the same time! My human body just contorted in awe and horror. I felt every single emotion at the same time. I also noticed, that I started to hear sounds. High ringing type of sounds, that augmented the chirping of the birds outside and low drone like sounds, that seemed to be related to my breath Now the really profound thing was, that I seemed to be able to switch back and forth between this state of being absolute formless infinity and the state of being a contracted human form. This was immense! I experienced how I (absolute infinity) contract to create form, mind, relative reality, ego and suffering. I realized, that I am god and how I am constantly creating everything. I realized, that what most people call hallucinations or visuals on psychedelics are actually artefacts of how creation of form from fromlessness happens. They are just how absolute nothingness looks like when it creates reality. This switching back and forth produced enourmus insight and I was able to learn so much! It went on about 4-5h and then, I started to stay more and more in the domain of forms. As the trip became milder and taper off, I decided to take a long-ass walk because I wanted to be outside and in nature. It was so beautiful. My mind still was in this hyper-intelligent mode, that it seems to enter on AL-LAD and started to produce insight after insight, and it integrated all the theory and concepts about nonduality with the experience. The trip was about 8 to 9h long and I entered a nice afterglow, that lasted the whole next day, as I continued my retreat. I returned back to the state of great calmness, I had the days before the trip and the experience became more and more of a memory. I started to realize, that this glimpse won't be permanent. But the insights stayed with me. What I learned: I became Truth. I experienced, what I truely am. Everything is in perspective now. I learned how creation and existence work. I understood how I (the Big I, nothingness, god, infinity, formlessness...) contract to spit out all dualistic forms including my human form, the mind and reality. I also realized, how I have to create suffering and ego in order for this to happen. This was an profundly powerful and eye opening insight. It also showed me, how I (my human form) can literally not exist and be happy at the same time. For my body even to take a single breath, I have to create form and therefore suffering. And it made this whole issue of having to physically die to get enlightened very clear. Letting go completely litterally is the way, that I can return to nothingness. There can only be Truth or there can be creation and suffering. I understood every single contemplative practice, how each one works and in what way it is supposed to reveal Truth to you. Kriya, breathing, and all the different meditation techniques, Leo and Shinzen talk about make total sense now. I also learned how to meditate intuitively. The way Infinity came to me and the way, I had to let go sort of made a permanent imprind and I was able to recreate the way I focused my mind and surrenderd myself on the next day. It's basically a combination of open, choiceless awareness and a very deep surrender (simular to the do nothing technique). Leo's guided meditation video actually get's pretty close to it. Allthough I am not able to recreate the deep state I had on my trip, I can archive a calm and extremely peaceful no-mind kind of state that way. I learned how life purpose and spirituality work together. This became so clear to me by becoming infinity and seeing how reality comes into existence. Maintaining a minimal sense of self for this mammal, that I am to survive is best done by aligning myself more and more with the truth and with living an integrated purposeful life. I learned how the whole issue of authenticity and relating to other people is connected with spirituality. This was huge insight. The only way to relate to other beings without creating suffering is the way of utter vulnerability. Like if you literally would lay you naked body in the arms of another person, exhale your last breath and say: "You can have everything! My entire existence, it's yours!" This kind of surrender is the exact same surrender that is needed for enlightenment. I learned, that the biggest trap, I can now fall into is to cling to the memory of my awekening too much and to have too strong of a desire to recreate it. Whenever I am clinging to the memory, I am not surrendering to the Truth. What's next: More practice and more tripping. This experience of infinity I had is already fading and I see, how I have to do a LOT more work, to make it penetrate the core of my being more. I want to take my spiritual practice way more serius and I want to embody what I have learned. More theory. Even though I have studied quite a lot, I now feel like I needed the experinece to truly understand any of the theory. There is so much more to learn now. More life purpose work. I am curently building a life around being a musician and I want to do it in the way that is as alighned to Truth as possible. Having seen infinity made it increadibly clear to me how this has going to happen. Doing more for my body. I have seen what increadible miracle it is to have the form of a human being and I want to take care of this mammal that I am as best as I can. And allthough I have a pretty clean diet, I have all sorts of tense muscles in my back and consume quite a lot of caffeine. Getting more into fitness and exercising is inevitable right now. Working on truthful and authentic relating to others. I want to be able to open myself to others way more and to become a lot more honest. Tips and advice: Unlike Leo, I would advise you to have your first experience of Truth with AL-LAD rather than with 5MeO-DMT. I understand, that this is sort of personal, but if I would take the 20min of my trip, that where most intesne and imagined myself getting blasted into this state within a few seconds, I wouldn't have been able to let go so smoothly and I guess wouldn't have learned nearly as much.> Think of it this way: If you were trying to understand light, and you can choose between a lightbulb, which is nicely dimmed on and off again, and a single bolt of lightening, I guess for a first timer, the lightbulb is much more helpful. Probably my most important advice: Study the theory! If I wouldn't have been studying the theory of nonduality for the last couple of years I would literally have gotten nothing out of the experience. My mind wouldn't have been able to make sense out of anything. It would just have been some hallucination for me. Having concepts of what I was experiencing helped a great deal with recognizing it as absolute Truth and the way that AL-LAD makes your mind become this hyperintelligent wisdom machine worked greatly with that (which is another reason why I would recommend AL-LAD over 5MeO for a first time experience). On retreat, practice starts to take on at different dynamic on its own. Stuff comes up and it might be getting very hard to do some of the techniques as good as you would be able to do them in your daily practice. Don't judge yourself for that and don't judge your performance. Surrender to whatever happens and try not to get frustrated. The retreat is at play here and it will give you whatever you need to learn right now (sort of like a trip). Thinking in terms of good or bad retreats is not useful (recisely like thinking in terms of good or bad trips is not useful ). Solo retreats are perfect settings for breakthrough doses of psychedelics. If you are serious about experiencing Truth for the first time than this is definately one of the most recommended alternatives. If you're struggeling with this issue of life purpose vs. spirituality, consider psychedelics. For me they made the solution to this increadibly clear. They actually showed me, that there is no real difference between the two, especially, if you understand how your core values relate to Truth. Lastly: Remember, that letting go is the key! I am so greatful right now. Awakening is so powerfully life transforming and liberating. Thank all of you for walking this path together. I hope this report is helpful. If you have any questions, I am happy to answer.

Great to have you back around, Leo. I am really looking forward to your reports as well.

Yeah, totally! And this is also how you free love from any sort of neediness and clinging. I think that some aspects of spirituality can only be learned through love and intimacy.

I think, my Kriya practice hasn't fully kicked in yet. But doing it very intensely 2 times/day as I did on the retreat definitely had an effect on me. I see the true value of Kriya in working with the body and especially with the breath to create a deep surrender. I don't see this in any other technique really. And this is big, because surrender and breathing are directly related. The way you breath litterally is the way you let go. I think, it's hard to really let go with a exclusively cerebral technique like meditation.

Yeah, that is sooo stunning! And this created this "Oh my god! It's all me!" moment. Glad to hear, that you share that experience. Have you posted a trip report about your trip?

There is one. And there is also Leos Getting Started Page: https://actualized.org/start

Sure. Labeling is a form of mindfulness meditation. You meditate by labeling every single experience with "See" "Hear" or "Feel". If you hear something, you focus on it and say "Hear" with you inner voice. If yo see something, so focus and say "See" and so on... I learned this from Shinzen Young, he is very big on labeling. There is also a video by Leo on mindfulness meditation. Holotropic breathing I a method of intense breathing that can alter your consciousness, developed by Stan Grof. Leo did a video on that quite recently, which is called shamanic breathing.

The first and most important thing to realize is, that nonduality is NOT a concept. All concepts are dualistic by nature because lamnguage and symbols are dualistic by nature. Nonduality is not. This is why you have to have a direct experience in order to truly understand it. You have to become it. It's very helpful to have some understanding about the nature of insight. There is a great video interview series, that Leo did with Peter Ralston, that I highly recommend: https://vimeo.com/181710583 As far as books, also Ralstons material is great, and I also recommend the books of Andre Doshim Halaw. I love them, because they are very short and conscise and crystal clear. I also like Daniel Ingram and Shinzen Young very much. Especially Shinzen has some great descriptions of infinity. There is a great audio progam by him, called The Science of enlightenment. Also Leo's videos about the topic.

Yes, could be. I would guess without the retreat, the experience wouldn't have been nearly as profound. Yet I think that even with the preparation it still required a high enough dose for me to achieve a breakthrough. I don't think that I would have happened by just adding in the retreat. Yes, first time. I tend to intensify my daily practice before trips, but I've never had one during a retreat. No, this was my very first breakthrough.

Yeah absolutely. I haven't attained full liberation. After the experience, my ego restructered itself and I am now back in the domain of forms. I have experienced the absolute nature of reality, though, and now I clearly know what enlightenment is and also what full liberation intails. Without that experience, all my knoledge about that topic would just have been of conceptual nature. Having this glimpse was a crucial and highly helpful step on my journey. It's kind of funny by the way. The actual experience itself was so empty of ego, it was so "not me" so to speak, that it even feels kind of presumptuous to me to claim it as being "my" experience, now, that I am back in the world of forms.

AL-LAD:

@Amer The deeper issue at play here is the ability of opening oneself up emotionally. If your partner is giving you silent treatment and won't speak about your issues, it's most probably because she/he can't handle the emotions, that come with that. There might have been some past experience from witch she/he learned the habit of closing herself off from challanging emotions, to avoid paing. Ironically, this causes even more suffering. I recommend, that you spend some time, developing an understanding of this issue, because some undestanding is crucial to develope traction on these topics. I can recommend the work of David Deida (The way of the superior man) and Brad Blanton (Radical Honesty). Read their books (ideally together with your partner) and follow their recommendation. For right now to get started: If your partner shuts her-/himself off from you or reacts narcissistic in any way, the key thing for you to do is not reacting in the same emotionall cold way. Try to keep yourself open and compassionate. If your partner closes off, stay and be with that. Show her/him, that it's ok to experience the situation like it is. If you provide this secure and open space, your partner will learn, that it actually is ok, to stay open. And just to say: Doing all this is extremely hard. Don't underestimate that. Expect to struggle with these issues. Emotional openness is a ability, with a rather steep and long learning curve. Don't expect it to work immediately, but most importantly: Don't get discouraged.

@Santiago Hard to say, could be her, could be you, could be both. Could be, that she is projecting a lot of stuff onto you. An it seems like she is not happy, being by herself. If that is true, it can turn out to be toxic for any relationship. Rule of thumb is: Don't try to be happy with somebody else, if you're not able to be happy all by yourself. Talk to her about this, ask her, how she spends her time seperate from you. Ask if and why she is unhappy without you, and what bothers her about being by herself. Maybe though its just personality differences. You both could take a personality test to see, how you two are alike and how you are different from one another. I think, this can be a big eye opener for any couple. This one is good: https://www.truity.com/test/300-question-personality-test

I don't know how egotistical I am compared relative to other people. Probably less than the average person, probably not. I leave that for others to judge. What I wanted to say is, that its important to recognize and accept your own egotism instead of denying it. Accepance of what is denied is key to changing it.

@F A B Let's get some awareness in the situation you experienced. The thing, that is probaply hurtung you the most is, that you know, that your friend is totally right. You could have given a few bucks to that bum. That's a fact. And you didn't. That's also a fact. Accept that! That's by the way, how I would like myself to react in your situation. Just admitting the facts and experience how my emotions and thoughts react. If your friend says: "you live in a wealthy family, you could have given something to him", say "Yes, you're right. I could have. But I didn't." My point is not to rub salt into the wound, but to point out the deeper issue: What that your friend pointed out, is that you are deeply egotistical. I know, because I am deeply egotistical, too. Deep down inside, I think that I deserve my money more than any random homeless bum. And I secretly hate homeless people for revealing this part of my egotism to me. Have you ever noticed, that when a homeless person approaches strangers and asks for money, almost nobody is able to look into that homeless' persons eyes. That's because it hurts the ego to be exposed. Poor people must feel so lonely... If you actually looked in those persons eyes for a few seconds and allow yourself to see and feel his suffering, you couldn't help to be compassionate. Just test this out yourself, the next time you are approached for money just look that person straight in the eyes and observe his and your own reaction. Then say yes or no and observe again. By the way, your friend, that pointed out your egotism is in no way soperior to you. His ego just needs that reassurance that it get's by pointing you out. If you want you can share to him openly, how his behaviour made you feel and see, how he reacts. This may break down some of the boundaries that the situation created between you two.

@OnceMore If you want a quick and dirty fix: do a 10 day vipassana retreat After that retreat, commit yourself to a 90d no multitasking challang for integration. (Depending on how you set this up, you may allow for some entertainment (so and so many h per day / per week...), or at least some form of relaxation, that fills the place, that entertainment abstinence leaves.) This will be extremely hard, but the 10 day retreat should ease with the withdrawl symptoms a bit. Be especially mindful of how distraction and entertainment cravings slowly creep back into your life. Also spend more time of your day distraction free - just you yourself by yourself - and build a rock solid meditation routine (do nothing, vipassana, or labeling). Move more towards lifestyle minimalism. Also think about what aspects of yourself you want to be distracted of. Ego creates distraction because it can't face truth. Its crucial to find out what parts your ego consists of to get some initial leverage. This boils down to your greatest fears. Do you hate feeling alone? Do you hate feeling lazy because you are afraid of failure? Do you hate feeling bored, because it leaves you feeling useless? What do you run away from, so that you end up in a place of entertainment seeking?

@Shakazulu I think, there are two types of synesthesia: The first one is purely methaphorical. Talking about melodies and harmonies as having a certain colour to discribe the feeling that one associates with them. I think, this is somewhat common among musicians to talk about music like that. The second one is the experiential obliteration of the difference between sound of color, so that one sees a sound as a certain shade or colour. I have never experienced this personally, but I heard, that this can be achieved by using certain psychedelics like the 2C-x family of phenetylamines. https://psychonautwiki.org/wiki/Synaesthesia I would love to experience this some time. Having your physical senses blend together must be one of the greatest mindfucks possible.

@Shakazulu When it comes to mastery, you want to be way more serious about your practice, than with anything else. I think, being very serious is at the core of what qualifies an activity as a practice. Think of it like this, if you want to master sushi making, just making sushi for 4h a day wouldn't be considered real practice. A sushi apprentice usually spends at least 1 year just practicing to wash and boil the rice. Nothing else. Then another year of learning how to sharpen the knives, then another year of preparing and cutting all the ingrdients. It might take him over 3 years, before he will assemble his first sushi. The trick is to break your practice down as much as possible. If you really want to master something, it is very important, that you give yourself the space and time to investigate every little minutia of your craft. Get into the specifics and grind it out. So in a sense your 2h +1h + 1h approach seems like a great start, but really push your to get into those details. Don't just spend 2h with general songwriting, but maybe spend 2h experimenting how changing one single chord from major to minor affects the energy and tension in the first part of the chorus of your song. Or spend 2h just messing and experimenting with the speed of a single part of your song. You get the point. Take nothing for granted, experiment with everything and really grind out the details. I am mastering playing the drums and sometimes I practice a single rhythm at 30bpm for over 30min (not to brag), without stopping or changing, focusing on absolute consistency and accuracy. My point is: practice is about pushing the limits of your skill and your ability to concentrate. Pushing your limits is the only way, you will get better. If your practice feels easy, your not really practicing. A word on theory: learning the theory is also about learning to apply the theory as effortlessly as possible. You want to be able to not have to think about the theory while you're using is. This is especially important for domains like art and music that are more right brain emotional type of activities. Music, that is based totally on the application of music theory sounds like theory. It won't be moving people emotionally. Yet knowing the theory and being able to apply it is important. And what's even more important is to know, when you should forget about the theory.