Real Eyes

Wow this is amazing, first I've heard of this! What an exciting avenue of research.

Ah, did these experiences come during meditation, or some other time? What do you think allowed those enlightenment experiences to come?

But is this a theoretical understanding, or actual direct perception of that as fact? Because anybody can read this somewhere and parrot it, but it's different to actually experience it.

Is there any point to awakening besides making life more carefree? Buddhists and Hindus say you must awaken to escape transmigration. But from many "awakening" experiences I read of people these days, it sounds like it doesn't matter if you awake or not in the end. So either these "awakened" people have gone further than the Buddha in experiencing the truth, or haven't gone as far as the Buddha.

@Maxx Thanks for that detailed reply. Assuming one can leave the ego out of it, which sort of techniques do you consider effective? The meditation/self inquiry type techniques, or perhaps others?

Have you tried this out yet?

@Pure Imagination Is this how you see the world? For example right now at your computer, are you aware of everything?

@Fidelio I'm definitely interested in hearing more about this.

@Prabhaker Wow what a post! A question if I may...with reference to just observing thoughts disinterestedly...is this a tad different than the "awareness watching awareness" practice? I understand that they may become the same in the end, but early on, would you say there is a distinction between the practice of "observing one's thoughts disinterestedly" VS the practice of "awareness watching awareness"?

This is an area that needs to be actively researched, using techniques like this along with psychedelics could be NUTS.

@Leo Gura I thought 5-meo was supposed to be off-white, like very light tan?

I guess I could have phrased that more clearly...I just mean that this realization that "nobody exists" seems like it is rather earth shattering, the "collapsing of the dream". But it's not really a phenomenon you hear about for a typical person, for instance I don't personally know anybody that has experienced this, spiritual seeker or not. But I know plenty of people that have experienced the flow state or moments of bliss. So it could be that there are other elements involved in the collapsing of the dream, that guys like Tony Parsons are unaware of. From his vantage point now, it may seem like a spontaneous event that is not preceded by anything, but he may not be aware of everything that allowed him to finally awaken. Paraphrasing Nisargadatta Maharaj, the fruit falls instantly from the tree, but the ripening took time. Parsons may be unaware of the ripening process he himself went through. And the fact remains that the majority of these neo-advaita people did indeed spend much time seeking and meditating prior to their awakening. Perhaps that is the ripening process.

@Maxx Thanks for this write up! This clarifies the non-seeking thing quite a bit. Putting aside seekers for the moment, how about your typical person living in the world, oblivious to any sort of concepts about enlightenment or seeking. Wouldn't one expect somebody fully engrossed in just living life to sometimes catch glimpses of this truth (perhaps during activities where they are fully immersed in, like a flow state)? But that doesn't seem to be a common occurrence...flow-like states seem common enough in a variety of activities, but the kind of seeing Tony Parsons is talking about in that interview doesn't seem to be common at all.

There seems to be a common denominator in the experiences of those who get lasting effects from their psychedelic use, which is REPEATED use over a period of time. Martin Ball was using entheogens on a weekly basis for awhile (5-meo and others), and there was a recently posted thread where we see the effects of repeated use on Azrael. Leo also talks about being able to see the trajectory of all of his trips together. Maybe it should be a priority of would-be psychonauts to arrange things in such a way that regular, repeated use is possible, over a period of months. Obviously there are other common denominators like having a meditation-type of practice, but this goes without saying. The repeated trips thing didn't really jump out at me until recently.

3 days in a row? I thought the washout period was longer than that on most psychedelics. Which ones could be done back to back like this?

@Azrael What a fantastic write-up, thank you. I'm curious about that initial "crack" in your head that you noticed, which you felt paved the way for what was to come. Do you have any further insight on why this occurred? It could be that the technique you were using was especially well-suited to this purpose... Perhaps years and years of meditation may prove fruitless without that initial crack? Is this a well-known thing that other awakened people have talked about?

Thanks for another great post Shin.

That's an interesting way to put it. How does one do something like that?

But it takes effort to stop these mental constructs we have built up over a lifetime. So that is something to "do", even if it is an undoing.

Do you feel like these teachers do a good job of making this clear, though? I haven't read a whole lot of them so I'm not sure, but I do commonly come across random internet posts that parrot the idea "there is nothing to do", so it seems the importance of practice was lost on them. It is really easy to misinterpret this message, so if anything, I'd expect such teachers to go to great lengths to insist that practice is still necessary, which doesn't seem to always be the case. I could be wrong though, like I said I've not delved deep into the works of all the most popular neo-advaitists.

Wow, thanks for sharing that experience.

@Maxx What do you suggest to do then, Maxx? Clearly, doing NOTHING is not getting the typical person off the street enlightened. So how is the "Do nothing" advice going to help anybody? Genuinely curious...

@Shin Thanks for the words of wisdom and inspiration. Could you elaborate a bit on your self inquiry practice? Are you doing the 'Who am I?" method, or perhaps the"Awareness watching Awareness" method, or something else?