Nahm

A simple practice for this which goes a long way... Play it out...ALL the way out. Whatever it is which seems to take you out of enjoying this moment now, ‘play it out’. The mind thinks it’s ‘got to get somewhere’, to the ‘next thing’, to a ‘future me’...to feel happiness. If what you’re currently doing, we’ll call it “this”...if this seems to be uninteresting, a waste of your time, a means to an end, etc...stop and play it out. ,,,”ok, when I’m done with this, I’ll then do X. After X, I’ll probably do Y. After Y, I’ll probably then do Z....at one point, I will be dead, and everything I ever did - will be gone. It will have amounted to - literally - nothing.” Clarity arises, that there’s no “point” - other than being present, enjoying this - the only opportunity that it is possible to enjoy this - right now.

No they aren’t. Watch that love though. It’s very easy to end up addicted to being you.

If you spent years lost in the desert and finally came upon water, you drink it. No story is needed about the past & the desert, for the water. The water is unconditionally, here, now, love.

Won’t You Be My Neighbor. Seriously. Check it out. That’s Enlightenment.

Very wise. I’d apply that to the experiences you mentioned when they arise. And I didn’t mean to imply there is a ‘right & wrong’. Careful believing any arising thoughts about that feeling, and differentiate the thoughts about it, from the actual feeling. “Before enlightenment, chopping wood & carrying water, after enlightenment, chopping wood & carrying water”. - The Buddha. For some enlightenment is a very life changing experience, for others it happens in passing, very uneventfully. The depths / degrees of awakening are immeasurable and infinite. “Everything changes & nothing changes” is hard to explain. I think you’re comedy would be just fine, though you might have a couple months of readjusting. I for one, would love a nondual / duality based comic. It’s always safe to surrender, there’s no consequences. If you mean what are the consequences of awakening sufficiently, I would say Love & Truth. It’s smart to create a life worth awakening to first...and it’s always a good day to awaken.

@Justine i’ll send you a PM when I am free in a bit if that’s ok.

You’ll get exactly what you need from her until you no longer need anything from her. Same for her with you. I hope you both stop touching the stove of needing the other asap. ♥️??

@Justine Where ya at with understanding the true nature of suffering?

@Jackthelad Do you want to be right and feel bad, or be wrong and feel great?

@Holly Ann Sorry to hear. ♥️?? Psychedelics can help in that way indeed, also, the patterns of thought which are still unresolved return. A potentially greater vantage seen, or experienced from the trip can help illuminate the truth, which those arising thought patterns are up against. Make a list of every healing experience, and start trying them one by one. See what clicks. The love in you is True. Feeling is never wrong, thought is never true.

All that is known is thought, perception, sensation - and all of those are inseparable of the knowing of them. The knowing of them is inseparable from the knowing. There is not a “knower”.

@OmniYoga Doesn’t really sound like you want a book & more thoughts. Sounds like you want to notice you can believe thoughts, or not, and bring the suffering to an end. There’s some very short explanations of meditations here https://www.actualized.org/forum/topic/17747-nonduality-meditations/#comment-181291 Now is a great time to meditate.

@Spiral_Wizardry_Fan This is more clear. “This place is a dream. Only a sleeper considers it real. Then death comes like dawn, and you wake up laughing at what you thought was your grief. But there's a difference with this dream. Everything cruel and unconscious done in the illusion of the present world, all that does not fade away at the death-waking. It stays, and it must be interpreted. All the mean laughing, all the quick, sexual wanting, those torn coats of Joseph, they change into powerful wolves that you must face. The retaliation that sometimes comes now, the swift, payback hit, is just a boy's game to what the other will be. You know about circumcision here. It's full castration there! And this groggy time we live, this is what it's like: A man goes to sleep in the town where he has always lived, and he dreams he's living in another town. In the dream, he doesn't remember the town he's sleeping in his bed in. He believes the reality of the dream town. The world is that kind of sleep. The dust of many crumbled cities settles over us like a forgetful doze, but we are older than those cities. We began as a mineral. We emerged into plant life and into animal state, and then into being human, and always we have forgotten our former states, except in early spring when we slightly recall being green again. That's how a young person turns toward a teacher. That's how a baby leans toward the breast, without knowing the secret of its desire, yet turning instinctively. Humankind is being led along an evolving course, through this migration of intelligences, and though we seem to be sleeping, there is an inner wakefulness that directs the dream, and that will eventually startle us back to the truth of who we are.” ― Rumi

Infinite being can not experience anything but infinite being, because it is itself knowing, awareness, consciousness. So, what can infinite being do, so that there can be experience? Forget itself. Then, in having forgotten itself, thoughts, perceptions, sensations arise - and are taken to be other than infinite being. Then, infinite being, in the forgetting stage, takes a psychedelic to remember. And there is a “void” - seemingly between the person / finite mind (the forgetting)...and the Truth. Truth = LOVE. So, this void, is a space between the love, and THE LOVE, if you will. How to lesson and close the void. That’s what you’re doing, here, now. It is what you’re focused on, and getting more of. It’s why you’re asking questions. This is what all your choices lead you to. “You’re task is not to seek for love, but Merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself you have built against it........what you seek, is seeking you.” Rumi If you are done suffering, and ready to stop believing thoughts The painful thoughts (memories) are not themselves painful, nor is the factor of painful because the thoughts are true about you. The pain is in believing the thoughts. The “pain” - is that you “on the other side” of that void is saying LOUD & CLEAR.....“That ain’t you.” You’ve yet to realize you have what you want.

@Justine A bit on the rollercoaster of suffering, yes?

@Justine What’s your trip foundation like? Daily practices, theory digested, diet, fitness, dream board, etc? Whatever you’re getting from your trips is priceless, but being seeing as “bad”. What’s the overall message you received?

The actual answer lies in self recognition in thoughts, perception, and sensation, which is being taken for a person, video, story & question. That’d be a good start, seeing through the maya.Then samsara continues to convince, and is ‘burned’ away, purified, Then, thoughts, perception & sensation arise in appearance, and are known as what, who, how, and why this can not be otherwise. Then there is not a separate One to be ‘fooled’ again. Nothing changed or changes, yet all is made anew.

@28 cm unbuffed Just started a very minimal site using Squarespace. Having never made a website before, I found their software to be made for someone who never made a site before. One head’s up if you go that route, use a web browser and the app. Oddly, each has features the other doesn’t. Also, they have made the linking of other sites, accounts, etc as easy as adding a premade button...things like Spotify, Open Table, etc. Best of luck to you! Love to see it when done.

Another great question - ?? ”I am committing to meditation every morning in 2020. But the thought of it is already stressing me out already. You said start with 10 minutes every morning, and work my way up to an hour. That sounds like a nightmare to me. I”m trying to get to ‘what I want’, but how do I deal with already being stressed about meditating when I haven’t even started yet? I feel like I can’t even come up with what I want to put on my dream board, and I can’t meditate to get there either. When I think about it, I get stressed out. You’re saying to do these things but they all seem stressful to me.” Meditation is a time for relaxation of the body & mind - letting go. This means letting arising perspectives go also, including those regarding meditation, wanting, and dream boarding. I understand it can create a mental pickle in a way (prior to beginning), “how can I do the thing that relieves stress, if that very thing is stressful to me before I have even done it?”. The ‘answer’, is that meditation won’t be something you’re “doing”, at least not in the way it seems, prior to “doing it”. The “trickiness” is only in trying to ”figure out” in thinking, what can only be known in direct experience. The discovery of the benefits will be felt and known, not thought. Discovery will not occur in reading or talking about meditation, because that is a ”thinking” & “doing”. When you “do” meditate, the discovery is that everything else in life is experienced as a “doing”, and meditation is a “not-doing”. A complete letting go. A total relaxation. Not an “escape” from anything, but a letting go of everything. Detachment will be discovered as visceral & actual, more so than a thought or any words about it can convey. Some understanding of what will transpire might be helpful, but should not be ‘held’ as an expectation. Today, it might very well seem like “perspectives” and “me” are the same. “This is just how I am”, “That’s just how I’ve always been”. ”Those things are stressful for me”. This is what the word ‘liberation’ points to. Through directly experiencing proper daily meditation, perspectives are more readily experienced - as perspectives. That they are not you, and do not define you - rather, you are aware of, perspectives. As perspectives are willingly let go, by taking attention away the perspectives, and focusing on breathing from the stomach and relaxing the body...awareness begins to be felt and known, and realization begins occurring - “That’s not me - those are just perspectives. They come & go, and I can let them go when they don’t feel good to me, and choose a perspective that does feel good to me”. The benefit, the freedom of this, is immeasurable, and unknowable prior to the practicing. Through continued practice, a perspective which does not feel good, and is limiting, and could have lasted years - will be readily let go in seconds. Further, a day will come, when unwanted, doesn’t-feel-good perspectives - don’t even arise. Also, for “grounding”... When meditating, notice gravity. Not the scientific concept or idea of gravity, but rather, notice the feeling of gravity. Notice the natural inclination is the ‘sinking’, the relaxing, of every muscle. Feel, on the inhale and the exhale, minor tensions in the body. Notice gravity is naturally relaxing the body “downward”, if you will, and upon the inhale and or exhale, the body tenses a tiny bit in specific areas. Breathe into those areas, be “adding them to” or “connecting” them with (in feeling) the stomach breath. Take a deep stomach breath, and feel the tension un-contract, or melt, into the breath. By focusing on breathing from the stomach, attention is already shifted away from thoughts / perspectives. What no longer receives your attention, is no longer present - as what is now present, is what is receiving your attention...relaxing, and breathing. ”Getting to what you want”, from the standpoint of having been focused on perspectives of what you don’t want, is most easily done by making a list on paper, of what you don’t want. Then, write the opposite of each (what you do want), on your dream board. Also, write a few words as to why you want it.

@Consilience Awesome report! Thanks for sharing.

@LfcCharlie4 Thanks for sharing, interesting reading for sure. Had you done anything else prior to the Rupert months & RASA sessions, like retreats, meditation, yoga, psychedelics, etc?

@Nivsch If you want to fly a kite, but you can’t until you’re whole, and you won’t be whole unless you fly a kite - you must change how you’re looking at the situation. If you pick up a hot coal, is any corrective action needed at all - other than dropping the coal? The ’coal’ is perspectives. They come & go. You don’t. Let them come & go. Let new one’s come which feel better than the old ones. Don’t marry any perspectives. If you do, you’ll believe they define you, and that you are partial. But you’re not the content or implication of a thought, you’re awareness, of thoughts, coming & going. Never, ever, has there been the experience of, no-awareness. Likewise, never, ever, has a single perspective lasted. They all come & go, let em go, you’ll love the ones that come....for a bit. Then they go too. And you’ll love the ones that come....for bit. Then let them go too. A point will come when it viscerally occurs to you - I’m not coming and going.

@Spiral_Wizardry_Fan It used to be thought of as the earth, Mother Nature, natural divinity, abundantly growing for us right out of the ground. Why wouldn’t it? Then some folks campaigned a collective perspective of, “drugs” & “medication”, inspired by money, power & notoriety. It’s all going full circle though. Google the statues of Easter Island for example. Giant shrooms made to look like heads. Also the pineal, depicted in everything from pyramids to the pope’s hat & cane. That’s the story though. There’s a bigger story in which it’s all hidden in plain sight, like a real mystery for you to enjoy. Well worth stayin strong for. Consciousness can’t “go backwards” btw.