Jacobsrw

Dalai Lama pen portrait I recently completed late last year for my business. I drew this using black ballpoint pen and blue colour pencil.

Custom piece I created late last year for my business. Completed on A4 paper using Prisma colour pencils.

Custom hand drawn piece I made last year for my business. Completed on A4 paper using Prisma colour pencils. you can check out my store on Etsy https://www.etsy.com/au/shop/Eunimity

@Nahm thank you for the valuable information! I’ll keep that in mind for the tea method. I’m actually going to consume in capsule form next time. I’ll grind them up then put them into an empty capsule body and see how that goes. @purerogue Indeed it was! Although I’ve been quite vigorously exploring such questions prior which may have helped with the insights arise omg too. @Leo Gura Yeah that’s what I suspected too. I’ll stay at 2 for now since I’m a beginner and build slowly from there. Thanks for the feedback appreciate it!

Substance: Panaelous Cyanescens (wild) Amount: 2 grams Date Consumed: 29/1/20 Insights: Suffering is just a story created in order to entertain the mind. Its all just a story told to maintain something that never existed. Fear is just a pointless amusement of the mind. Time just becomes whatever you want it to be. What we call human life is fundamentally meaningless, there's a bigger picture to be experienced. What we call life seems to be just a separated sphere of mind. Life is whatever I create to be, quite literally. When the space is allowed, there is this ethereal ever-present light always there for all to experience. This warmth where all things come together and unite ever so seamlessly. There's no reason to fear, its all just a story to occupy the mind. There's something more fundamental going on. There's this smoothness to experience, as though all things are constantly merging with one another. Life is a maze, not a maze in and of itself but a maze purely of mind. Humans are inherently vulnerable and fragile. Vulnerability is okay, in fact, its an empowerment. In-trip Symptoms and Pathologies: Hypersensitivity in sensory experience. Minor visuals (particles in objects moving like sand, objects slightly warping). Hysteria with laughter and utter amazement. Fear, anxiousness and paranoia. Fidgetyness and inability to sit still. Emotional fluctuation from positive to negative, like a radio wave pulsating up and down. Yawning and weird sensation in the neck. Disbelief and nihilism. Catharsis met with sadness and crying (tears of purification). Complete surrender to emotions and vulnerability. Lengthened depth perception (arms appearing exponentially further away than usual, felt taller as a result). Uncontrolled twitching and flinching while laying down (minor convulsions almost like a purging sensation). A need to wave and move the body. Child-like behaviour. Absolute bewilderment and amazement. Psychological fearlessness Post Trip Report: Where do I begin? So to start with, I clearly laid out my intentions, set and setting the day before. Set: explore the mechanics of self and suffering, consume on empty stomach dried with tea, have no commitments for the next two days. Setting: at home in my room, blinds closed, all distracting imagery hidden. In the morning I rewrote my intentions out in texture at a larger font and sat them next to where I would sit. At 7am I made a liquorice tea and then weighed my mushrooms, 2 grams was my target. I added the panaelous cyanescens to my tea and waited for 10-15 mins, then consumed the tea. One regret I have is not bothering to grind the mushrooms into a powder, this made it much harder to consume. I just ripped them up into smaller pieces before putting them in the tea then chewed them as a drank (not nice). So by 7:15am I began consuming the mushrooms in the tea and they were fully consumed by 7:30am. I began meditating and within 10-20 minutes it was on. I began to feel sensory fluctuations and changes to my perceptual acuity. My body started to pulsate and a strong throbbing coursed throughout the centre of my body. I wasn't awfully fond of the feelings to be honest, it made me feel slightly nauseous and trapped; as if I was being compressed by my own experience. I was going in and out of hysteria and paranoia. I would laugh at the pure tactile sensation I was experiencing or I would hear sounds and assume it was something in the house that required attention. At this point anxiousness and regret began to kick in. I starting questioning whether I should have been tripping. Lucky I mentally prepared my self for such thoughts and reminded myself there's a bigger game being played here. Not long after within the hour, I went straight to my intentions and began asking my initial inquiry "why do I continue to suffer?" and "what is suffering?" to which I was met with no response. I persisted and kept asking the question but my body just couldn't sit still and get comfortable. A part of me feared to close my eyes due to the incessant mental noise that would flood my experience when I did. So I was continuously going in and out of asking the question and trying to get comfortable. Each time I opened my eyes I was transfixed by morphing visual stimulus, fascinating as it all was I knew I knew needed to continue exploring my self, that was the purpose of my trip. Even though I wanted to explore myself I remember still finding it increasingly overwhelming to close my eyes between the 1-2 hour period. I couldn't sit still and as much as I wanted to lie down on the quilt I earlier prepared, I was feeling too nauseous to do so. I kept telling myself "not a good idea". So I propped myself up on the bed on a slight angle with a pillow under my head and grabbed a singlet from my wardrobe folding it to place over my eyes. After the fluctuating streams of negativity and positivity along with nausea subsided, I felt comfortable enough to lay down - finally. I went and laid down on top of my quilt. It was 3 hours in and things began to dramatically change. I began to express deep saddened emotion, emotion like never before, quite difficult to articulate. It was almost like purging emotions, followed by tears expressing full acceptance and surrender. It was blissful and cathartic in a way. That's then when the realisation then hit. I continued to precisely ask my question and in fits of interchanging tears, laughter and sadness I came to the response: "suffering is all just a story - a story concocted by the mind in order to entertain itself". I fell into full hysterics and began laughing uncontrollably. I was pointing at myself in the mirror spurting with laughter saying "you idiot, you created, you created it all". Deep bliss and liberation poured throughout my entire being. I began to feel warm and impenetrable. Not in an elitist way but in a psychological way. I kept saying to myself "there's nothing to fear". I noticed fear was just as a pointless amusement of mind and just settled into my experience. From that, a sense of imperturbable fearlessness overcame me. I felt like nothing could destruct me in that moment. Even though this insight was a fully felt embodiment that was truly powerful and liberating, I continued to fall in and out of it. I wanted to see if this realisation had penetrated my experience so I tested that very inquiry by examining my sense of self. I looked at my experience as a self and noticed that all my concerns and attachments still remained. How ignorant of me to think it was going to be that easy haha. So I concluded that the insight was a transient moment of deep realisation opposed to a radically permanent shift in consciousness. After roughly 4-5 hours in I was contemplating a lot more on the idea of "suffering as a story". I wasn't convinced that's all there was to it. I further asked questions such "who am I?" "who is the one that experiences I?". It came to my direct attention that 'experience' just continues on and 'mind' makes up stories in order to fill in the emptiness it struggles to withstand. Not what I was after but powerful nonetheless. It wasn't long after this the effects began to wear off quite significantly. I was finding it easier to write and my visual acuity was beginning to rebalance. I finished up the trip with a Rupert Spira mediation then went downstairs and had some food around the 6-hour mark after indigestion (found that out to maybe not be such a good idea). So overall the experience was fruitful in that it gave me insight into the prevalence of the narratives and commentaries of the mind that it overlays experience with. The main things I feel I've been left with is: An experiential insight into the utter fabrication of the mind. Human experience is just a story and film segment use for pure amusement purposes. Most pain and suffering if not all, is created by stories which we have attached to. We are quite literally puppeteered by the mind. There exists something more fundamental in reality and the clinging to stories keeps us from immersing within it. We are innately more fragile than we initially assume. Its definitely left me with some deep insights to ponder. However, I do feel like I've been left with quite a lot of confusion. Throughout the duration of the trip, I had repetitive moments of confusion. I remember my questioning being met with unresponsiveness, as it seemed as if I was completely just talking to myself. This left me with a sense despondency. When the insights did come they felt as though they were completely derived from my own consciousness. My questioning did not feel accompanied by any other entities. So I was sceptical as to whether the insight was just a mere epiphenomenon assisted by the mushroom or a higher state in consciousness in and of itself. Nonetheless, I do feel shifts in my perspective. I feel the full message of the trip is yet to be understood and its significance will take time to fully comprehend experientially. Downsides, I had a roaring headache afterwards that stayed consistent until about 2-3 in the morning the next day. I vomited and had immense nausea 8 hours after ingestion. That may have had something to do with eating just after the effects wore off (6 hours after ingestion) or that the mushrooms were wild and possibly aged/contaminated. So the comedown was terrible and felt similar to that of an alcoholic one but overall it was an eye-opening experience. Finally, I've spent the day integrating today and reflecting on questions regarding the trip. Apologies if this trip report is too excessive in its words count, I just wanted to ensure I conveyed the experience to the utmost accuracy that it occurred without depreciation. Would love some feedback! If anyone one has any comments or critique open to hearing it

@Leo Gura Thank you! Yeah mine was over in 6 hours thankfully haha. I plan on tripping every so often maybe once every two months or something so there’s adequate time for integration. I feel 2 grams is a good dosage for now but I also feel I had a lot of questioning unmet and was considering 3.5 next time. Not sure though. Will likely do another 2 gram hit then build from there I’d say.

@Kshantivadin primarily because it is suffering that at all allows you to know there is bliss. You would not know the primacy of bliss without it’s opposite, it would be near impossible. So suffering and pain is your opportunity to cultivate within it and transmute it into its counter part, which is bliss. Much like consciousness is made known through becoming separated through the duality of self, bliss is known through being dichotomously contrasted by suffering.

@Rasheed I find it is extremely beneficial and conducive to just sit silently with eyes open allowing awareness to pass over the entirety of direct experience. I do this for several minutes after mediation and find it helps integrate the prior session. Jumping straight into hyper activity afterward can deflect the state being from which you assumed through mediation.

A great one that I just remembered from years ago is “The Secret Window” with Johnny Depp Great movie about self deception, ego and the illusory self. Another one is called “”Unknown” with Liam Neeson.

Below are some words I wrote earlier today after contemplating the field of emotions. I wrote this in third person to explicate it more objectively. Its becoming more and more experientially noticeable to me the magnitude of which thought and emotion are completely self-constructed. Contemplation Excerpt: “If we take for example pain. When a wound is acquired and it’s presence is completely beknown to us, often it is overlooked. Those moments where you’ve significantly injured yourself, only to figure it out after perceiving it’s severity. What appears to then happen is the concept “pain” is projected onto what is perceived as “wound” reaffirming what is seen. We then have an instant surge of feeling in congruence to what has been witnessed. Often, the wound does not hurt until we have glanced it at and conceptually integrated it. The perception of what is painful or comfortable is itself a thought to which supports the following emotion that echoes it. Think about it, if you were unaware of the perception of pain and had no thought to substantiate it, your feeling of pain would drastically change. Without a thought of what is comfortable or painful there is every chance that we would not know the difference between them. Since at their core they are both a vibrational sensation distinctly categorised by the mind. How does this relate to emotion? Simply, in that many of our emotions are following events to the thoughts that have come before them. We think of a thought that best suits a particular perceived experience then overlay experience with that emotion. This becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy to which our emotions are encased in the very concepts we create about them. If we think something is great, we are reaffirmed to respond that way through our behaviour. If we think it is not, then we are again reaffirmed to respond in that way through our behaviour. In this way, it isn’t very clear if what we experience is appropriately distinguished or just merely assumed. It seem this is an area of human experience that deserves much further exploration.” Something I aim to further contemplate, nonetheless, it appears to be a start. Open to critiques ?

@Inliytened1That’s definitely one side of it. The other is that pure being takes the form of a mystical state through the process of initiation then shifts into the normality of life once embodied. The duality first converges then re-merges once one becomes permanently awakened. @tedens indeed, I am told. I am confident that would be the case. However, I would say that meditation is an incubative tool to maintain ”beingness” opposed to a mystical entry into a temporary state.

@Forrest Adkins meditation is far from useless. It’s the most accessibly simple tool that enters you into pure being without the use of hardcore interventions. @DoubleYou said it perfectly. Meditation is “being” in its uncultured simplicity. It is in that it is so simple that it’s importance becomes overlooked. Psychedelics on the other hand, force you into being through mystical states. Their power in doing so may be unmatched but the complicated nature that comes through them is what makes them harder to integrate. Unfortunately, meditation is so poorly considered in the modern day that it becomes perceptively depreciated. It’s usually considered as far as being a frivolous feel-good stimulus, which in turn undermines its true purpose. It’s purpose is alignment to “being” without all the decorations. The power in its practice really comes down to the investment in your action.

@ivankiss I like your thread, great discussion. Although, It would seem there requires a clarification for what is real in order to clarify what is not. Because, to clarify what is real you have to discern illusion from actuality, and further assert it is not real through perceiving it from a lens of realness - which itself would need explaining; what comprises the lens of realness to which claims illusion not to be real? I feel it is more complex than stating: “this is imaginary” and “this is real”. Consider this, when you dream you feel it is real in the context of the dream, to the extent you play the character in the dream as if it were you bearing the consequences of the waking state. If you experience a dream as such and the sensations abide by the same laws of a consequential experience. Is the dream real or the waking state? It’s not so simplistic in this manner, as you are dream in which the dreamer is happening. It seems everything is real but dependent on the context of realness it constitutes (ie. An illusion is real in that it exists as an illusion). But what is an illusion? Ps. I am not necessarily disagreeing with you just trying to broaden the repertoire of the discussion.

@Sizeable OofTo say something is bad is to undermine the good, to say something is good is to undermine the bad. I feel you completely misunderstood what was said in the video. From what I gathered, Leo was speaking in reference to the absolute, where morality is a complete fiction - relative to humans. Something is only bad relative to whom it threats, and good relative to who it nourishes. So, in other words labelling good and bad is complete contradictory and dependent on how it is pontificated. Also notice, being annoyed at another is ones own morality attempting to impinge on someone else’s.

Having not posted on here for a while, I thought I would take the time to start a meaningful thread. I’ve noticed a far majority of what’s discussed here emulates the topic of suffering - of course that’s to be expected in exploring the mechanics of self. However, I see it also conducive discussing some of the progress people have each made and the things they have noticed to be working in their journey of actualisation. A positivist approach, you may call it. I would deem it more a constructivist way to asses pros and cons of growth. Just for a moment anyhow. So what are some of your methodologies and self explorations that seem to be serving real value? Or what appears to be the nature of your success to which progression has began unfolding? Would love to hear others stories and progress

Butterfly effect, Inception and Black mirror: bandersnatch.

@electroBeam haha well unfortunately the one who becomes so fearful of paranoia becomes the most paranoid. That’s why we are best to admit being crazy to begin with. Not to mention that is already the inherent default position of the human condition ?

@Maarten your comment seems to be reflecting the very thing you are trying to avoid.

@electroBeam This is actually a great way to consider modern culture. It’s something I often think about myself. People in developed countries often unknowingly uphold the religion of materialism. The premise that all physical pleasures can be acquired through either material or conceptual acquisition. Image, status, objects, success, relationship, money etc. - essentially anything that maintains the notion of being a finite being. The notion that there is a thing such as physical pleasure is its self a part of the very same materialistic belief being upheld. In this light people who live in this way are no different to the individual who prays in a temple to acquire the solace from religiosity.

Awesome thread @pluto Here are some snaps I took a while ago in some beautiful mountain areas in Queensland, Australia.

Wow this discussion took an unexpected turn. Let’s try and share these ideas with the greatest respect to each other’s opinions. @Shaun this is so ironic you brought that up. I previously thought this too until I heard Rupert speak in depth on the relationship between consciousness and self. Much like Leo, he explains consciousness as a spacious field that experiences itself through different avenues. Stating that in order for consciousness to experience itself it must fragment itself into a multiplicity of finite perceptions that experience consciousness in their own unique way -this is the self. This is similar to Leo’s explanation as he explains consciousness as a giant mind that experiences itself through taking the form of one of its probes. In other words, consciousness experiences itself through the separateness - the self. Further, they both seem to explain consciousness as imaginary in the context of self, it’s realness is only apparent relative to context of duality. Not to mention I actually initially intuited Rupert and Leo to be competitively different until viewing a substantial amount of their content. The reason I’ve mentioned all this is not to try and make Leo and Rupert equivalent in their teachings, but rather in that they are both pointing to the very same thing in slightly different ways. So my point in sharing this post was not to impart debate, but rather deeper realisation of the essence of what lies common across each persons teachings.

@TheAlchemist sounds interesting I may have to have a listen. Thank you for sharing. @traveler could not agree more. Direct experience is much more informative. I feel like I’m getting to a point where all the words and language are just becoming a distraction and I feel a longing need for a break from it all very soon. The mind is a deceptive construct to the point it will maintain being transfixed by what fascinates it rather than what lies beyond and coincidentally, that’s what threatens it. I try to do my best taking each speakers words delicately and be sure to confirm it myself before just merely believing it. Thank you for sharing.

@fi1ghtclub 100%. He is one of a kind on the topic of consciousness. I feel that interrelating the explanations of different speakers allows you to more deeply appreciate the depth of what each one has individually espoused. Enabling a more full and sophisticated understanding. Multidimensional gap filling so to speak.

@enderx7 I like this a lot nice description too. I feel for me I tweak it just slightly, using the ‘love’ to project to the situation rather than myself. Just so the judgement of the situation can be fully dissolved and substituted. I would then attempt directing it to myself. Whenever I find my self in situation of struggle, tension or resistance. I do the observe and let go. I use acceptance for the letting go. I observe my current bodily tensions and let them go, then focus on letting go of the conceptual mental constructs that surround them.

A realisation that struct me today. More deeply than just the thought of it. It was an experiential realisation. Here is how it unfolded. Death is conceptualised as the ending of “some-thing”, that thing being human life. When in fear of death it invariably equates to fearing “no-thing-ness” which is synonymous with emptiness. All fear essentially leads to fear of emptiness, nothingness or death. It must, as it is great depth of all fear. The thing one cherished or only knows then vanishing, is the immutable fear. The unknown is feared as it entails stepping into something inconceivable and comprehensible to present experience. The very fact death entails not knowing is the fundamental fear itself. The fabrication of our everyday life is the utilitythrough which we use to distract ourselves from the inevitability of death. This is my most recent realisation that has really had me deeply look at how our decisions are structured and how we interact with life. It seems to me, our relationship with this fear determines the fundamental quality of ones life. Contemplating death had been a regular exercise of mine and this realisation has just urged it that little further. Hope this provides some value to others!