Emerald

I think these may be akin to the feeling of dis-identification with the self. Sometimes I have felt like the observer, at times when I look in the mirror and it occurs to me "Is that really MY face?" or if I think about my name and I think "Wow. My name is Emerald. That's very strange." It's always been a fleeting feeling of depersonalization. But when I had my experiences, it was a deep acceptance of and connection to everything that was.

I enjoy Marina Abramovic too. She's done some pretty extreme work, like the one where she allowed bypassers to do whatever they wanted to her for an entire day. I remember that one person cut her hair, other people cut her clothes off, and another person bit her nipple. But if I had to pick a favorite, I like Wangechi Mutu. Her work makes me think of the subconscious projecting itself onto the outside world

Thank you for the information. I'm not sure that I fully understand it yet, but I will contemplate on it. Would you say that enlightenment is living an experience of real being? Or would this fall into the category of experiences that relate to enlightenment, but (as experiences) are not enlightenment?

Thank you. I'll keep that in mind for my practice.

Maybe the trauma of your experiences at that time helped you identify less with your sense of self for that time. Sometimes extreme situations will force you into equanimity, because there is no other way to handle them. But that's just a thought. On the last point, I totally agree. Any spiritual progress made under the influence of psychedelics/entheogens will likely be impermanent. Also, it could be dangerous too.

Be careful pinning yourself down in one category or another. Not only can the ego get in the way but Spiral Dynamics is a framework for understanding human evolution, but it can only ever be an approximation. It's helpful in the sense that it helps you be more aware because you can assign labels to where you are at, but don't conflate the label for the state of mind itself.

I was looking into information on Kundalini awakening for a time a couple years ago. But the practice of it always ended up making me sick after a few days of practice with terrible headaches and nausea. Once, I even got a rash at the base of my spine. I sort of question whether these things happened coincidentally, or as a result of the practice. What is your take on this?

Was in a Kundalini awakening with all the intense physiological symptoms? Or was it more of a subtle feeling of oneness and peace of mind?

I have seen a video from Matt Kahn before where he was talking with Teal Swan. I enjoyed his perspective a lot, and his idea of 'love whatever comes up' fits with what I experienced during my experiences. I'll have to check out more of his videos. I'm always looking for new perspectives on this to inform my own practice as well as to help spur ideas for my own videos. On the last note, do you mean that you felt the emptiness in porn from the girl on the screen's perspective or the female perspective in general?

Was it like a feeling or sensation of emptiness that you were focusing your awareness on? Or was it more like a thought (or absence of thought)?

Thank you for the warning. I watched a video by Shinzen Young where he was talking about how after enlightenment things still have to be processed through, but that they are seen from the new perspective. He also said that he even sometimes visits a psychologist for certain issues.

I will definitely continue the process of self-inquiry.

I agree. I think that for this reason, we can't assign more value to the enlightened state over the unenlightened state. Either way, we will serve the purpose we're meant to serve. However, it is my preference to experience enlightenment, so that too is valid.

I think the primary issue with masturbating to porn is that you're sort of Operant conditioning your neural pathways to relate pleasure only to a third-person experience of sex. This makes it harder to orgasm to the real thing which is very different than watching an image of people having sex. Also, if you're watching most mainstream pornography, they tend to treat women very disrespectfully. So, you run the risk of strengthening an association between women being mistreated and sexual pleasure. This is especially bad if you are a woman yourself, as you can develop some really masochistic tendencies.

This is really tough. But I think his video about Paradoxes really made a lot of ideas that were previously disjointed from my worldview, click into place for me. For years, I had been struggling to reconcile paradoxical truths by deciding which one was true and which was not. Seeing this video made me realize that truth has a multi-faceted nature and that two contradictory things can be true at the same time. It really allows me to understand other people's perspectives a lot more too.

I have my Bachelor of Fine Arts degree and no professor that I ever had said anything about 15 hour days, and many have them acquired a decent amount of notoriety. There is literally no reason to hold yourself to working 15 hour days. That's 105 hours a week. A forty hour work week will probably suffice. Some probably get by on a 20 hour work week and others get by on a 60 hour work week. There is so much variation to the type of art someone makes, that time will vary. But there is no reason to run yourself ragged based on hearing that some artists spend that much time on it. That to me, sounds like a very destructive belief that will set you up for failure. Start with ten hours a week and see how much product that yields for you. Setting 15 hour a day goal is already setting yourself up for failure.

Six years ago, when I was twenty, I tried Ayahuasca twice, five months apart from one another. The active ingredient in Ayahuasca is DMT. Although I now recommend substance-free spiritual seeking as the transformative effects are impermanent, I consider these to have been very valuable because I experienced egolessness for a few hours of my life. I generally don't recommend it to others because it gives the illusion that the insights attained from the experience can be applied abstractly to life, but most of these insights can't be applied abstractly. I made a lot of foolish decisions afterward because of this misjudgement. That said, it was valuable in the sense that I had a firsthand experience of ego transcendence and now don't have to practice faith to do the emotional labor of seeking, because I know that it exists and that the payoff will be for want of a better word, incredible.

I've been trying to detach from thought in the past couple months and it has really helped me progress by leaps and bounds and to get over what was before crippling self-doubt. I now begin to understand that I have minimal control over thoughts and that they are not "mine." I don't have to listen to them or believe them any more than I believe in anyone else's statements. I'm going to try your 'Mr. Mind' method because I think it will help me remember to apply this to my thoughts throughout the day. Thank you.

That's great advice. Being too much in thinking/rational mind is probably what has kept me from experiencing oneness organically. I'm terrible with mental masturbation.

That's very interesting. Would you say that love is a human concept attached to this force, itself? Or could it be a label for an emotion that springs up in relation to that force?

When I had mine, acceptance and joy in what was happening, was a cornerstone aspect of the experiences. I saw beauty and significance in everything. I wasn't trying to change or control the circumstances. I loved everything in existence unconditionally: the good, the bad, and the ugly. Everything was exactly as it should be, and I was able to see the total perfection of existence.

I agree with jjer94's statement that an awakening is to see through illusion. The specific illusion that I speak of in this thread is the illusion of a separate self. So, traumas happen because a person perceives a separate self that unfortunate things happen to. This causes repressions, complexes, and affectation to occur in a person's psychology. Since the separate self is an illusion, seeing through that illusion gets rid of the effects of all traumas because there is no separate self to protect or to heal from trauma. When this happens a person is whole again, and fear goes away.

Definitely continue with the practice. It means that you are becoming more conscious of what is there. It is the only real way out of the sadness. The sadness has always been there, only now you are realizing it. Dirt on the floor is better than dirt swept under the rug. Congratulations on your progress.

Thank you.

Don't worry too much. Even the seemingly uncomfortable insights were a huge relief.