Emerald

I think that older people tend to get further and further away from themselves. It's a shame. This pattern is probably responsible for most of society's biggest issues. The people running the show (adults) are the least in touch with the truth of who they are. I would recommend Spiritual Autolysis for self-inquiry. It's where you attempt to write something you believe is true and then deconstruct the thought to find false assumptions.

I've yet to read them but he's on my reading list. I only know what I've seen from his work in the past week on the forum and I've been conversing with him on the forum too. He does seem like a very loving person... but a sneaky bastard nonetheless.

I'm so happy to hear that. I think the emptiness/non-meaning words tends to block out love because how can there be nothingness, unconditional love, and particular loving relationships. It all seems very antithetical. But Jed is right in saying that all you should want from the experience is truth. Because all other notions, except radical truth, can block out the experience of enlightenment. If you come to it expecting unconditional love, you'll never get there, because you're preferring a future moment which is antithetical to unconditional love... because it's a condition. So, I think Jed omits it on purpose, much in the way a Zen Master remains reticent.

Be aware of what is beyond all pre-conceived notions. Get present to only what you're aware of, which is what is true in your subjective experience in the present moment. Don't get caught up in thought stories. The past is a thought story. The future is a thought story. They don't exist. Thoughts are real, but the content of thoughts are thought stories. You don't control the thoughts. You are not your thoughts. You are not the content of a thought story. There are sights, sounds, tastes, tactual sensations, smells, and thoughts. That is all there is in the field of awareness. If you're not experiencing it in the present moment, it isn't real. Then once you're aware of these things and can get a real experience of them, focus and practice unconditional love and acceptance toward them. Don't let the thought stories hi-jack your awareness. Let them go. Then let yourself go.

@Pinocchio I'm actually beginning to think that pure non-conceptual awareness and unconditional love toward that awareness are the primary causes of the breakthrough of enlightenment. When I had my experiences, the unconditional love aspect was what was so amazing about them. I didn't know that I had the capacity to love all people, the sky, trees, every blade of grass, etc. I even loved myself unconditionally just for being, which is a trick I've yet to learn otherwise. I was love itself.

I've recently started doing 30 minute strong determination sitting once a day and spiritual autolysis once a day. Spiritual Autolysis is where you attempt to write something that is true and deconstruct it until you know what makes it tick. It helps you scan for assumptions and beliefs. It is the same as self-inquiry if you try to answer the question "Who am I?" "Who is the perceiver?" etc. Only it's a bit more concrete because it's down on paper. It's the difference between doing a math problem in your head versus doing it on paper. So, the Strong determination is for cultivating acceptance even in the face of pain. The Spiritual Autolysis is for deconstructing and identifying assumptions about reality.

What I meant was that awareness was everywhere within the field of consciousness because it is the field of consciousness itself. So, it doesn't focus on any particular aspect, it is the whole thing.

Science is a perspective in the sense that it is a vantage point from which to view the world. Perspective means it is a lens and vantage point through which to view the world. Perspective doesn't imply that anything is true or false or that it is just an opinion.

I don't believe so. I think consciousness just is and it is everywhere within the field of awareness as it is the field of awareness itself. But the illusion that is given is that it's limited because beliefs and thoughts get in the way. Plus, our putting our attention on something is directed by thought.

Yes. I can flip my perspective in a subtle way. I just become aware that all I know are sight, sound, smell, touch, taste, and thought within the present moment. All else is a thought story, the content of a thought. I get present to feeling that I'm the container holding the content of my thought and my sense perceptions. Also, my perceptions aren't being perceived. Perceiving gives the implication that there is a sense mechanism to pick up on an external phenomenon. Perceptions are perhaps things-in-themselves. There is no perception happening. There is just content.

I'm not you, so I don't know what is the right path for you. But, makes sure that you are acting from a place of wisdom, and not fear. I was considering leaving my husband before because I was so unhappy. But now, things are different and I'm glad that I didn't leave him. I was afraid that he was holding me back, with his super frustrating anger issues. But this turned out to be false. The things that I really want can be achieved with him there and my family intact... except my desire for sexual freedom. It's difficult to think never again forever will I feel the burning passion of the beginning of a relationship with someone new. This ended up being the unconscious crux of my fear that I didn't want to admit to myself. I also, won't cheat because I want to be a good person and stay loyal. My ego doesn't want me to be a cheater. What's the point in passion spiked with guilt? I still have my desires, and I let myself engage in fantasies that I keep to myself. My husband does too. We talk about it. It's normal to feel this way. But I realize that acting upon my desires would just put me back in the same situation, only with another partner. But when I started accepting my husband, things got better between us. We're doing better than we have been since the first couple months of our relationship. But if it's really time to leave, then it's really time to leave.

This video is by Shinzen Young about the relationship between Enlightenment and Depersonalization Derealization Disorder. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9zIKQCwDXsA

The first time I did it was when I was 20. I had never tried psychedelics and had always been curious. My then boyfriend was a big stoner guy, and loved going to head shops. One day he was there and he picked up the ingredients which were at the time legal to possess. So, I did it with him, my friend Andrew, and his little brother Aaron. I expected to see funny colors and things like that, but I got far more than I bargained for. My ego dissolved, and I was at one with all of existence. I loved myself for the first time ever, not even realizing the degree to which I had hated myself all my life. Death was no longer scary because I realized that it was an illusion and part of a beautiful cycle. The second time, 5 months later, life was giving me some real lemons. So, I did it once more as an escape than a recreational experience. The second time, many insights for where my life needed to go popped up. I realized how much I was sacrificing to keep the relationship alive, and to fit the persona that I'd come to identify myself with. I also, ironically, realized that I didn't like marijuana. I belonged for years to weed culture and it was a big part of my identity, but I didn't really ever like it. I was so out of touch with myself that I didn't even know. I was at a party but locked myself in the bathroom to enjoy alone time, where I could really focus on the insights. Both were over-whelmingly positive experiences. The problem is that the insights don't translate well to the current paradigm. For example, I had an insight that everything was one thing and there was this pervasive feeling of unconditional love because there was nothing that wasn't me. So, I thought after the experience was done, let me replicate this by applying this wisdom to my life. I sought to have no boundaries. But this is dangerous if applied in this way. A person needs strong boundaries to be happy and safe. But I was trying to translate the higher wisdom in the way that I was used to applying knowledge: abstractly, rationally, externally, etc. Another one was that I realized that my strivings for success and significance were all feeble attempts by the ego to outrun the reaper. I was trading my present moment for a legacy. To preserve my self-image was more important to me than living my life. So, I became torn between trying to do well and self-actualize (which had always been my MO before) and trying to live in tune with the insights that I had received which seemed to contradict self-actualization. My grades dropped and I got very bad feelings toward my work ethic and achievement oriented nature (which were always great strengths of mine. I thought that they were wrong. So, I became resistant to achieving and having boundaries. So, I still wanted significance, even thought I didn't when I had the experience. So, I began unconsciously valuing myself primarily on lower-consciousness things like looks, male attention, and sex appeal. The higher outlet of self-actualization had been closed off, so the significance had to be achieved in some other way. So, instead of riding the wave of life, I got overtaken by it and my life sort of veered off-course. So, applying the insights this way, actually decreased the quality of life and derailed my every-day wisdom because I was trying to replicate the experience by applying the insights.

Sexuality takes this form from the orange paradigm and a more extreme form of this form from the red paradigm. Sex as commodity is the current social structure surrounding sex.

I haven't been to an Ayahuasca retreat but I've tried it twice. I have two bits of advice. Number one, make sure the shaman you do the Ayahuasca retreat with is legitimate. There have been some shady shamans giving quasi-poisonous plants in their Ayahuasca mixes like Toe. There have been reports of deaths and even rapes while under the influence. So, make sure you research the retreat well. Remember that shamans are regular people too. But be sure to read @Jan Odvarko's links that he posted. I actually don't recommend trying it. They were certainly the most beautiful experiences of my life, bar none. But I recommend seeking enlightenment naturally, if that's what you're seeking. Also, don't try to apply insights that you receive under the influence of Ayahuasca in the sober state. They don't yield good results in life when you try higher truths from the average mindset. Wisdom is a state of mind, and not a particular insight.

So, last night I was doing Spiritual Autolysis and came out with a really great insight about "perception" that had been getting in my way. I realized that I was thinking that sight, sound, taste, smell, and touch were perceptions in the sense that they were being sensed. But maybe "perceptions" aren't perceptions at all. Maybe they just exist as they are. Maybe they are (for want of a better term) the thing-in-itself. So, after I had this insight, I went to bed and woke up at around 5 am. I was awake, so I decided to do some empirical investigation while lying there. I focused on the sensations of the body and tried to experience them free from my concept of what a perception is. As I became aware of this, I got this "void-like" feeling like my perceptions were empty and falling in on themselves. There were only sensations and my mind was a bit more distant from me. Then fear came up and the thoughts started becoming louder and pulling me out of the experience. The thoughts were invoking ideas of insecurity about my looks and my life situation. So, I got distracted by the insecure thoughts, and snapped out of it. The ego used these thoughts to keep itself alive. At least I now have a first-hand experience of how the ego uses insecurity to sustain itself. Any thoughts?

Can you explain what you mean by sub-space?

I have decided to come back to Strong Determination Sitting again. It really made me aware of the separateness between thoughts and perceptions. I figured that now, with my recent insights, this will really help me make a lot of progress.

Great video.

That's what I was thinking. I still get caught up in pre-conceived notions of enlightenment, so it's time to tear into that.

Well yes and no. Yes in the sense that doing meditation, self-inquiry, and contemplation will help you clear space in your awareness to have a breakthrough. No in the sense that it is all an illusion anyway.

Indeed. Have you had any similar experiences? Could it be a sign of awakening to the truth, or is it just another state of mind? It reminded me of my deeper experiences with OBE where I'm just floating in a void, but more intense. Most of the time in OBEs I'm walking around in my environment or some other environment, but I've had a few where I was just floating in the void. But I consider OBEs to be another part of the dream and not actually waking up. So, I'm wondering if it's a step toward awakening, or if it's just another novel "spiritual" experience.

Great analogy.

Yes it was Ayahuasca. It's grasping in the sense that it is seeking happiness through future enlightenment, instead of practicing unconditional love and acceptance of the present moment. It is hating the present moment, and wishing for a better future moment. I would agree with this last point. Ultimately, I know that my Ayahuasca experiences have caused a lot of trouble for me. I don't want to see someone else make the same mistakes. That said, the suffering and awareness of enlightenment has become very useful to me in many ways. So, I believe that it will eventually work in my favor.