Forestluv

Synchronicity. It’s all inter-related.

@Nadosa Breathe. It can help ground.

This week two high conscious people and some good pizza entered your life. Sounds like a good week.

This sounds like detachment/disidentifaction with the psychological self. It can be very uncomfortable and anxiety inducing to the mind-body. It is entering a deeper level that is unstable at first. I’ve been through this anxiety/panic and at times it was overwhelming. Breath, let go and observe. Get curious about the experience. There is nothing in the deeper transpersonal realm that wants to harm you or others. You are not going insane. You are just seeing glimpses of the truth: the whole story of you is just a story. There is deep liberation in that. It allows one to experience life in a deeply profound way.

Leo did an interview series with Ralston. It is very good and available on YT.

Sounds like you two had some pretty good pizza. When is the next date?

Yea. I would just add that there is a transpersonal person form of "desire" that can arise. Ime, it is very distinct from personal desires. It's a pure genuine "desire" of the magnificence of life. It's beautiful. I suppose we could give it a new word, yet I don't know what else to call it. Perhaps a "connected wanting". There is a sincerity, appreciation, innocence, curiosity, awe and love about it.

@Patok There is no way to step outside of nothing and try to define it. As soon as one idea appears, or one word appears, it is not longer nothing. It is a something. It can be fun to conceptualize nothing and create all sorts of thought experiments. Yet just be aware it's not nothing. It's a something.

@Wyverz I've had similar experiences on psychedelics - especially when I was new to them. I know that anxiety very well through direct experience. I would be cautious about over-analyzing it. When I went through something similar, it took me a while to recover from it and my thinking mind went into over-drive. I was really shaken up. . . If it keeps coming up, I would just sit with it. Sit on a cushion and allow it to arise and express itself. Connect with other people that have had similar experience. It may be difficult, yet it may also be profound and beautiful. Also, it sounds like you were in the sub ego-death zone. Once ego death is crossed, the anxiety dissolves. There is no longer any person to be fearful for. The sub-ego death zone can be extremely uncomfortable. I've entered insanity zones here that I would not wish on anyone. Yet there are lessons in there. For example, I now connect with people that have anxiety and panic disorders very differently than I used to. I now have direct experience and can bond with them in a matter of seconds. If you decide to trip again in the future, I would take a much smaller dose. It sounds like nature is telling you to stay away from the ego death zone for now. Mini doses have a very different dynamic, without the anxiety, and can be very insightful.

Your question brings to mind the distinction between self-need based desires and trans-personal desires. Self-need based desires would be desires seeking personal pleasure and avoiding personal discomfort. For example, wanting to be right, wanting to control a situation, wanting attention wanting sex for personal pleasure, wanting to win an argument etc. There is also a form of desire that is trans-personal. For example a desire to explore and experience the magnificence of life. Imagine a child climbing trees, exploring streams and catching dragonflies. There is a pure desire to experience and participate in life. They aren't doing it to satisfy a personal agenda or to look good or for attention. Similarly, we adults can have a form of this trans-personal desire. A great way to tap into this is to go into nature and explore. For no other reason than to experience and become one with the magnificence of nature. It is sooo beautiful. It blows lower level self-need desires away. There are also conscious states with an absence of desire. This may provide relief from the unpleasantries of self-need based desires - yet I would be open doors to trans-personal desires. They are absolutely beautiful.

Beautiful sadness. Welcome back

I think the consistency as a daily practice is a more important factor.

Imagine you are in a dreaming and a character appears and starts talking about spirituality. Is that shit? It's all within a dream. It's not really shit or not shit. That is a question that might be important to the characters within the dream, yet the next level up, it's all within one dream. Awakening is not on the personal level. There is no "me" to wake up. Paul doesn't wake up, no more than a chicken or lemon in the dream wakes up. It's all a ONE dream. At the level of the dream, there is no more relevance of dream character than a pencil. It's all within a dream. From Paul's perpective, it's a VERY important question and issue. Here which do you think is better: option A break the news to Paul that he is a dream character and Paul dies. Problem solved. There is noone to benefit from it. . . . Option B: Paul does personal development and tries to develop a healthy dream character. Humans have a really hard time with awakening because they wan't to benefit at the personal level. Yet awakening is a form of death for the personal level. If you want to benefit personally, then I would pursue personal development. Enlightenment doesn't "happen". It just is. It is everything, nothing and infinity. You are searching for the dream within the dream. Imagine the dream character walking around asking "Is this the dream?", "Is that the dream?", "Am I the dream?" are "You the dream?". It's all the dream. You can't point to it or find it. The question if I will benefit with awakening is at the personal level. Awakening is the trans-personal level. From the trans -personal level, it’s the like asking “If enlightenment reveals itsef, will a mouse in India benefit?”. It doesn’t make sense. I don’t experience this seeking dynamic anymore, yet I did for many years and I remember it’s a really important thing for the personality and it’s really hard to give up.

There are sooo many things along the spiritual path that can fit into the dream analogy story. Other spiritual teachers, like Rupert Spira, use it. Yet, it could get further developed into a short book I think. Something like the book "Illusions".

You are still seeing this as if Paul the dream character gets something out of this. Paul does not become enlightened. Paul continues on in the dream. Paul's relationship to the dream may change. Maybe not. This is beyond the character. In this analogy, there are no enlightened teachers. Is Paul's meditation teacher in the dream enlightened? Of course not. It's all ONE dream within the Real You. It's ALL one dream. All the characters, the cars, the houses, the laughter, the sorry, paper clips, windows, toilets - everything in the dream is within one dream. There is realization it's all one dream. One big everything. That's it. Pretty darn obvious if you ask me. You can do it right now if you want and call it a day. Yet most people won't because of their conditioning. Those in spiritual circles are convinced it is the character that becomes enlightened. A person trying to become enlightened, seeing others as enlightened and seeing their character as enlightened are distractions. Let all that go. I think it is much better to simply say "there is enlightenment". Associating it with a personality is a big distraction. On the personal level, I think it's better to simply say a person is highly mature (or developed or at a high level).

Perfect!! A great setting for a glimpse into awakening.

You may want to check out Leo's first post in the Yellow and Turquoise mega-thread. He lists lots of teachers.

For those that liked the dream analogy. . . Imagine our character Paul really wants to find truth. He opens himself up and surrenders as much as he can. He goes on a spiritual retreat. This could be a vippassana retreat, a solo retreat or an Ayahuasca retreat. During the retreat he has some glimpses of awakening. (The Real You is actually waking up a bit). Imagine what this would be like for Paul if You start waking up a bit. Paul and the world around him starts to dissolve and become odd. This could be liberating or terrifying to Paul. The Real You may even open your eyes a bit and notice your bed and the room around you. The Real You falls back asleep and Paul becomes Paul again. This glimpse beyond the dream is incredibly powerful. Paul doesn't know what to make of it. He feels really unstable. His whole perception of life is forever changed. Yet, he still tries to recontexualize this awakening into his dream world. So. . . how might Paul describe this to his friends in the dream. He would sound A LOT like what we hear in spirituality. As he looks around his dream world would say things like "I don't exist", "form is formless" (notice how form is formless within his dream). He would say "the person doesn't awaken, it's beyond the person". When people ask him "are you awakened?" it would be weird. He knows he is a dream character within a higher intelligence (The Real You). He would say "we are all One" (every thing within the dream is One dream occurring in the Real You). One of Paul's friends, Stacey, asks if awakening will help her lose weight. Another friend, Jack, asks if awakening will help will get rid of his anxiety and depression. Paul tries to tell them that there is something higher going on here and awakening isn't going to help anyone in the dream get anything. It is beyond the character.

I’d be aware of opposites here. Opposites are fine, yet the human mind is trained to think in oppsites. Once true and/or false, we are now in the relative domain. The absolute is one everything and includes every thing - including any idea of true or false. The problem occurs when absolure and relative are comflated. Consider the staement “the fish are not the ocean”. Is that true? Not really. Is the opposite statement true? “The fish are the ocean”. Well that isn’t true either. The ocean includes everything: fush, water, salts, algae etc. The above statements are neither fully true or fully false. They are both partial true and partial false at the same time. Grasping to any thing causes suffering. Imagine two people arguing over whether the fish or the algae are ocean. It would be silly. Yet most people in spirituality do this a lot.

Be careful with opposites. Absence of truth does not mean false.

The dream analogy is one of my favorites for awakening. Imagine you are dreaming that you are a character we will name Paul. The character Paul lives in New York City. He studies philosophy at NYU and is practices meditation and yoga. He also likes cycling and playing basketball. Now, how can Paul wake up that he is a dream character? He doesn’t because Paul is within the dream. It’s one dream. He can’t step outside of the dream. He is within the dream. Paul can spend his whole life seeking awakening through mediatation, yoga, self inquiry, contemplation etc. As long as he the Paul character, he will not wake up. Paul doesn’t wake up. The Real You wakes up from the dream. You wake up and there is awareness it was all a dream. What happens to our character Paul? In a sense, he dies. He isn’t real. Yet, in another sense he still exists - just not like how Paul thought he existed. I see people try to do this all the time. There is an idea that they will personally awaken. Yet it’s not the person that awakens because awakening is high order. Each of our personal characters we think we are is within the dream. Everything is within awakening, including my character, your character, trees, birds, onions and everything else.

Oooh, I love that.

Notice how the above question assumes a destination (liberation). There is nothing wrong with that, just be aware it’s a destination. The problem arises when a mind assumes enlightenment is a destination. Enlightenment is nowhere. So the question “what is the best orientation to nowhere?” doesn’t make sense. As soon as there is an orientation, there is a somewhere, a destination. Nowhere is no orientations and all orientations. There is nowhere/everywhere and somewhere. Ime, becoming aware of this is one of the biggest awakenings. The energy to chase a somewhere in nowhere/everywhere dissolved. At this point it’s easy for the mind to take the opposite view and think “Ahhh, orientations are bad. I must attain no orientation”. Yet that now becomes an orientation. It is a somewhere. It’s both. Somewheres arise everyday in my life. That is within the timeline. Yet there is also a nowhere within the Now.

@AlexJ This seems like either / or thinking. I would shift the orientation to degrees. Consider taking a trip to a foreign country. At one extreme, everything is planned. Every minute of the day. There is zero room for any spontaneity or flexibility in plans. At the other extreme is no plans. You don’t know what country you will visit, what airport you will land in or where you will stay. You just appear with zero planning. You could end up in the article wearing a bathing suit. No planning at all. I think most people would avoid either extreme. We want to learn where in the continuum we fall. Some people like more structure, others less so. I am definitely toward the less structure side. I like a basic foundation of structure (e.g. to plan the plane tickets, the first few nights of lodging and transportation fro the airport to lodging). Yet I like a lot of flexibility and spontaneity when we are there. I would estimate I like 25% structure in life in 75% unstructured.