Forestluv

5meo offers new and novel experience and perspective.

Ahhh nice. Does the dream character Paul wake up? Or does the higher consciousness thatvis dreaming of Paul wake up? As long as Paul is immersed in his character and playing Paul, there will not be awakening because there is the underlying assumption that he and his world is real. Imagine Paul goes seeking for enlightenment. He spends his days in libraries reading, in meditation centers and yoga studios. He listens to nonduality speakers on youtube. Yet, he just can’t seem to wake himself up. . . That’s because he is immersed within the dream and trying to wake up himself, Paul. Yet Paul is a dream character within the dream. A dream character doesn’t wake up. The higher consciousness wakes up and realizes it’s a dream (in this analogy the person who is dreaming of Paul). Similarly, one’s “real life” character cannot wake up to the dream as long as that character is immersed and identified as being that character. It’s a similiar dynamic, just a conscious level higher.

The direct experience and insights of 5-meo is not what a sober mind imagines it might be like. A mind-body needs the direct experience to understand.

@alankrillin There is a contracted mental narrative your self is attached to and identified with.

Post-egoic powers are post-egoic.. . It’s like saying I want to experience skydiving while still holding on to the airplane. An ego needs to surrender for post-egoic phenomena to be revealed.

Chill out on the personal remarks. Leo is teaching at a PhD level for free. We are incredibly fortunate. Be grateful and don’t bite the hand that feeds us. . .

@Leo Gura Adderall is popular with college students as a potent performance booster. I’m aware of it’s neurological effects. I’m just curious if Modinfinil is in the same league. Adderall is amphetamines and has a much lower neurotoxicity profile than methamphetamine.

@Leo Gura How would you compare Modinfinil vs. Adderall as cognititive performance boosters?

To me, it seems like you two are growing apart as a new stage of life emerges. To stay together, I think the two of you would need to come together - have heart-to-heart talks and create a new level of commitment. For all you know, she was just experimenting with a new college atmosphere - new friends, parties etc. The excitement of newness may have worn off and a deeper stronger connection of your relationship is emerging. Or, she could be drifting off a new path that is unsettling and she has some residual feelings for the relationship that gives her a sense of comfort. If you decide to stay together, it will probably involve some work that you two haven't had to do before. I had a similar situation. In high school, we were super close and in love. Then after a couple years of college she changed. I didn't really know her anymore. She started wearing leather jackets, lots of make-up and big hair with lots of fritzy stuff. I was like "who is this?".

Very nice. . . One step further. . . notice how thoughts of yesterday and tomorrow are impulses that are occurring right now. Similar to how bird chirps are impulses occurring right now.

He is blue - orange. Once one reaches high Orange, they will lose interest with debating him. At Green, he becomes the bad guy that is causing division, marginalization and inequality in America. At Yellow, he is seen within an integrative, systemic meta view.

Great quote. This was one of my realizations while I was strolling through nature. "Who is the knower of me?" Then there was awareness of the knower. "Well then, who knows the knower of me?" Then there is awareness of the knower of the knower of me. On and on it went into an insanity zone and then suddenly it all blew up and there was silence and peace. . .

The two are inter-related. My impression is that you have had direct experience with both trans-egoic and trans-rational conscious states. From an egoic state of consciousness, the underlying energy of "will" is driven primarily to satisfy needs and self survival. There is an energetic shift of "will" at a trans-egoic state. Have you experienced a state of consciousness in which the personality is within a more expansive consciousness? Or the personal consciousness dissolves and there is a higher consciousness? Perhaps a sense of collective consciousness or "oneness" - in which the center of consciousness is no longer perceived as a contracted personal consciousness restricted within the brain? At first, this freaked me out and caused anxiety and panic. I had no idea what "it" might do to "me". Yet, with time and experience it becomes normalized. Once one reaches tier 2 various levels of relativity is revealed. For example, imagine you are at a concert dancing in a crowed area and "lose yourself". The crowd becomes this giant amoeba and the center of consciousness is this collective consciousness - the amoeba. Is that absolute or relative? Well, the individual human consciousness has dissolved, so it isn't relative in that sense. Yet at a higher level, isn't the amoeba relative? It's just one little old collective consciousness - there are countless other collective consciousnesses occuring. So, it is just one relative collective conscious. So, the fun part. . . does that collective amoeba have a free will? As you asked. . . is this free will illusory? I don't know. That is what I am currently exploring - similar to how I explored the nature of an egoic free will years ago. At the absolute level, perhaps there is one infinite intelligence and one will. Yet, that is beyond my understanding. In the strictest sense, the absolute is everything, so it cannot be referred to as any thing. Yet, in a sense that is a cop-out answer. A more honest answer is I don't know. Absolute and relative is a bimodal categorization. It's super helpful, yet we can add distinctions if we want to go that route. For example, I like to think of nonduality as a series of layers. The amoeba example I gave above is a form of nonduality - individual egos dissolve and a collective ego is revealed. Yet, it is not the ultimate oneness, nothingness, emptiness of nonduality. When I saw things as either dual or nondual, I was missing out on a lot of stuff that is an integration between the two.

I am not labeling you as misleading. That would suggest intention. I said the statement is misleading from the psychedelic perspective.

Yes, I understand and my answer remains the same.

I participated in that thread and my answer was definitely not "no" and I don't recall anyone in that thread with psychedelic awakenings as answering a direct "no". Based on my awakenings with and without psychedelics, I find the statement to be misleading from the psychedelic perspective. It may make sense from a strict non-psychedelic perspective, yet it is untenable when both psychedelic and non-psychedelic perspectives are considered. This is just my perspective based on integration of extensive spiritual direct experience with and without psychedelics. Yet, I am not a spokesperson of truth. There may be others with extensive spiritual experience both with and without psychedelics that have differing direct experience and views.

Negative visceral reactions to homsexuality is socially conditioned into the mind-body. It's at a red-blue level on the SD scale. The thinking associated with it is pre-rational. This irrationality is easily exposed through entry-level Orange rational thinking, yet underlying emotional residue may remain until stage Green. It is a highly contracted state of consciousness causing fragmentation of the psychological self. My mind-body was conditioned in a religious environment to perceive homosexuality as immoral. Once I went to an Orange-centered college, my mind easily worked through the irrationality of it and to respect the personal choices of others (features of Orange). Yet, it wasn't until stage Green that I worked through deeper dynamics of my own person sexuality. As Leo says: "Your level of happiness depends on your capacity to love". . . Want to expand your happiness? Then, expand your capacity to love. . .

It depends on the person and intention. I can enter unique meditative spaces in SD tanks. They have taken me to out of body experiences, revealed how various components of my brain and mind interact with each other, and to the place before I was born. Yet, I've had experience with meditation and mind altering substances. I've known people that have had very insightful experiences, others that worried the whole time about what "should" happen, others that got bored, others that fall asleep, others that found it extremely relaxing. That is a fair (but not great) price. If you live in the U.S., there are often groupon half-price deals. If you pursue this, I've written guides for first-timers on the forum if you are interested.

@Aakash "spiral dynamics or enlightenment, which to choose to move forward?" Based on choice and moving forward within the timeline, that would be SD. Yet, my hunch is deep down you want to come back home to the wholeness of what is Now.

This is a nice explanation of relative, personal consciousness based on a materialist framework. There are other levels of consciousness as well.

@Merch Gravity seems to exist in Mario World as well.

Imo, it is easier to explore and get direct experience with nondual oneness and developing clear contrast of nondual oneness vs. dual separation. My sense is that you are conflating the two, which causes confusion. Once enough nondual direct experience is present, nonduality can be integrated with duality. Yet, I think it's really hard to do it prior to embodying nondual and dual states of consciousness. Notice how you are conflating the absolute and relative. You say "we are all one (absolute level), but we still have as human beings different experiences (relative level)". I think a better question is "We are all One. . . what is the One Dream that is present?". The answer is to be found within a higher, collective consciousness. Another way to think about it. . . Imagine you are dreaming. Let's call your dream character Paul. . . Paul travels to New York to visit friends. To have the experience of Paul, you must create distinctions. There is the taxi, the taxi driver, your friends, the Starbucks you hang out in, and so on. Yet all of those characters and things are within one higher consciousness (the real you that is dreaming). Yet, Paul has no idea he is dreaming. It all appears so real. Similarly, all the characters and things you see in your waking life are all within a higher consciousness. You just haven't awoken to this higher consciousness, so it all seems very real to you. Just like Paul's reality seems very real to him.

Eventually the mind will surrender it's efforts to explain it and own it.

I would say a good time to explore no free will is once a mind has reached the "observer + object" stage. Before this, the mind is immersed within egoic and will resist, intellectualize and debate. This can be counter-productive as it can reinforce an ego's delusion of free will. This is one of the most threatening realizations to the ego along the development path. Once at the "observer + object" stage, the realization process is simple - yet can be uncomfortable and it can take some time to loosen attachments and identifications. The no free will realization is extremely threatening to an ego and is the doorway to entering deeper levels. . . One simply needs to observe their thoughts from a detached observer center of consciousness. Then observe "from where did the thought arise"? . . . It won't take long to see that thoughts arise from some mysterious ether. Simply put "I am not the author of my thoughts". Once the ego surrenders to it not being the author of it's thoughts, it will retreat and regroup it's army and hunker down in the "I am the chooser" defensive posture. That is: "Well, I might not be writing my thoughts, but I am choosing between thoughts. For example, during meditation thoughts may arise whether or not I should check the timer to see how much time is left. Some thoughts say "check the timer" other thoughts say "don't check the timer". I get to choose whether I check the timer or not". . . Ime, the "no chooser" realization was quite challenging. I spent a lot of time meditating, observing and searching for a "chooser". It took a while before my mind became exhausted and surrendered to actuality that there is no chooser. It's common to have partial realizations with the ego later trying to regain control. This would pop up over and over along my path. A sneaky ego reclaiming authorship of thoughts and being a chooser. Ime, I couldn't develop into deeper realms without the above two realizations. On the SD scale, this would be evolving from tier 1 to tier 2. Regarding Yellow, most people focus on the intellectual developmental line of Yellow and neglect the spiritual developmental line to Yellow. Awareness of the delusional nature of egoic free will and an egoic chooser is super important for spiritual Yellow, imo. And it is a necessity for Turquoise. However. . . once Turquoise is reached, a new form of Free Will is revealed. Yet, it is a trans-egoic manifestation of Free Will and, ime, a mind cannot explore this realm through direct experience without the embodiment of the above two egoic realizations. A psychological dynamic of egoic free will exists. It is the interpretation of it that is delusional. Similar to a mirage in a desert. The mirage exists, yet not how the mind thinks it exists.

Again, which rule book are you using to determine what officially counts as "proof" and what is officially "pudding"? How are you determining what is proof and pudding? And what is "something"? These are all cloudy, ambiguous terms. Human minds are conditioned to make assumptions about terms. Self inquiry about what those terms mean is really important. Underlying assumptions give the ego a sense of stability and comfort. The ego will resist non-intellectual self inquiry and contemplation, because it must surrender partial control of the narrative. Yet without it, the ego is just chasing a tail over and over again. If you self inquire and contemplate "what is proof?" and "what is pudding?", you may be surprised by what you uncover. Psychedelics would completely dissolve this psychological dynamic playing out in the mind. The ego would have to completely surrender all control. Thus, the mind would be exposed to a post-egoic state of consciousness. It is waking up from an egoic reality and exposure to an entirely different reality. Another assumption you are making is that the egoic state of mind is the "real" reality and the psychedelic state of mind is an "unreal" altered reality. The mind does this because it is conditioned to assume it's conditioned, habitual, familiar reality is the "real" one. With enough experience, the mind gets exposed to various states of consciousness and there is the realization that they are all equally real in a sense. This is another huge power of psychedelics, yet it can be very destabalizing and it's mind-body dependent. Some mind-body's will not respond well to this process and will resist and reject. Imo, for psychedelics to be an effective tool, a mind needs a certain baseline conscious level. For example, advanced Green on the SD scale.