ttm

Sounds interesting. Where did you find that scientific proof? Have you tried to search for "how do we know that earth is round"?

That's why I didn't promote the idea that we shouldn't do anything.

You know, even if it sounds crazy, there really is one or two other things besides money, which can make a life worth living...

Even if they didn't stop us doing the things we think we want to do, they can easily prevent us enjoying any of it. On the other hand, even if we didn't do anything we thought we wanted to, but instead learnt what thoughts really are and let go of them, just being through life can be so extremely enjoyable, that it couldn't be even imagined.

Now that I think, I really couldn't.

I did not mean to say that you weren't helping or that your advice is necessarily bad. I just said that it is a real possibility that it would as easily be the last nail in his coffin of musical interest. This is what I said in my first post. When a person is coming from this: and you say that you guarantee that he well regret it in the future if he does not do what you tell him to do (even if it was true), it could worsen his situation if he believes that but were unable to go for it. This can create a whole lot of more unnecessary bad feelings and thoughts. And he's just 19 years old, he'll have decades worth of opportunities to go playing public, and if he does it when he's more confident and skillful (a year from now? he's 20 then, hardly going to grave soon), it can be dramatically different experience.

I think your sum-up of his situation is rather... oversimplified to the point it doesn't have pretty much anything to do with reality. Of course I thought too that maybe it could be too much to start with, but I guarantee that reading it can not be as harmful as "just going to play on public". There's a lot more going on there than just facing the fear of doing that particular thing. Oh wait, I can't guarantee that. How should I know?

I paid for my copy. Maybe it can be found on libraries somewhere, not here in Finland though. It's practically free though, if you think how much you get with that 20 or 30 dollars.

There is a huge advantage from learning to not calm the mind and to get grasp how those cycles of thoughts generating feelings generating thoughts work (and this is done by meditating). It does not need to be anything which anyone would want to call "spiritual" to be huge help. Or not. I guarantee you that you couldn't possibly know. Oh wait, how would I know that? I'll take that last one back.

I'm guessing those people don't have any knowledge about the subject they are talking. Maybe medical professionals "no, meditation is bullshit, here, take some SSRI"? Everyone "need" meditation... The Book Of Not Knowing

Yeah, it's absolutely insane. It seems so ridiculous that even if it's told by people who speak from experience, it's dismissed because it's so paradoxical, "how could I get anything done by actively doing nothing, I must DO something to fix my situation?!" Same answer. Constant meditation practice. It would also be extremely helpful to read lots and lots about consciousness, mind and self. I wouldn't necessary "just fucking go and play public", even though it may be an eye-opener, it might as well end up making your thought go haywire.. There are much more gentle ways to get in touch with oneself.

I have had few similar sounding experiences. I did not actually puke anything, but my body did the puking reflex, dropped on my knees etc., and it surely felt like I was "erupting demons". I guess it has something to do with the body re-aligning it's structure to be in more natural and relaxed posture, or something. After the event it felt like it had "opened me physically", being and breathing became easier etc. I could imagine that those experiences could easily produce an enormous amount of fear in a particular mindset, though, at the moment (especially - but not limited to - first time) they needed a whole lot of effort to let go and accept whatever was to come. My two cents: if you continue to have ill feelings in your body / seizures, etc. it's better to be safe than sorry and go to see the doctor, even if those episodes were accompanied with feeling somehow better. But whatever you do, it's not wise to start creating worse and worse scenarios in your mind about what it could be. It leads nowhere and if there really was something medically wrong with your body, the best way to get answers is indeed going to the doctor.

MDMA can be helpful when used properly, but it's good to notice that you can't be high on MDMA all the time, but you CAN be "high on life and love" all the time. I was not so much promoting MDMA but noticing that healing mantras and such are "mental MDMA" by their ability of "forcefully" bringing feelings of being loved and accepted in one's experience.

Why only if yes? What if no? Would you give up going to reveal new aspects of personal development and pursuing the Truth if it wasn't possible "Christian way"? In any case I would recommend Peter Ralston's The Book of Not Knowing. What are the things about Christianity you do care? And why are they so important?

I think you misunderstood me (I'm having difficulties expressing myself with english as non-native speaker). I was addressing your claim that every religion has the Truth "hidden" in it. Which clearly is the case for the most, or at least for many religions. But, I can imagine a set of beliefs and dogma (religion), constructed purely to gain personal wealth and power, with absolutely no Truth/Wisdom behind any of it.

Yeah, well, that's an approach that doesn't really help much. Because as long as there's self, albeit illusion, there "is" self to love. It's no use to keep thinking that "my thoughts don't exist"...

Yes, and even after recognizing that there really is huge potential it's easy to use them very superficially for self-development purposes. They have the tendency though to be unpredictable for the sole purpose of escapement, as they bring buried issues to the surface and shatter the ego and thus are seldom the drug-of-choice for escaping mind.

It still doesn't mean that psychedelics could not be used as very valuable and beneficial tools with handling all kinds of body-mind issues.

Just throwing: maybe the confusion really is the exact place you want to be in if you want to "get rid of yourself"? Don't you remember, "me" in you is a liar, it thinks anything to get to stay alive and in control. See, the "me" part of you is really horrified about the confusion, it can't handle it, because it can't exist in it. It needs something solid to cling to. Oh well, don't believe me either, I might even bigger liar, find it out yourself by honestly investigating your own experience. Best wishes to your journey!

Every time I notice anything arising in my experience that clearly needs compassion and loving. At first it was quite often, my monkey-mind generated a whole bunch of thoughts per day and most of them weren't exactly coming from any good place... Actually, the more you speak those loving sentences, the more you transform your experience and the more the state of just dwelling in bliss becomes accessible without even speaking. Hmm, it might be something like: learning to integrate something to part of your reality is to learn how something feels. I don't know, my personal experience of this world has changed so radically so rapid that it's hard to put anything in words... I think there might also be connection to what's behind the success with MDMA-treatments on PTSD patients, "forcing the feeling of love in one's experience" can really help to dig deeper and deal with all negative stuff and traumas buried deep inside.. But it's definitely the feeling you're after, words are always just symbols. "I love you" could mean in some other language "This is bullshit"...

Yes, that is exactly where (almost?) every spiritual path begins: realizing and honestly admitting that you don't do stuff for the reasons you always had lied to yourself. It's still good to recognize how easily mind starts that "ok, well now I see, know and understand" and to always approach thoughts as "ok, I recognized that I was lying to myself and when I believed it, it felt absolutely real. So, how am I lying to myself now? All that I understood feel absolutely real now, and I can expect from experience that it's a sign of deceit." It's also easy to start judging one self, especially if (when) that now recognized behavior keep repeating. "Oh shit, I did it again!? WTF?! Shit, what a fucking asshole I am, I knew I shouldn't do that, yet still I did." etc. That is dangerous, and (at least in my personal experience...) the only way to "get rid of it" is to accept and allow everything to be as it comes. I think you shouldn't too much try to think it through like that. I mean, so long as you have a goal, a personal purpose (to realize something and fix your situation somehow), it's what keep your "me" alive. I would recommend to keep mindfully noticing everything and stop too much thinking that you "have to achieve" something. Meditate and contemplate questions like "what am I really", it will all become clearer and clearer as time unwraps itself. Also, it's beneficial to read about the subject, as much as possible. And remember that love is something that can't run out, there's no finite amount it to be shared, so no need to skimp!

Matt Kahn has really helped me on my path of love revolution. Technique-wise it's basically the title of his book: "Whatever arises, love that". "Healing mantras" really do work, if you just keep saying out loud to yourself all the I love you's and other sentences of caring and compassion, their meaning become your reality. Of course the constant meditation and consciousness work is as important here than in mastering anything. For example, when a thought "oh shit how shitty dude I am, why the fuck did I do that" arises and one hasn't learnt to separate himself from his thoughts, this would probably lead to a circle where unwanted "bad" feeling is generated, which in turn causes unwanted thoughts to arise, and this ultimately just keeps getting worse until mind is distracted by doing something (else). When that thought can be observed further in the moment they arise, like "ok, I have these unwanted thoughts appear now in my consciousness", there's still the fact that even when one understands to not to follow them blindly, it's easy to feel something along the lines "i refuse to let myself to sink in the swamp of despair by following those thoughts, but this resisting is hard work and i don't like the fact that these thoughts constantly try to lure me, i really don't like those thoughts and feelings". And there it is, the very source of power from which those - so to speak - constantly reappearing enemies gain their power. The resisting. Sometime I myself got to the point where I understood that those unwanted thoughts and feelings kept arising only and just because they were unwanted. I refused to love, respect and accept them as a reality as it was happening right then. I realized that there were a whole lot of things arising in my experience to which I had that "I really don't want to be that, I don't want that to be part of me"-attitude... Yeah, "unfortunate for you, here we are." At that point, I started to respond to those thoughts like "woah, it's fucking amazing how powerful you are, awesome! i love you so much for showing me how little control i have on my experience!" etc. Although this stuff (especially maybe those healing mantras and "talking with emotions/thoughts like they were people") may sound somewhat weird or doings of a whack job as it's not something we are used to, in the end it's just a techniques to change how you feel and respond to your reality. Your reality kind of is what you feel and your responses kind of are your feelings..

Wouldn't it be possible to create a religion with no valuable insights hidden in it? For example, completely for the personal purpose of gaining wealth and power? Also, it really isn't all metaphor for reality, there's a lot of stuff there... As long as people cling to all that stuff which is actually called religion (and which so makes one religion different from another), the real insights are (at least for the most part) missed. The wisdom there is religion-independent. Also, reading between the lines does not mean that every sentence is wisdom there and you just have to understand it somehow, but exactly the ability to recognize the anti-wisdom there and just let that go. At some point it gets reeeally inefficient to find the wisdom from the haystack. I wasn't referring to islam here in particular, I haven't read the Quran so I don't know if there's any wisdom and if there is, how it is proportioned with anti-wisdom. A wise person can use pure solid antiwisdom to get enlightened, and a fool will do literally anything to deepen his foolishness, so that kind of approach isn't very practical to many people.

I wouldn't be very worried until there's any reliable source and study which shows the toxicity. There's after all pretty solid evidence for all kinds of health benefits from garlic. And of course the best part: if you have garlic hanging around, you don't have any problems with vampires!

You are on the right tracks here!