Forestluv

That sounds great. The "I AM" realization is a major one. As you say, most minds are attached/identified to the right side of "I AM", I am a man, I am Canadian, I am kind. I am a scientist. and on and on. Simply "I AM" is really profound. We can go further and drop the "I" part. Then there is simply "AMness". So lets say pure "AMness" reveals itself. What now? . . . Pure AMness is a great place to visit, yet there is so much to create and explore. AMness expressed as a human is beautiful. AMness expressed as a forest is also beautiful. AMness expressed as paranormal phenomena is magical. There are infinite number of AMness expressions. AMness is Everything. Once AMness is revealed and embodied, the chains come off. . .

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You bring up another very good point. And that is the limitation of language and "the map is not the territory". As you say, the thought "Now is Now" is a rational thought. This involves a construct called "Now", which is may be interpreted as Now, relative to the past and present. I am pointing to what is prior to the rational thought of "Now is Now". That's why I said "Dont' think about it". It is ineffible. It cannot be explained because any explanation comes after the more fundamental truth. One word is too many. Yet we use words to try and communicate and "point". This is essential to realizing how important direct experience is and that "it" cannot be figured out intellectually. As well, consider the differences between maps and territory. Is the map the territory? Of course not. The map is a representation of the territory (yet the map itself is territory). . . When you say "You are the forest is irrational", you are saying a map of territory is irrational. This is focusing on the map and not the territory. The phrase "you are the forest" is not the ISness of the direct experience. It is a construct attempting to represent the ISness (which is ineffable). The reason it doesn't seem rational to you is that your mind has created a map of what a "forest" is and a map of what "I am". According to this map, the forest and me are different and to say they are I can be the forest seems irrational. You are essentially telling me "The territory you try to explain through drawing a map is not the same as the map I have drawn". I have no disagreement with that. According to the map you have drawn, the statement is irrational. According to the map, you have drawn, someone that believes they are the forest should be getting some therapy. According to your relative map of reality, I would agree that it is irrational. The contraction here is the belief in an objective, external reality. This provides the mind and body with a sense of grounding and can be very difficult to transcend. I would question what is "rational" vs "irrational". Break down this duality. See the irrational in the rational. See the rational in the irrational. See "sorta rational, sorta irrational". If you dig deep enough, the grounding of rational vs. irrational will collapse. I'll try to explain another way. Imagine being out in a "forest" and all of your mental constructs dissolve. Your construct of a "forest out there" and a "me in here" dissolves and an ineffible ISness is revealed. Just like the thought of "Now is Now" is a rational thought after the ISness, an contextualization the mind gives is a contextualization. It is a map of the ISness, not the actual ISness. Anything I write is not "it". All I write is an extremely limited representation of "it". I could write "I had an experience of being the forest" <= That aint it. . . I could write "I was the forest" <= That aint it,. . . I could write one million different descriptions and none of them is "it". . . . One of the keys is not to get attached to literal analysis of the words.

Both are fine. They are different forms of expanded awareness and will have unique essences. "I am the forest" is identification as being the forest. "I am the consciousness which experiences the forest" is a detached non-identified awareness of the forest. Both conscious states are expansive and transformative. That is one contextualization and I don't agree with it. It is helpful in certain contexts. It just depends on the context. If a mind is conflating feelings and thoughts, that is a helpful context. Yet from other perspective, the duality between feeling and thought collapse. Imo, this is one reason why resonance is so important. If a person is in tune with their resonance, they will be attracted to insights of that are in the proper context for what they need. The thinking that "I am God" makes sense, especially if God is just a label to mean consciousness is a mind trying to "make sense" of things - its' even in the phrase!! There is nothing wrong with this, yet if a mind is limited to this - it is limited to a contracted state. There is much much more than the intellectual mind trying to make sense of God. For example, if god = consciousness, then god is limited to that person's understanding of consciousness. This is ok, yet to me there is still an element of the mind trying to control perception and the internal narrative. "I am the forest" means that the personal self dies. Bye-bye personal self. . . And it will resist. To me, the above statements have subtle hints of a mind still trying to control the internal mental narrative. The self is still in the game. For example, "there's thoughts of a forest currently flowing and they are separate from I" .. . There is still an "I"!!! Who/what is that "I"??. Pull back the curtain and reveal that sneaky self. . .

This is a really important question. A rational mind will be skeptical and won't want to be duped into irrational beliefs just to make itself feel better. A rational mind wants to believe in things that are real and true. For example a rational mind may see it as irrational to believe in an external god, that is providing us support. A rational mind asks, what is the evidence and proof for this - without evidence and proof, I won't believe it. . . I know this mindset well, I am a trained scientist and spent 20+ years immersed in rational, analysis, evidence etc. There is nothing wrong with this, yet it is within something more expansive. One thing that threw me off balance was direct experience and "prior". This changed the way I related to "knowing". . . Direct experience and what lies "prior" is key to transcend rational thought. One trap my mind got into was I thought that I would have to reject rationale thought and accept some type of irrational feeling. The good news is this isn't true. We are not rejecting rational thought and replacing it with something else. This is not an "either / or" scenario in which we have to choose between rational thought or something else. We get to keep rational thought. My mind uses rational thought everyday. Rather, we are expanding beyond rational thought in which the expansion includes rational thought. As well, one cannot expand beyond rational thought through the contraction of rational thought. One of the heaviest weights that dragged me down was that I would figure out what lies beyond figuring out. It doesn't work that way. . . Direct experience is a key. Here is a simple exercise of direct experience to illustrate a "knowing" prior to rational thought. See if you can have a direct experience of "prior knowing" here. Also notice if the rational mind jumps in and starts intellectualizing. Don't go into thinking mode. There is a *knowing* prior to the thinking that is first order. Rational thoughts are second order. Look around you right now. Become aware of your environment. . . How do you *know* that this is Now? How do you know Now is not yesterday or tomorrow? . . (Don't think!!!) . . . Can you experience that *knowing* prior to thought??. . . The knowing that Now is Now is prior to evidence. Any evidence that Now is Now is second order to the first order truth that Now is Now. You don't need any evidence. You don't need to go to a physicist for evidence and proof that Now is happening Now. The truth of Now is prior to evidence that Now is Now. . . Most rational minds will try to regain control of the narrative and start making up "yea, but. . . " stories. This is a distraction from the direct experience of the truth of Now. Another key point is the mind's obsession to determine what counts as "real" and "not real". For example, the mind may think that waking life reality is "real" and things like psychedelic experiences or dreams are "not real". This gives the mind and body a sense of grounding and stability. This is really important to function in life. However this mindset is a contraction and can be expanded by digging deeply into what is "real" and what is "imagined". For example, a rational mind may believe a psychedelic experience is an "altered" state of consciousness with imaginary hallucinations. In one context this is true, in another context this is false. . . The mind wants to control what counts as "real" - that is: my normal waking life is real and psychedelic experiences are imaginary. Again, this can be helpful for a mind-body to maintain a sense of grounding and avoid going insane. . .. However, every state of consciousness is and "altered" state of consciousness. A psychedelic mindstate is as real and imaginary as a sober mindstate. Yet, a sober, rational mind will resist realizing this, because it can induce extreme groundless discomfort and is threatening to the survival of a sober, self construct. Question the minds assumption as what counts as "real" and what counts as "imagined". Start breaking that duality down. Start seeing aspects of real in imagined. See aspects of imagined in real. Observe "sorta real" and "sorta imagined".

You are immersed in a contracted form of "I". This contracted "I" is limited to a individual, separate body. You will not have direct experience of higher conscious levels if you are limited within contracted identification. As a simple exercise. . . go take a walk in the forest. Notice the subjective experience of identification. You identify as a human being walking through the forest. There is an internal "me" and an external "forest". One may think "I am walking in a forest". . . Now flip consciousness so "you" become the whole forest. This is not an intellectual thought like "I am the entire forest". . . This is a "higher" mode of being in which "you" is actually the forest. The consciousness is not contracted within a "me" human walking through the forest. "You" actually become the entire forest. If one has not had direct experience of this level of consciousness, identification is hyper contracted into an individual "me". At this level, if one asks "If I am god, then why can't I engineer sophisticated systems?". The level of "I" is too contracted. It would be like one of your skin cells asking "If I am a human being, why can't I have sex". The question becomes absurd because there is conflation of conscious "levels". Yet this is what the mind does over and over while it is immersed within a contracted self. If the direct experience of expanded consciousness has not been revealed, that is where the effort needs to go. One will not figure out expanded consciousness within constructs of contracted consciousness. . . The example of becoming the entire forest, may seem woo-woo or not real. . . The actual direct experience is extremely powerful. It can be very uncomfortable, because the contracted self is losing control of the mental narrative and identification. It can be really scary. Early on, this consciousness might reveal itself in a cafe and my mind-body became flooded with anxiety and fear. . . It is a major expansion of consciousness. . . Yet this is still just scratching the surface. There is much much more. . . The phrase "I am God" is one of the most commonly misinterpreted phrases, because the "I" is being processed through a contracted interpretive filter and the mind assumes it understands what "I" is. . . Imo, if a mind has not had direct experience of expanded identification such as "I am the forest", there is no way it will grok "I am God". It's super far away. It would be like an ant consciousness trying to figure out human consciousness. Molecules such as 5-meo-dmt can temporarily expand consciousness, yet the trick is that the contexualization into an "experience" is dependent on one's baseline conscious level. For example, a being that still identifies as a personal me human that temporarily expands with 5-meo may later contextualize it into a personal experience. This is back to the contracted "me". For example, the mind may contextualize as "Whoa, what just happened to me? I just had an amazing experience. I felt like I was everything in the room". . . This is a major realization, yet the expanded consciousness is getting contracted back into a personal "me". This is a very very small capture of what is potentially available.

@Spaceofawareness An "observer" awareness can be very profound. Rupert Spira calls it "enlightened duality". A good meditative exercise for this is "thoughts are logs". While meditating, imagine you are sitting on a river bank watching watching logs float down the river. Each thought is a log. With practice, there can be an emergent awareness that is unattached to thoughts. They are simply logs floating down the river. . . It's not just an intellectual construct. There is a direct experience essence revealed. It is a major goal of many meditations and can be very profound. With enough meditative practice, an awareness that "thoughts are logs" can arise throughout the day - while studying, on a date, while at work, playing a sport. With practice and new conditioning, the mind can "flip" into this state of consciousness and it is one of the most common states of consciousness I engage with. It can change how one perceives and relates to reality and there are many beautiful spiritual writings of this. In a state of consciousness, this "observer" is simply awareness. Yet the tendency is for the self construct to become attached/identified to the "observer". . . "I am the observer, aware of my thoughts". Over time, this can lead to a highly sneaky self-construct hiding in the shadows. The self co-opts the "observer" and is now flying under the radar in "the background". As someone said earlier in the thread, awareness of the observer entity is a very high conscious level. It's not just an intellectual concept of abstract imagery. There is a direct experience and realization - for me, the subjective experience was that I was losing my mind and going insane. . . I would go in and out of this "observer" awareness for over 20 years, until a "higher awareness" was revealed. . . About three years ago, I watched Rupert Spira explain this detached "observer" awareness and I appreciated how beautifully he explained it. Yet then he said "This is the halfway point". I thought "What, there is more?". . . I couldn't quite grok the "higher" level he spoke of. I sorta got it intellectually, yet didn't *get it*. What he said stuck with me and kept re-appearing in my mind. Every time a subjective sense of an "observer" arose, there was no an appearance of "there is more". . . One day I was hiking in nature and entered this detached "observer" state. . . Then there was an appearance of me alone in a movie theater watching a movie. There was detached awareness of this observer watching the movie. . . This sounds really simple, yet the direct experience of this was really profound. . . For the first time, there was awareness of the "observer" watching the movie (external reality). . . This is awareness aware of itself. . . Then there was an imagine of me peeking through a window observing the person watching the movie (the observer of the observer of the movie). Then an imagine of me standing on the street observing the person peeking through the window. . . Layer after layer appeared until my mind couldn't hold it anymore and it collapsed into Infinity. My mind lost control of imagery and the narrative - and then Nothing/Everything appeared. I would consider this one approach to breakthrough into nondual Nothing/Everything/Infinity. Yet it can be uncomfortable in direct experience. To me, it felt like death as I spiraled away grasping at grounding. . . Yet after "breakthrough" I started laughing. . .

Below are some thoughts about individual consciousness and collective consciousness at multiple levels. The first video was recorded in the 1940s. The first 3min. shows the behavior of slime mold. Slime mold shows aspects of individual consciousness and the emergence of collective consciousness. The start of the video shows the slime mold living as individual amoeba. Notice how each amoeba is a separate entity. Each dot is a separate organism with an individual consciousness - each single amoeba cell is a separate organism that senses their environment relative to other separate amoeba. It is a population of separate, individual amoeba. Under starvation conditions, something extraordinary happens. The individual amoeba signal to each other and aggregate. They then form a multicellular "slug". Most importantly, this is not a random collection of individual amoeba in a random pile. The amoeba aggregate and form an emergent new collective organism. The slug has organization and individual amoeba cells differentiate into specialized cells of the slug, which allows for new emergent properties such as behavior. The key here is that there is a new collective slug organism that is the collective consciousness of all the individual amoeba cells. . . This is easy for the mind to intuit. We can recognize that a new consciousness has appeared. Similarly, each person is a collective consciousness of individual cells. The next video is a step up in consciousness. The key is that it is the same phenomena as the slime mold. We are just moving up a level. This is a level of collective consciousness that many minds have a hard time seeing because they are conditioned to see reality in a certain way. As well, the higher-level collective consciousness is not in mainstream awareness. There is no term for this higher collective consciousness. Biologists have only begun to study this phenomena. It's a different way to sense and perceive. A different relationship with reality and it will change the way you relate to reality. Let's consider how we are conditioned to perceive the world and how it can be easy or difficult to shift conscious levels. imagine being conditioned in a world in which the amoeba above were only considered separate individual entities. When they aggregated together, you would only be able to see a collection of individual amoeba in a new shape moving in a new way. You may ask "I just see a bunch of individual amoeba moving together. Where is this new collective consciousness called a "slug"?". . . How would we respond to that? We might say, "You just need to relax and let go of seeing it as a bunch of amoeba. There is a sense of a collective being emerging. This being has a new collective essence to it. It's not just a collection of individual amoeba. Its a new organism you haven't perceived before". . . . You can easily see the emergence of the collective slug consciousness because you have been conditioned to perceive individual cells as a collective organism. Slugs, birds, dogs, humans etc. So the next video is the same thing, yet an even higher level collective consciousness will be revealed. I don't want to call it a "higher level organism" because it is no longer an "organism" - is a higher level collective consciousness we don't yet have a term for - yet we will. . . For example, in the above video, would you call the slug a "higher level amoeba cell?". Of course not. Something new has emerged so rather than calling it a "higher level cell", we call the entity emergence an "organism". . . . Also, a population of individual amoeba cells is not an "organism". They are just a bunch of individual amoeba. The key is that they aggregate together and a new collective entity emerges - the slug. The below video shows a "murmuration". A group of individual birds aggregating together to form a higher level collective consciousness. In the beginning, there is a population of individual separate birds. So, each individual bird is like each individual amoeba. Just like the amoeba, the birds aggregate. And just like the emergence of a collective entity "slug" there is a new collective entity (murmuration). This murmuration is not a collection of individual bird organisms. Form the collection of individual birds, a new collective consciousness arises. The temptation of the mind is to see the collective consciousness as a bunch of individual birds moving in cool ways. Yet it is not. Scientists cannot figure out the mechanics, because they are analyzing it as a collection of individuals birds rather than an emergent new collective consciousness. Individual birds are not communicating via pheremones, or siganls etc- that is too slow. Something else is happening at a collective conscious level we do not understand. See if you can relax the mind and let go of seeing it as a collection of individual birds. See if you can "sense" and "intuit" the higher collective murmuration consciousness. This awareness can change the way you see reality. This type of collective consciousness is present all over - we are just not accustomed to sensing it. A big pile of ants has a higher collective consciousness. When you are at a crowded concert with dancing, each person is an individual amoeba and there is a collective consciousness of a "slug" dancing. People love to experience this collective consciousness, yet it is subconscious. Someone might say "I loved the energy of the concert", yet they were never aware of the collective "slugness" of the concert. They were still identified as individual, separate persons.

@Einsteinonacid You've been exposed to a lot of negative crap which you are now carrying. A mentality of "I will prove all of those buliies wrong and I will be better than them. I'll make more money and have a better looking wife". . . this will perpetuate this negative toxic story that those jackasses conditioned into you. . . Ask yourself, do you want to carry this crappy negative energy your whole life? Or would you rather flush all that crap down the toilet and live a life free of it?

I was imprinted with a fundamental Catholic background. I later became a scientific atheist, which seemed to scrub out the Christian symbolism. I later transcended atheism and explored god within Nature, Buddhism, New Age and Nonduality. I no longer had particular resonance with Christian symbolism . . . I wonder if having a genuine atheist stage during one's consciousness evolution can clear out the karmic religious imprints.

@Hardkill This is a question of genuine and ingenuine. If someone attempts to attract another through being ingenuine, there is a price to pay.

@Ray Personally, I think perfection is one of the most straight-forward dualities to breakthrough into Absolute Perfection. Look around you right now. Everything is Absolutely Perfect. It is what is is. For this ISness to be imperfect, you must add in relativity. For example, the clock on the wall is broken. We could say, "the clock is imperfect because it is broken.". . . We have to add in a qualifier to make it imperfect. We are saying a broken clock is imperfect relative to a working clock which is perfect. Prior to that relativity, there is the Absolute Perfection of what IS. A broken clock is Absolutely Perfect. If we fix the clock, it's also Absolutely Perfect. Everything is Absolutely Perfect as it IS. There is no opposite to Absolute Perfection. There are various other Absolutes spoken of such as Absolute Love, Absolute Truth and Absolute Infinity. Yet in the beginning, I think combining them makes it much much harder to realize. For me, the early realizations were revealed one at a time. A realization of Absolute Everything, a realization of Absolute Infinity, Absolute Perfection. . . so on and so forth. I would focus on having direct experience with One. Ime, questions like: How can God be Absolutely Perfect Love and Absolutely Infinite Truth within the Eternal Now of Everything/Nothing? - makes it much much more unlikely for a direct experience realization to arise.

It seems like nonsense within a construct of a binary "masculine" and "feminine". For those that have expanded beyond that binary construct it is not nonsense at all. . . Imagine a two-sided coin. From this perspective, "nonbinary" is nonsense. There is only heads (masculine) or tails (feminine). Yet for those that can see six-sided dice, "nonbinary" is not nonsense - its common sense. There are many dimensions of relativity. You are describing one aspect of relativity. Masculine and Feminine are relative to each other. Yet there is another aspect of relativity: The existence of masculine/feminine is relative to the nonexistence of masculine/feminine. Claiming that the existence of masculine/feminine is empirically demonstrable is saying masculine/feminine objectively exists. This misses existence relative to nonexistence. This is not the absolute level, this is various planes of relativity. . . I agree with you that in certain contexts when trying to explain phenomena of masculine and feminine, it can be wise to leave out underlying relativity, such as existence vs. nonexistence. If I was trying to describe masculine relative to feminine to someone, I would not bring up masculine/feminine existence relative to nonexistence - this would create groundlessness that would destabilize the explanation and cause confusion. However, not addressing a plane of relativity for the sake of simplicity and clarity does not nullify that plane of relativity.

@StarStruck I endured physical as well. The incidents were not isolated like the one I described. One thing I learned is that cognitive understanding is only partial. I did a lot of writing and talk therapy - with counselors and support groups. I got to a place in which there were no resentments. I understood how my parents came from troubled childhoods and did the best they could. When I was with them, I didn't feel any anger or discomfort with them. Yet there was deeper conditioning which influenced my relationships and was reinforced by repressing emotions like feeling hurt or angry. I was a person that was always trying to create harmony and repressed my own emotions while doing so. I was often taken advantage of and treated poorly. For example, three gfs that I invested in cheated on my and abruptly dumped me like I didn't matter. Afterwards, I actually took responsibility for their feelings and tried to be available to help them through their issues. I tried to see that they were hurting on the inside and that is why they would hurt others. Yet my own emotions of hurt, disappointment and anger would be repressed. If a little bit of anger or criticism seeped out, I would feel really bad and quickly apologize. GFs often played the victim, which was very effective on me. A few years ago, this deep subconscious conditioning was revealed after an Ayahuasca ceremony. Someone there suggested I take a pillow, imagine it's my father and start screaming and punching the pillow. I couldn't do it. Nothing came out. The only things that have allowed body memory release is EMDR (crying), psychedelics (crying) and shamanic breathing (anger, frustration, crying). Yet, a bright side may be that empathic abilities have surfaced. Yet the empathic connection is usually "negative" emotional dynamics such as anxiety, panic, feeling trapped, insane and harm. In a way its good, yet in another way it can be intense and too much. It's like I can carry other people's emotions. If someone told me that they were upset and disappointed in me, it would have a huge impact on me. . . The other day, I was watching a video of a woman describing being in dark solitary confinement and I spiraled into that space. I've got to be careful where I venture. You mentioned "safe spaces". For these reasons, humans are not always safe for me. People can carry all sorts of negative karma that I can pick up on and internalize. This is one reason nature is a safe sanctuary for me. These human dynamics don't exist in nature.

This reminds me of something that happened when I was visiting my family over the holidays. We only see each other twice a year, so it's a big event. My parents, sister, brother-in-law and three young nieces were all there. During dinner, the topic of child rearing comes up and my mom goes into a story about when I was a child (back in the 1980s). She starts off describing how talking back to them at parents was never tolerated. That the children knew there place and were never allowed to "talk back" to them. My mom continues: one day when I was about 13 y.o. I was really upset. My mom said I was absolutely livid. I took the trash down the driveway to the curb and screamed "When will I be able to express myself!!". . . . And then my mom. . . started laughing. . . To her this story was funny. A child not allowed to "talk back" venting his repressed emotions and frustrations outside by the curb. . . This broke my heart. That child repressed his emotions through his whole childhood. He grew up unable to experience and express emotions. He always bottled them up. This caused problems in romantic relationships, with co-workers and friends. This involved a lot of therapy and support group work over 20 years. Even recently, shamanic breathing and EMDR therapy has released body memory of repressed emotions going back to my chilldhood. . . And as I sat there watching my mom laugh at a childhood moment symbolic of so much suffering in my life, I felt heart-broken. Yet I also understood that she can't see it. My parents where conditioned back in the 1950s in fundamental Catholic homes. This was "normal" to them. . . Yet the disappointing part for me is that 35 years later, she still sees it as normal. If she understood the impact it had on me, I hope she wouldn't be laughing. . .

In another forum, I shared about an experience with a gal that I recently started dating. My thoughts below involve some conceptualizing that didn't fit well with the theme of the thread, so I am posting them here. We often eye gaze with each other and there have been some transcendent appearances that, to me, seem like an essence of "knowing" from other lives or dimensions. At times, it feels like it was past lives - like we have met and have been separated - yet I can't quite "remember". Other times, it feels like other dimensions occurring Now. For example, during one eye gazing, we had lived years together and experienced ups and downs of joy and sadness. Yet, it wasn't in the past or future that these events took place or will take place. It's like both past, present and future. It's super hard to describe. So, another member introduced the idea of a "soul contract" in which two souls have a contract to repeatedly meet through human beings. Like a metaphysical contract manifesting in physical form. The idea is that a soul contract is made to teach each other lessons. There can be different soul contract themes, such as sadness or joy - and each have value. . . I immediately resonated with this concept. It seems pretty clear I am in a soul contract with a "sadness/disappointment" theme. I started asking questions like "how do soul contracts get resolved?". What is it like when a soul contract is resolved for the humans? Does the soul contract then evaporate? Can one transform a sadness contract into a joy contract? . . . The underlying orientation was both a fun curiosity, yet also an identification that this is real for me and I want to shape the dynamics. I became immersed within this content. There was identification with it. "I" am in a soul contract. . . how amazing!! I wanted to text the woman and share ideas about how we are in a soul contract and what this may mean for the relationship moving forward. . . . The forum member commented that I was engaging in thinking and trying to figure out how I can alter the contract to prepare myself for impending sadness. . . There was initial realization that "I" was trying to create a scenario to save myself impending sorrow. . . Then there was a *popping* out of this story and a transcendent view appeared. There was awareness of the attachment/identification of being a character involved in a story of soul contracts. There was awareness that the immersion was so deep that it was "real". Like a character in a movie not realizing it is a character in a movie. This movie just happens to be titled "Soul Contracts". I've never seen this movie before and it was very intriguing. . . So intriguing that I became the character and started perceiving reality through this lens. I'm in a soul contract and need to learn more about this. I now need to work through "soul contract" issues, such as a recurring them of sadness/disappointment. Once awareness of this attachment/identification to this character within the soul contract story was revealed, there was a "flip" over to the opposite side of the duality. At first, the attachment/identification was that the soul contract story was "real", then a flip to the soul contract story is "imagined". There was disassociation with the "realness" of the story and now attachment/identification to the opposite side of the duality. The soul contract story is just some imagination my mind is creating, it isn't real. . . Yet this didn't feel right either - and then the real vs. imagined duality started to dissolve and all sorts of inter-connections began to appear. It has aspects of "real" and aspects of "imagined". And then the duality fully collapsed such that it is both "real" and "imagined", and has many inter-connections between the two. This can be an uncomfortable place for the mind and body, because the mind wants grounding. It wants to know if this is real or imagined. Another insight is that this transcendent realization is not only uncomfortable to one's own self, it is also uncomfortable to the other person's self. . . Imagine sitting in a movie with a friend and you are both so engaged in the movie that it feels real. You totally lose awareness of it's a movie and you fully experience the movie as if it were real. Now imagine having a realization that this is just a movie and you begin to see the structure of the movie. This movie is a just a story that takes place on a movie set. Producers write the script and actors pretend to write the script. None of it's real its all imagined. . . Now imagine telling that to your friend that is engaged in the movie. How will that go over? Not very well. Your friend will probably tell you to be quiet. Your friend wants to stay engaged in the movie content due to conditioning, yet also the allure of actually being and experiencing the character. Revealing the structure and imaginary content can spoil their world. . . Now imagine coming to that movie theater everyday and looking for people immersed in the content of the movie and revealing the structure of the movie. How would that go over? Not very well. People will get upset, lash out and see you as a jackass. People are immersed and engaging in movies of love stories, soul contracts, being a doctor, unemployed, developing a life purpose, soul contracts - there are an infinite number of movies and the vast amount of people seem to want to stay immersed within the movie content. Being so immersed in the movie that it becomes real, gives a sense of grounding, meaning and purpose. Yet both identification to the character and transcendence of the character both carry a cost. It seems some humans play a character that involves so much suffering that they want to "awaken", yet they don't want to let go of the movie character. They want to upgrade the character to one that doesn't suffer and has peace and joy in their life. . . As well, there are a small percentage of people that are motivated to find truth. They want to know the truth of the story, regardless of the consequences. . . Yet the trick is that the character cannot transcend itself while identified and immersed within the character. From the perspective of the character, transcendence appears as death. Thus, it is no surprise that those who try to reveal the structure of the character and movie will often be seen as a form of threat. And in a way they are. In some contexts, going around exposing the structure of their character / movie can be an insensitive, jackass move.

You seem immersed within a bizarre story of a woman at a sensual massage parlor for men . . . I agree with you that this behavior has elements of gossip and stalking. It seems to be overstepping personal boundaries.

I'm glad this worked out for you. Being transparent and speaking one's truth can be important energetically, throat chakra kinda stuff. Yet I would be mindful of context, intention and impact. In the context of hiding psychedelic use from a gf, I would say it's important to be honest. Yet walking into a local police station to speak this truth would be a different context and I would say unadvisable.

You wouldn't be able to contextualize it without the direct experience. It would be like a donkey asking how a human experiences the world. The donkey would need to directly experience it. The question "What's it like?" is a very powerful question - if the underlying orientation is genuine, curious and open for exploration. If the mind is attached/identified to a particular paradigm, it will be oriented toward protecting that paradigm and going into debate mode. For example, when I first joined the actualized.org forum, I was much more oriented within science, reason and an objective physical world. One of my early discussions with Leo was questioning what he expressed about intelligence. He spoke of intelligence as some big inter-connected woo-woo "brain" in which my own brain resides. Well of course I wanted evidence for this and wanted to protect my own concept of cognitive-based intellectual intelligence. This orientation didn't allow me to expand. Yet I got curious and started to explore. This required that I set aside my own paradigm. It required a genuine, curious, open mindset. Not a mindset that keeps saying "yea, but" and gets into debate. Rather a mindset open to exploring new ideas and experiences. For example, I would ask "what is intelligence?" without intellectualizing it. I would ask "what is intelligence?" while meditating in nature, while in a sensory deprivation tank, before doing psychedelics. Then new forms of intelligence arose in my reality, which was beyond my contracted paradigm of intelligence. . . I was in awe of these manifestations. Then new avenues entered my life. The book "How to think like Leonardo Da Vinci" appeared and opened new avenues of genuis and intelligence. Then people with other forms of intelligence appeared in my life - collective conscious intelligence, empathic intelligence, energetic intelligence. Then I started experiences some of these forms. . . This allowed for a new resonance when I watched Leo's videos. If you are watching Leo's nonduality and are not resonating with them like "whoa, yes, so that's what it's like", you are likely low on postrational direct experience and high on rational intellect. If you genuinely want to know "what it's like", I would suggest working toward direct mystical experience to reveal what it's like. Yet this can take a lot of effort and practice over time. If you want to get a quick taste of nondual experience, I would suggest trying a psychedelic - at least three trips in no longer than three months.

Thank you for sharing this. I misinterpreted your original post and I think I now have a better understanding. Psychedelics can increase our emotional/empathic resonance. You mention that previous to psychedelics you almost didn't have any emotions. And now emotions are arising. To me, emotions/empathy is like a "sixth sense". It is a sensory way to interact with our environment - similar to senses like hearing and vision. For me, emotions can greatly enhance my relationship to reality. It's like the difference between watching a black-white movie and a movie in 3D color. I've always been able to feel emotions, yet I was thought-dominated for most of my life (at times I still am). Getting in touch and experiencing feelings/empathy can be an amazing exploration. I can relate to the desire to control emotions and wanting to a safe environment to practice. For me, going into empathic zones around people can get really uncomfortable. Like you suggested, at times I can't control it and it can feel overwhelming. It just appears and can get really intense. I've been in social settings where it got so intense I got overwhelmed and needed to leave. Sometimes I enter a place where I can feel another as if it was me and I can't tell the difference between the emotions/energy of them and me. It can get really uncomfortable. One safe place I've found to practice is in nature. . . Nature has no hidden agenda. Nature has no expectations and does not judge. Nature feels so safe to me. I will go in nature and sometimes the emotions/empathy arises and I will connect to the river, wind, trees and birds. This is a safe place for me to let go and to go deeper into uncertain emotion/empathic zones. I would be careful going from 120ug LSD to 200-300ug LSD. That is a big jump and it seems like 120ug is opening doors for you. If there is a calling to go higher, I would trust that. Just be careful of how high how fast. I would try to allow and experience whatever emotions arise. As you experience more of them, it will become more familiar and you will become better able at working with them.

@Martin123 I apologize for the distraction. My intention was not to debate concepts. For me, letting go of attachment/identification was a key component of my healing journey, including letting go of attachments/identification to feelings and thought stories associated to those feelings. (Directly experiencing/releasing feelings was important as well). I can see how what I wrote can be a conceptual distraction and I won't continue this discussion line. I have moved my thoughts to my personal journal, so that it is not a distraction to your thread. You have some deep insights that resonate with others. Thank you for sharing them with the forum.

Below is an essay written by a helicopter trained in poor-weather. He seems to have a lot of knowledge and experience. He integrated all the facts so far with his personal experience to create a plausible story of what may have happened. In particular, I find the end of the story very interesting. To me, there are aspects of self actualization. A brief summary: -- Shortly after takeoff, there was a thin haze and the pilot decided to fly under "Visual Flight Rules" (VFR). This means the pilot must fly under the dense fog/cloud layer. The alternative was to fly via "Instrumental Flight Rules" (IFR). This would have been the safer route, however the downside is that it takes a lot longer. The pilot must wait for controller instructions. The instructions may create much longer circuitous routes. And they have had to wait in line to proceed. Kobe Bryant's notoriety is a nonfactor for waiting times. The waits and circuitous route can add hours to a trip - it is unknown how much of a delay there would be. So, there was an early decision waying risk and reward. At the start of the trip, there was a thin layer of haze, so the risk may have seemed small and they decided to go VFR rather than deal with unknown delays with IFR. As well, if the conditions worsened (which they did), the pilot can fly very low along highways that cut through mountainous territory. -- As conditions worsened. The pilot flew very low along highways. The highways are in valleys between rising hills and mountains. So the pilot can fly low along a highway and they are safe, even if he can't see rising hills/mountains flanking the highway. -- There were two small airport spaces, they had to wait for clearance. I find it interesting that the air traffic controllers did not tell the helicopter pilot to land. I don't know air traffic control regulations and who has authority. Perhaps the air traffic controllers did not have authority to tell the pilot to land. Alternatively, the conditions around the airport were not not bad, and the helicopter later encountered a small niche of very bad conditions. -- They got within 15 miles of the destination, yet they needed to veer off the highway. The two main factors are: 1) they had to leave the underlying highway that they were using as a reference point. As long as they flew along the highway, they were safe and 2) they entered a pocket of low dense fog. The pilot likely knew that there were hills/mountains rising around him, that he could not longer see. He gained elevation, yet by doing so he lost his reference point. This is the most interesting part to me: without his visual reference point, they enter a "groundless" state. Not groundless in the sense of being in the air. Groundless in the sense of no reference point. . . They were now in a groundless Nothing. They couldn't orient/ground themselves in reality. The pilot knows hills/mountains are around yet is in groundless Nothingness. . . . A pilot may feel like they are veering left, or right. Or the pilot may feel like they are rapidly gaining altitude. This can lead to anxiety and panic, even in a trained pilot. . . The pilot veered to the left and made a rapid decent. The author speculates that the pilot panic and needed a reference point. Fearing a mountain ahead, or wanting to circle back to retreat, he may have veered left and down. . . He flew into a hill/mountainside. . . The author wrote that the pilot could have vertical descended, yet due to instrument malfunction or panic took a rapid left word decline. I don't have this type of helicopter direct experience, yet it sound eerily similar to the groundless state entered with psychedelics. And how the human responds: there can be an intense anxiety/panic with an intense desire to get out of the groundless state of nothing/not knowing - and to desperately grasp for a point of reference to give a sense of grounding in reality. http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/01/kobe-bryants-helicopter-likely-succumbed-to-common-danger.html

Edit: my post didn't fit well with the theme of this thread and has been deleted.

This reminds me of flow states of consciousness and peak performance. For example, athletes and writers often speak about transcendent flow states in which there is pure Nowness. Ideas like "me", "time" and "winning vs losing" drift off into the background and there is the pure beingness of Now. In terms of peak performance, I don't see why this couldn't apply to chess tournaments. A couple of commonalities in entering peak states include: 1) At least an upper-intermediate level of skill. For example, I could not enter a flow state of consciousness skateboarding. I don't know how to skateboard, and I would be pre-occupied with trying to maintain my balance and not falling. It would take me years of practice to reach a level of proficiency to enter a flow state. However, after years of downhill skiing I am at a lower-advanced level and can go into flow states of enhanced performance while skiing. To me, it sounds like you have reached this level of skill with chess. 2) An element of risk. Even though I'm at an advanced level of skiing - there is still an element of risk needed to enter flow states. If I ski the green bunny slopes, it's just too easy and boring. Yet, when I'm on a single black diamond there is enough risk that my attention needs to be elevated and a certain type of flow state can be attained. Yet, overshooting risk is a deterrent to flow state. For example, a triple black diamond slope is too much for me. I could get down it, yet I would now be too pre-occupied with maintaining balance. To me, a flow state on a single diamond is like the skiing is skiing itself. On a triple black, it's too serious and "I" need to re-enter and be extra careful about personal safety. Similarly, if I was in a ski competition with major stakes, it would be too much - I would be too pre-occupied with winning, what I *should* have done, regretting past mistakes, worrying about making future mistakes, my chances of losing - etc. All of this takes us out to flow states of Now. . . Imagine a basketball player "in the flow". For example, the is a video showing Klay Thompson of the NBA, scoring 37 points in under 10 minutes - an NBA record. He is in a pure flow state of consciousness. He made every single shot he took. His teammates kept passing him the ball. The other team double- or triple-teamed him. Regardless, Klay shot every time and never missed. He was so in the zone that he couldn't miss. The opposing team kept calling timeouts to break his flow state, yet they couldn't. . . I love watching the energetics of someone in a flow state and their relationship to others. When he entered the flow state, there were still elements of risk, winning, losing etc. The game was very close. Yet as he entered the flow state, all that stuff became the background. The forefront was pure presence. Notice how he is intense and "locked in", yet he is also loosey goosey. He is both intense within Now and relaxed. Klay is not worrying about winning/losing or missing shots. As well, his teammates enter a supportive role in the flow state. . . One new area of peak performance of athletics are flow states. It also applies to things like creative writing. Steven Kotler has done some nice work in this area. 3) Physical state. Some flow state psychologists study how we can enter flow states. Everyone would love to enter a flow state, yet how do we do it? It seems like prior activities can help enter flow. People often try to get "in the zone". For example, before a competition an athlete may listen to music and do a performance ritual. Steven Kotler does creative writing. He describes trying to change his environment to enter creative writing flow states. He rented a cabin in the woods for a week. He found drinking a moderate amount of caffeine, moderate hiking in nature and smoking a low amount of cannabis - increased his chances of entering creative writing zones. He also had the elements of above. He is a skilled writer, so he didn't have to worry about proper English grammar. As well, there was an element of stakes. He had struggled entering creative zones for a book he was writing and a deadline was approaching. Yet the stakes were not super high. It wasn't like he would lose his job, wife and house if he didn't create a masterpiece. . . Steven describes entering extended creative flow zones in which "the writing wrote itself". He entered such a high level that he was at a higher level than any editor - for a week straight. . . When he submitted the writing to reviewers and editors - there was not a single correction. He was perfect. This is the equivalent of Klay Thompson's performance. Each of them hit every single shot and never missed. Below is a two minute video of Klay Thompson's flow state. It was 10min. of game time, about 20min. of real time. He took every shot in that time span and made every single shot. Three-pointers, one-handed alley-oop dunks, driving layups, two-point jumpers and free throws. I love how the energetics change as he enters flow - both "internally" and "externally". In the beginning, the score is tied and Klay is just another basketball player that has made a few shots in a row. Yet then the energetics change. At the halfway 5 minute point there is a shift. The announcers realize he is "feeling it" and so does the crowd. Everytime Klay gets the ball, the crowd now rises to their feet in anticipation. With each shot Klay makes, the crowd gets louder and louder. With two mintues left, the crowd is continually on their feet fully dialed into the moment. Even though the score is a blowout, the crowd roars louder and louder with each basket. His teammates subconsciously know to get him the ball. There is flow at the individual level with Klay and there is flow at the collective level - flow between Klay, his teammates and the crowd. It's beautiful.

@StarStruck To me, this sounds like a from of narrative control, attachment and identification in the mind. See what happens if you let go of things like "I am a male", "I am masculine", "I don't want my masculinity to be overpowered by femininity", "Being overpowered by another means xyz". At a transcendent level, you are both masculine and feminine and can experience both - and all sorts of combinations. The mind partitions itself off of this transcendence and creates stories/meaning/identity/attachment to things like "I am masculine", "It's good for a man to be masucline", "I don't wan't to be overpowered by other masculine or feminine energy". This is a contraction. The psychedelics are taking you to a transcendent state, which can feel awkward and counter to our conditioning. Yet the transcendence is also beautiful. You can freely experience both masculine and feminine - and all combinations as this transcendent Self. One could try and imagine the experience of a woman and actually start experiencing it. For example, a guy could play sub while he is getting pegged by a woman during sex. One can enter a mindset in which the distinctions between "me" being male or female dissolve and there is simply the energetics. The "man" could enjoy the experience as a "woman" and the "woman" could enjoy the experience as a "man". . .