SOUL

It seems many of the practitioners with the intended goal of spiritual transformation prefer to go with the intense vision quest styled experiences. While that can be often inspiring through the revelations from it I found my most effective lasting work came during the time I was microdosing. It's all the rage currently in silicon valley and the tech start up culture but I was doing it nearly 30 years ago without calling it that. There was even a period of time of almost two years where I took mushrooms every day but the dose was small so I could carry on with a typical day in the life of what I had going on. Since I am so fluent in the psychedelic experience I didn't need to have an intense trip to gain the breakthroughs and shifts in my paradigm, less was more for me in this type of exercise. It also was beneficial to be able to see ordinary every day life through this shifted prism instead of be so submerged in an intense trip that wouldn't be suitable to be in such public settings. I know that many set time aside for an intense trip and put themselves in an environment that is safe to experience it but I went the other way with my practices during this period of time. I used less of a dose and exposed myself to more of the world, not an increased dose and secluded away from the world. This allowed me to be exposed to all of the various association triggers in actual life while being to process them through the purview of the shifted prism. Using a small dose in a morning cup of tea allowed me to function in every day life seamlessly. So instead of getting a breakthrough in perspective in the abstract that I would then have to contextualize and find a way to carry over to real life from a memory of it I was already experiencing it in life in the present moment already contextualized and orienting my perspective in real time. I had significant emotional and mental trauma to transcend in which this method of use had a dramatic and lasting effect in me.

Psychology is 100% physical and cannabis isn't physically addicting, it actually dampens the response in the part of the brain responsible for addiction. Don't confuse habituation with addiction.

Awareness is the part of our consciousness that observes the present moment, mindfulness is when we have awareness as the focus of our mind.

Thank you for sharing @Azrael , I enjoyed reading it. When we cease believing in what the ego produces in our consciousness it will do whatever it can to get back the power of our attention. It will even let us think we are losing our minds just as long as it results in us restoring our belief in it's constructs. When we awaken we are seeing reality as it is without the constructs of the ego in the way and to stay awakened, what is called enlightenment, we continue to view reality through the prism of presence by being in the moment. The ego will try to distract us from seeing reality as it is and instead for us to believe what it tells us it is through it's constructs built on the past. The substances we would take to help awaken are merely a temporary chemical neutering of the ego but it has to happen naturally to stay awake in what's called enlightenment.

There are different reasons why: Blind leading the blind Clarity doesn't create repeat customers Complicated mind thinks it needs it complicated Not really want to be, just wants to appear to be Attention whoring ego

Sure people "seem quite happy" on social media and when they get what they want until they don't get it which inevitably happens, then they whine, cry and rage upon the world. Us "troubled souls" prefer to find our fulfillment in the appreciation of just being and not in materialism or superficial goals. That's the "truth" which always exists even when all the superficial materialistic goals don't. Of course, someone who is asleep to this type of genuine fulfillment couldn't understand this let alone realize it. There's no practice for fulfillment in just being....either you do or do not, there is no try. /yoda.

There are some scientists who hypothesized that it was our Cannabis use in our evolution which was the reason why we became a sentient conscious being. Cannabis isn't physically addicting at all, in fact, there is research evidence showing that cannabinoids dampen the response in the reward center in our brains. This would explain why there has been success in treating people with addictions by using cannabis instead. Our bodies have an endocannabinoid system all throughout the body that utilizes dozens of different cannabinoids found in cannabis. The body can't store the cannabinoids for use so the body needs consistent supply of it in nourishment. So to say the body gets physically addicted to cannabis is like saying the body is addicted to vitamins and minerals, they are all nutrients the body needs to function optimally.

Why can't we do both? There's nothing restricting us from doing both self development and enjoying what we like at the same time. In fact, that is the ideal way to express oneself authentically. Although, if just chasing after self serving things were satisfying them there wouldn't be as many miserable people as there are since most are doing only that anyway. Often, the most significant transformation that someone can have is to be more fulfilled in life as it is and not what they change about themselves.

So you you are saying that you are silent and withdrawn but you are wondering why people aren't talking to you more? It kind of seems like you are reading more into the situation then really is there. Just let it go and be at peace.

Yepperz

How would anybody know what you are doing from just by looking at you? Since someone can't tell just from appearances it must be that you're talking about it to others. Maybe have the mindset that it's satisfying enough in doing it without having to tell anybody and you wouldn't have to deal with any judgment or attitude from others not that it should bother you anyway.

The doing is to undo all that was already done or at least what we do is let go of what was already done so we can get on with just being.

The activity that happens in the subconscious mind is hard to qualify as thoughts since the subconscious mind talks with itself as processes in fragments of information according to the functions associated with the region of the brain. Different parts of the brain store different information and a thought is a collection of many bits of information from different parts of the brain that have been arranged in a coherent way for our conscious mind to recognize. If we were conscious of all the activity of the subconscious mind it would overwhelm us to the point we would never be able to focus on anything because of the constant cacophony of gibberish from all the communicating of incomplete information that happens within the brain. It is only after the information and stimuli has accumulated to a substantial degree of relativity for us do we become aware of it in our conscious mind, Awareness as we currently experience it is a part of consciousness but there is the philosophical and spiritual idea that awareness is the origin of all conscious being, so before there was even biological organisms to house consciousness there was awareness as consciousness without embodiment. This awareness of origin was the entirety of consciousness before the manifest even existed and the subsequent unfolding of the manifest existence produced the varying expressions of conscious activity that we currently acknowledge as consciousness.

Meditation is merely being aware of the space in the mind in between the thoughts

@Eastbranch Duality is an ancient concept conjured up by a primitive mind, it's monkey mind magic.

Except that him believing mathematical waves are eternal is just another illusion that he fails to be aware of.... nice try emo Leo but lulz

It seems you think we are unaware of something that you wish to enlighten us...... ironically delicious.

@Gopackgo Undoubtedly the mind works with concepts but I am attempting to filter out the ones that we would project onto the matter and limit my comments to the self evident ones on the matter. You are doing the opposite, in figuring our mind uses concepts you seem intent to just fill up the matter with conceptualizations and you seem especially infatuated with projecting them...... given that you have also projected onto me the false notion I am offended by your words or ideas. Since that the topic is awareness and free will I directed my comments in a way that touched on the thread topic. I'm not conceptualizing it, I just referenced our ability to focus our attention and through that we will influence what the subconscious mind receives in the present moment experience through our awareness. This isn't a concept projected onto what's happening, it's a fact established through research and the evidence is found in many different branches of science, I just spoke to it. You are welcome to conceptualize, believe any way you want and act on them as you see fit.

What makes you think that there are unconscious thoughts? Aren't thoughts by their very definition something we are aware of in our mind? If we aren't conscious of them, are they even thoughts at all? What you seem to be pointing to is that if everything is consciousness why is there unconsciousness, or seemingly unconscious matter as well as why is there the subconscious mind. All of which is very interesting to contemplate. My answer is.... I know that I don't know...... haha.

@Gopackgo Just reading the last reply from each of us illustrates so much. You are critical of conceptualizing yet that's all you offered, more and more concepts laden with buzzwords projected onto everything but adding very little insight. My reply was a simple and practical examination of how our conscious and subconscious mind coexist and work together with very few concepts projected onto it. If you don't like projecting concepts, stop doing it.

@username We can keep piling on more and more concepts, ideas, methods and techniques which have their place in our inner work but lost in all of that can be the simple experience of presence. In this present moment with our appreciation of it by awakening our awareness to the experience of just being the hunger is satiated, desire is quenched and our life is fulfilled.

You are trying too hard....... just let it be.

@Gopackgo Yet you calling something an illusion is your mind trying to project just another concept onto something the mind wants to understand, this is just another attempt to control the story so it's makes sense to the mind, so that we can influence it. I know it is a popular concept, one that in spiritual circles is accepted way of viewing it and will find many supporters chiming in agreement but it isn't any more of an accurate representation of reality than any other. Just being present in the moment our awareness doesn't need to make judgements about existence in terms of real or illusion beyond whether it is really a tiger in the grass waiting to eat us or if that bus is really coming at us. The thoughts in our mind come and go and they are as real as we allow them to be, they are as empowered in our mind in making them as "real" as we give the power and allow them to be. The mind and the thoughts in it didn't arise from nothing, it arose from experience and it reflects that experience of the past in the present to orient our self for it's survival. By giving our attention or not giving it, in using this awareness at the core of our consciousness we mold the mind through the present moment, we give it the experience that becomes the source of future reflections. Is it an illusion? Is it real? Our awareness is free from judging and our mind will reflect that which our attention entertains. So we lead our minds by focusing our attention, our awareness is the seed in our consciousness that will bear fruit in in our mind. Does it matter if this experience is real or an illusion? I guess to the mind and it's nature of trying to identify and label it may need to view it this way but is it the mind that only reflects the past or is it awareness in the present that fills our consciousness? In that is where the freedom of our will can be explored.

@Stoica Doru We are intentional beings in cooperation with life using variables and dynamics that may be beyond our control.