Forestluv

@An young being I had many “nondual experiences” before I knew anything about nondual theory. I knew that experiences were unique, yet I didn’t even know there was a word for it. Then a couple people in my life told me “Oh yea, that’s nonduality”. I was like “There’s a word for it? What’s this ‘nonduality’ thing?”. I then started watching nonduality speakers and was like “Omigosh! That’s it. They know what it’s like!”.

I live outside Detroit and it doesn’t seem like you have an understanding of Detroit. How many times have you actually been to Detroit? How much time have you spent with people who actually live in Detroit? How many Detroit communities have you immersed yourself in? . . . There are many wonderful aspects within Detroit communities that we can learn from to create healthier communities. Notice how the mind creates myopic realities.

@Kinjal Sure thing. There are a lot of people that think about dreams as appearances from the subconscious mind. Exploring this can have a lot of value for some people. For example, imagine someone is subconsciously repressing memories and emotions. They are not consciously aware they are doing this. They are confused about why they behave they way they do and are frustrated they can’t change it. Dreams can allow a person to become conscious of their subconscious and realize “Ohhhh, that’s what’s gaining on!!”. Psychologists may try to access this through EMDR, hypnosis or psychedelics. . . Another example would be someone learning more about who they are via their subconscious mind. For example, someone may have a dream and their subconscious mind may inform the conscious mind that the person is on the wrong track and should re-orient. There may be greater clarity about a relationship or work situation. You also mention that some dreams can be impractical. There are random, nonsense dreams that don’t have much practical value. Like watching a silly cartoon that doesn’t really apply to one’s life. As well, there can be times in which one “zones out” or “daydreams” during the day. They may be extra tired or bored and “zone out” into for a while. We could say that this is impractical. If I zone out during math class, I’ve missed the entire class and didn’t learn a thing. Now I have to spend extra time catching up in the class or I will get a bad grade. Yet I would also consider different contexts and different forms of dreams. Through my life, I’ve had a pattern of “getting lost in thought”, “daydreaming” and “zoning out”. I was always told that this was “bad” and that I needed to pay attention. I was told that I was trying to escape from dealing with here and now. In some contexts this is true. My perception of this was changed during a meditation retreat. During the retreat, we spent about 6hrs a day meditating, which was a lot for me. My mind didn’t drift into thinking like “Oh much longer do I have to sit? I forgot to respond to Sally. I need to eat a healthier diet”. Rather, my mind would go into scenarios outside of my regular “me” story. For example, I would go into dreamscapes in which I was hiking in a Rainforest with someone. It seemed very real. . . Then suddenly the bell would go off and I would “snap out of it” and think “Wow, did an hour go by already? That was fast”. . . The meditation teacher told me that this was “wrong” and not what we are here to do. He told me I was addicted to entering these spaces and told me to stop it and remain present, here and now. There is some value in this perspective in some contexts. The problem is completely shutting the door to these dreams. . . During one of the group discussions, I shared about how I was drifting off in these spaces during the meditations. I felt embarrassed and most of the mediators were like “Poor thing. Keep practicing and it will get better”. Yet one woman in the group perked up and said “Omigosh, I’ve been working to do what you are doing for years. How do you do it?”. She was immediately corrected by the group that this type of space is not good. Afterwards, the woman told me that what I was doing was a form of lucid dreaming while awake. This was the first time that anyone told me this could actually have value. This got me interested in lucid dreaming and I went online to look more into it. . . What I’ve found is that these mind spaces can have value in certain contexts, yet can also be impractical in other contexts.

What’s makes it even more impressive is that the volunteers had severe treatment-resistant PTSD. All other forms of treatment had failed them.

There are all sorts of different dreams within the Dreamscape. What you describe above is one type of dream. It can be quite powerful. Visionaries are often this type of dreamer. As well, one could get into LOA in this area. This could be another form of dream, depending how deep it goes. If I was just thinking about the her, I wouldn’t consider it a lucid dream. It’s got to go a layer deeper, into that “lost in thought and images zone”. For example, if you are in class and you go so deep into it that you lose touch with your surroundings. It’s as if it is really happening. After 5min. your classmate is shaking your arm whispering “Psssst, wake up.” You then ‘snap out of it’ and it takes you two seconds to realize where you are in class. . . If during the dream, there was not awareness of the dream within the dream, then that is daydreaming. Just like a sleeping dream. If you have a sleeping dream, yet don’t realize you are dreaming, it’s just a regular dream. In this type of lucid dream, there is realization that it is dream - yet no awareness outside the dream. For example, if I am dreaming that I’m in Australia and realized “Whoa, I’m dreaming I’m in Australia. I wonder if I can fly in the dream”. There is awareness of the dream, yet no awareness of the bedroom in which I’m sleeping. (Because I’m in dream Australia). . . . Similarly, if you were dreaming in class, you would be aware that you are in the dream, yet not aware that you are in class. When you classmate wakes you up, for a couple seconds you are like “Whoa, where am I? What happened? (Another second. . . ). Oh!! I’’m in class. I hope nobody noticed I was dreaming:”. I would consider that a lucid dream. . And they can go really deep, depending on expertise level. There are other forms as well.

@JayG84 Beautiful. Thank you for brightening my day. ? ?

@Kinjal I was speaking of “dream” in the context of lucid dreaming, which isn’t very practical in the context of life purpose dreams. There is a thread on creating dream boards which may be helpful in that area.

@Lyubov very interesting community!

There are times when I’m doing yoga and the “I” dissolves and the yoga is doing itself as yoga. Do you ever get anything like that with your mma?

That is one of the “I’s of awareness” that come to mind for me as well.

Have you ever been in a relationship in which the other person didn’t “get” you? They may have been able to repeat your words back to you, yet they didn’t “get” you. They didn’t understand you and what you are about. Have you ever been in a relationship or have a friend that “gets” you? You don’t have to give long explanations or explain things five different ways. Sometimes just a few words or a facial expression and you know they “get it”. Isn’t that wonderful? What factors would help us “get” another person? Here are a few ideas: 1. Common experience. If two people share a common experience, they have a better chance of “getting” each other. I grew up in New Jersey in the 1980s. People that grew up in New Jersey in the 1980s will have a better chance of knowing what that’s like. . . . I was in a village in Honduras when the pop singer George Michael died. I tried to explain to the Honduran villagers what it was like to grow up in New Jersey in the 1980s the how George Michael influenced that ‘essence’. What is was like to go to the diner with your gal for a sundae and have George Michael’s “I want your sex” playing on the jukebox as you flirt. The Honduran villagers had no clue what the fuck I was talking about. Then I sent a one word text to my high school gf “GiGi’s” and I knew she would “get it”. Not just a specific diner or memory, the whole essence. The vibe, the energy, the ITness of it all. 2. Absence of self identity and attachment. If my mind is immersed in my opinion, being right, being understood, my wellness,, analysis , debate, looking good etc., I have a much lower chance of “getting” another. Letting go of all that stuff allows space. Have you ever been in a movie theatre and “lost yourself”? You become so immersed in the movie character, that you “get” her or him - even if you haven’t had that specific experience. It’s like you know what they are experiencing and know why they are doing what they are doing. When the movie ends, you “return” to yourself. 3. Immersion. Immersing oneself with another increases the chance of “getting” it. For example, I’ve immersed myself in villages in Central and South America. I lived with locals and learned Spanish well enough to communicate. There were many moments of “Aaaahhhhh, I get it”. 4. Imagination. Some people are better than others at imagining what someone’s else’s experience and perspective is like. For example, there have been a lot of communities this week that have torn down confederate statues. Intellectually, I get it. Those statues are symbols of slave traders and oppression. There are many people that can’t even get that! There are many people criticizing them as barbaric “mob”. They can’t even get the most basic element. . . .So last night, I was watching some videos of community members hitting statues with hammers and pulling them down with ropes. There was no judgement filters of ideology. I just watched and observed. Then I started feeling the people and the community. I started getting a sense of what it’s like for them. And then there was this moment that I “got it”. It was like I was living there with them and knew what it was like. It was feeling all the relief, joy, unity and love. It was so beautiful and tears filled my eyes. 5. Natural ability. I think some people have the genetics and prior childhood conditioning to have skills in this area. 6 Psychedelics and edible cannabis. I don’t know about others, yet these substances send my empathic abilities through the roof. I can’t tell you how many “I get its” that have arisen. Schizophrenia, shamans, American Indians, abused children, psychopaths, forced feeding, solitary confinement, paranormal and on and on . . .

Sure. We could say that the body has evolved to preserve itself and is programmed for survival. There are many different points of “I” in the “I am aware”. . . Imagine a human body is standing on the edge of the Grand Canyon. This of course is a dangerous situation in which the body is programmed to protect itself. Yet who/what is the “I” in your “I am aware” statement? And who/what is that awareness aware of? Rather than there being one “correct” answer, I propose that there are many valid “answers” we could explore and directly experience.

As someone who worked years serving tables and bartending, I can say that is a load of bullshit. And stop demonizing others. Tone down your rhetoric.

I’m not sure how you are relating this hypothetical situation to “spiritual sight/advancement”. Are you suggesting that one response would be more “spiritually advanced” than another response?

Thinking can be a major distraction. Thoughts are just impulses that arise, like anything else that arises - yet the mind can get so immersed within thoughts. It’s an advanced stage to allow thoughts to arise without getting sucked into them. Yet, I have found trying to stop thoughts isn’t good either. I’ve found it best to relax the mind and body as much as possible and allow that’s to pass without grabbing hold. Just like I am allowing the bird chirps around me to arise and dissolve without grabbing hold. The mind is conditioned to create separate “things”. The birds chirps are separate from the trees. As well, the mind is conditioned to perceive “internal” and “external”. My thoughts are “internal” and the bird chirps are “external”. Yet when I close my eyes right now, the thoughts and bird chirps are arising in the same space. I need to create “internal” and “external” separation. One thing that helped me was to get into lucid dreaming. I wanted to lucid dream while I was asleep. (To realize I am dreaming and to be able to control the dream). I had little success in lucid dreaming, yet to my surprise I started to lucid dream while awake. . . One of the exercises of lucid dreaming is to do “reality checks” during the day. One is to pinch your nose and try to breath. If you can’t breath through the pinched nose, you awake. If you can breath through the pinched nose, you realize you are within a dream. They key is to do the reality check so genuinely that you really don’t know if you are awake or dreaming. You’ve got to pause and convince yourself that you may be dreaming. This isn’t easy, because of course we know we are really awake and pretending we don’t know. My big breakthrough was when I dream that materialized when I was awake. The two realities merged as one and I really didn’t know if I was awake or dreaming. 100% didn’t know. I pinched my nose as a reality check and could breath. Yet I forgot if that meant I was awake or dreaming! To return to your original question of how can we observe appearances arising from Emptiness. . . . Imagine you are dreaming and you realize you are dreaming. Could you observe the images in the dream as arising from Emptiness? This doesn’t seem to hard to do. Right? The images in the dream aren’t ‘real’. The cars, buildings, birds etc. are all just imagined. Thus, it’s pretty easy to observe as the images arise from Nothing. There is no areal substance below the dream images, they aren’t real. . . Now, do the same thing while you are awake. See that it is all a Dreamscape. An amazingly detailed Dreamscape. The most amazing Dream you can imagine. Where is is all arising from? Emptiness. Not only is it arising from Emptiness, it IS Emptiness (just like the images in your dream in Emptiness). . . They mind may think “Well, what a second. The difference is that stuff while I’m awake is real”. . . Oh yea? Show me one thing in awake life that I cannot dream. . . Hmmm, well. . . There is the law of gravity. . . I can dream that. . . I can feel stuff while I’m awake. I can dream that. . . . There is continuity while I’m awake. I have the same job, the same people, we all share memories. . . I can dream all that. . . . There is nothing about so-called “awake” life that I cannot dream. Realizing that, I can simply gaze around me and enter a dream-like state of observation in which the Dreamscape is arising from Emptiness and is itself Emptiness, just like in a “real” dream. This helps me enter that conscious state. Another thing that can help are psychedelics because they too dissolve “real vs. imagined” and it becomes easier to observe that it’s all arising from Emptiness and is itself Emptiness.

This is a very complex nuanced set of issues and it’s amazing to watch things unfold. I appreciate Durkan’s comment that “Trump doesn’t understand why the protestors are protesting”. This may seem obvious, yet it’s an important factor. I don’t think Trump is even capable of understanding why the protestors are protesting. He has no ability to empathize or see things from another perspective. Unfortunately, without this understanding he will not be able to deal with the situation from a holistic vantage point. I also appreciate Durkan’s comment about having a “summer of love”. This is a reference back to 100,000 hippies that gathered in San Francisco in 1967. They were about “free love”, anti-war and tripping on psychedelics and smoking cannabis. President Nixon demonized the hippies as criminal drug users. Many of the peaceful hippies were arrested and psychedelics and cannabis were made illegal as the most dangerous class of substance (the same category as crystal meth.) I’ve seen people make connections to Trump and Nixon by the way they handled protests of racial injustice - for example the “Law and Order” phrase. Yet I also think connections can be made regarding how they relate peaceful protestors. They both despise he peaceful protestors and want to demonize them. They both see them as threatening. . . . There were many beautiful dynamics of unity and love within the peaceful hippy protestors, yet Nixon couldn’t see it. As well, there are many beautiful dynamics of unity and love within today’s peaceful protests, yet Trump can’t see it. And if the protestors were tripping of psychedelics, I’m sure Trump would try to demonize them as drug users and push to have them arrested - just like Nixon. . . I’m seeing more and more how Trump admires Nixon and was influenced by Nixon and one of the links was Trump’s father.

Or one could say “Better to have destroyed a statue symbolizing oppression and suffering than leave it standing”.

I’m not directing these comments at you. It’s more like after reading your comments, these are the thoughts arising in my mind that I am processing. I appreciate your thoughts as they have provided grounding for me to explore thoughts and, in doing so, gain clarity. I can relate to this space. The space of not knowing if I will ever come back this time. Being trapped in that space is what I would describe as an insanity zone. I’m not saying this is wrong, yet notice how the mind creates and controls the narrative. In this case, “There is importance in letting go and a cycle of returning”. Who/what is this important to? Who/what finds it important to ‘return’. . . To me, this is a nice poetic creation that has spiritual value. This is just what comes up for me: I try to be mindful if the energetic orientation is from a transcendent source or if it’s coming from a well-intentioned self trying to control the Internal narrative of what IS (or a combination). I’m not saying it is wrong or lacks value. . . . I’ve been in spaces in which my mind thinks in terms of “discernment” as a way to maintain control. A question I ask is “Who wants to do the discerning and why does it want to discern?”. The deeper answer for me is not intellectual. There are many sneaky intellectual tricks my mind plays. I see a lot of value in discernment as you describe and I’ve tried to grow in the area and I speak of it’s importance. There is also a space free of all ideas, experiences and discernments of which, and in which, all ideas, experiences and discernments are created.

Demonizing Green from Red/Blue is below the threshold for this subforum. If you want to criticize Green, do it from a Green or Yellow level. We are aiming for Tier 2 on this subforum. Don’t pull the subforum down.

@Kinjal One thing I do is sit and simply observe the Emptiness from which all things arise. Sometimes feelings of sadness or appreciation of beauty arise, yet that’s not it either - since that also arises from Emptiness.

It’s much more expansive than logic (yet includes logic). This is a great example in examine various states of consciousness. Notice how this discussion is dictated by a sober mind. Notice how a sober mind is creating constructs of logic, differences, awake, unaware and points of seeking. It gets super subtle, yet there is an assumption that this is “more real” or carries more weight than post-logical psychedelic spaces. The sober mind is creating “things” and definitions and subtly believing they are more real than psychedelic spaces. Imagine the reverse. Imagine everyone’s “normal” mindset was psychedelic and post logical. Then someone created a substance that allowed for a temporary glimpse of a sober mind state and logic. Then it flipped back to a psychedelic mindset. The entire contextualization would be different. The context of your question would have no relevance and carry no weight. It would be extremely difficult to understand the logical concept you present. One would need to “sober trip” hundreds of times to begin to understand and embody what the sober minds assumes to be evident, relevant, logical and real. . . For me, I inadvertently took a monster dose my first trip and it shattered the foundation of sober realness. I can re-assemble aspects of it to function in life and communicate to others, yet the immersion into subconsciously believing sober is real was never fully re-established. Another way of looking at it. Imagine that I am tripping balls right now and you just communicated what you wrote above to me. In this psychedelic state, it is received as “nonsense” (although there is no nonsense in this space). I then respond in a weird way that you perceive as psychedelic-induced nonsense. Why does your sober frame count as the real one? Why does your sober mindset get to set the framing and narrative? Why doesn’t the psychedelic mindset get to set the framing and narrative? . . . There is a bias here. I’m not saying it’s good or bad, right or wrong. There is just a bias toward a sober mindstate. If humans lived 99% of their life in a psychedelic mindset, there would be a psychedelic mindset. Yet again, even saying “bias” is a sober frame. The concept of bias wouldn’t even be relevant. From a human perspective trying to imagine a trans-human psychedelic perspective, what you say is true. Not only is there no difference between being awake and unaware, the concepts of “awake” and “unawake” don’t have any relevance. It would be like saying there is no difference between creflit and yeqbuv. . . . “Awake” and “unawake” are human constructs. Humans have created it. At a human level, it has a lot of value since we live in a human-constructed reality. Yet utility and value of normal sober mind constructs does not mean they carry more weight or relevance, in spite of how much a self mind would like to claim so. Yes, there is no difference between “awake” and “unawake” and there is no point seeking “awake”, no more than there is a point to seeking “yeqbuv”. Further, there is no “seeker”, “seeking” or any thing to be “sought”. . . Yet there is a difference between awake and unawake and there is a point to seeking awake. . . Taken together, if you take a step toward awakening you fail. And if you don’t take a step toward awakening, you also fail. The good news is that you win either way as well. And this whole game only exists in which it exists. Without it’s creation, it’s all irrelevant. There is a dynamic between gredtoks and wuvbens regarding the attainment of clezfer. It is extremely important in this zone of consciousness. Yet it’s been a non-issue your entire life. It’s had zero relevance to you and it doesn’t matter wether you agree with the gredtoks or wuvbens. It doesn’t matter if you ever attain clezfer. For all you know, it’s something you should avoid. None of it matters, because you haven’t created it as mattering. And who gets to create a “hierarchy necessity of discernment” and who decides that it has value? A “sober” mindset does. That is biased. This is part of narrative control for a sober mind. Ime, this is very difficulty to surrender and transcend, yet I was very fortunate that it was smashed to pieces my first trip - although I’ve had to work through the smashed pierces in all sorts of contexts. And who gets to decide what is “helpful” or that there is even a thing called “helpful”? Who decides that there is value in integrating these psychedelic experiences into a sober mindset? This is simply one mindset that is controlling the narrative. Why isn’t it of higher value to integrate sober space experiences into a psychedelic mindset? Before my first Ayahuasca ceremony in Peru, I sat next to a guy who had done 50+ Ayahuasca ceremonies. I was feeling anxious and asked him all sorts of questions what “it” was like. What the Ayahuasca “reality out there” was like and how I can capture insights and integrate it into my life. At one point he said “The two worlds first appear as two worlds, yet they gradually move closer together until there is One world”. . . I sorta got what he was saying, but not really. This is a very advanced transcendent view expressed through a “sober state” mind. A common sober mindset is that there are two worlds: the psychedelic world and the sober world. And the mission is to enter the psychedelic world to get some goodies that will help us in the real sober world. This has relevance and importance at a personal/human level, yet not at a transcendent level. Yet to see this one must unconditionally surrender their personhood / human-ness and not try to later reclaim it. I have gone through this surrender many times, yet there is still the reclaiming of personhood / human-ness for several reasons. Yes. And to venture where I’m pointing to, this must be let go of and surrendered. When one reaches the gate, they cannot enter carrying this bag.

The Notebook and Dead Poet’s Society.

Consider that there is emptiness and there is Emptiness. I’ve noticed many people misunderstand people describing Emptiness as being emptiness, because they have only known emptiness and have not yet had a glimpse of Emptiness. I remember being at a mediation event and the dharma talk was about the beauty of Emptiness. Later, I remember a woman saying “I can’t believe they are talking about emptiness as being beautiful. I had to deal with emptiness through my clinical depression and it was not beautiful. It was awful”. She was misunderstanding pointers to Emptiness as being emptiness because she was limited by her experiential range. When I tried to talk about a transcendent Emptiness, she couldn’t get it because she had never had a glimpse of it and she was unable to imagine it. At a ‘lower level’ one may think of emptiness as being the feeling of loneliness. That feeling of having no meaning or purpose. “My life is empty, I feel a dreadful sense of emptiness”. . . Yet to me, it seems like you are well above this level and evolving. . .

Yep. Especially for personal development. A classic example is re-framing from “This is a problem” to “This is an opportunity”.

Once there is realization of the character, the relationship to the character changes. An example I’ve been working on lately is with sexual role playing. A have a good friend that recently asked to explore sexuality with me for healing. . . This caught me attention. . . She tells me a whole backstory about how she was mistreated by her father and that she was never in a safe space to explore her sexuality. For example, she had always been submissive and has never felt safe to take initiative and explore areas she wants to. She wants to be more dominant and contact the Divine through sexuality”. She tells me that she feels hyper embarrassed, yet she feels safe with me and that I won’t judge or criticize her and I would allow her space to explore and heal. I’ve done a lot of role playing with women and it’s really difficult to find partners that are good at it. That can’t get fully immersed in the character to the point they actually believe it’s who they are. There is always an aspect of “I’m just pretending to be this character for play”. This is a surface level of role playing. It’s ok, yet I like entering a deeper space in which we each become the character such that we are that character, yet this is super hard to find. . . So. . .the woman above has created a character with a backstory. If I had tried this previously with another woman, she could only pretend. If my ex-gf said “Let’s create a new character for me”. And I said “Sure. How about you be a woman that was mistreated by your father and you never had a safe space to explore your sexuality. You have always been submissive and feel very embarrassed talking about your sexuality. You see me as a safe person. You want to be dominant for the first time and connect to the Divine through sexuality”. . . She would have replied “Hmmm, that’s a tough one - I’ll give it a try”. Yet this would have been a very surface level. She wouldn’t truly believe she was this character and become the character. It would have been obvious she was pretending and she might have paused during sex and said “How am I doing? Do I seem like the character”. That would ruin the whole thing. Yet with this new gal. She actually believes she is this character!!! She is so immersed in this character that she actually believes it is who she is. She doesn’t need to act or pretend. She is so deep in the character that she has become the character. This is as deep as role playing gets. I couldn’t ask anything more of her. . . So now the question becomes do I allow her to be under the delusion that she is actually this character. On the one hand, I feel like I should. She is stuck playing this one character. She cannot take a meta view to this and believes she is the character. I can see this from a meta view, which allows me to communicate with aspects of her psychology she is unaware of. And she has subconsciously indicated through her resonance that she wants to stay identified as this character in the story she is creating. If she consciously goes meta and realizes she is just playing a character, the dynamics change. It’s not as exciting, alluring, dramatic when one is aware is just a role I’m playing. Most importantly, it’s not real anymore. And she subconsciously told me she wants it real. I totally respect that. I’ve actually tried to make role playing with other women more real. And here she is, 100% believing and identified as the role. 100% real. No pretending. In terms of role playing, I couldn’t ask any more of her. . . .