Forestluv

@billiesimon What is holding you back from playing this role? From exploring your sexuality? What is the underlying block? Personally, I grew up in a Catholic home with a lot of guilt about sex. And a lot of rules about who to have sex with, when to have sex and what type of sex to have. It took me a long time to deconstruct that conditioning. I had to deconstruct both intellectually and emotional conditioning. Intellectual came before emotional. For example, I intellectually understood that a consensual one-night stand was not immoral to me. Yet, it still *felt* wrong to me. It took a while for me to get through the emotional conditioning. When I did, I was free to explore my sexuality. And it's a wonderful thing to explore!

@abundance For sure - it's a bona-fide awakening. You awakened that "the story" each human creates is a fabrication. After I had this awakening, I used the same analogy as you - it was like realizing we are playing actors on a stage. And that we are much more than playing the script we are given. Your *knowing* of this now runs deeper than intellectual knowledge - you also have direct experience knowledge. After various forms of awakenings, it is super common to backslide into the previous perspective. For example, the ego may get caught up playing the actor again. The ego may try to dismiss the experience as being irrational. Yet, once you really see an insight, you cannot unsee it. It might get buried and dormant for a while - yet it is always there. The next time you have a similar direct experience - you will remember and know. If you want to strengthen the insight, contemplate it for a while. Don't over-analyze it. Sit with it and see what arises. See if you can revisit that space. Be mindful of your resistance to revisiting that space.

Each stage transition involves a "crisis". For me, my Orange crisis came after 20 years of seeking personal achievement and attachment/identification to rational/logical thinking. It just wasn't working for me anymore. The personal achievements no longer gave me a high. They didn't give me meaning and purpose like they once did. And being contracted in rational/logical thinking became miserable. I was analyzing everything. I was constantly trying to be right and win debates. For example, exposing the irrationality of religious zealots. For a while, it gave me a sense of knowing - a sense of being superior. And then it stopped working. I realized I created my own little world of being right. If I am right, what does that make you? I created a world of people being wrong all around me. I would debate and expose their irrationality and the rest of the day I was still debating within my own head. So alone. It felt awful. I longed for human connection and something beyond my limited self. . . Green was the medicine I needed.

Some nice radical empathy right there.

@CreamCat For sure. What is considered "minority" is relative to the context of time and location. Another way to say it is "under-represented". For me, the concept of diversity is an integrated of lots of perspectives, personal life histories, ethnicity, gender, age etc. I also think meritocracy has value. From my POV, it's best to integrate meritocracy and diversity. Problems arise with pure meritocracy or pure diversity. For example, in a pure meritocracy that just awards ability - who decides what "ability" is? Who decides what value and purpose is? How about deciding between experience and potential? There will be *diverse* views. A pure meritocracy gravitates toward privilege and elitism. Blue and orange-level mindsets will resist green-level diversity perspectives. Blue will focus on "either / or" thinking. For example, that people are either hardworking or lazy. They will resist diversity initiatives because they see it as rewarding laziness. An orange-level mindset will resist diversity initiatives because they see it as intruding on personal freedoms. They see diversity initiatives as being micro-management - which is a threat to their personal freedom. A green-level perspective sees diversity initiatives as promoting equality and inclusion. They may have good intentions, yet fail to see undesired impacts of their diversity initiatives. A yellow-level perspective understands blue, orange and green level modes of thinking. A yellow perspective can see value and limitations at each level. Yellow sees the complexity of the issue and looks to integrate and connect dots between multiple perspectives within the 1st tier consciousness modes.

@kieranperezThere are different perspectives on this. From my POV, microdosing or mindosing (1/5th to 1/20th of a standard dose) is great for creativity, integration of ideas, connecting the dots. The dose is small enough that the insights will be relatively easy to integrate into normal life. It's easy for me to see how micro/mini dosing could help personal development for most people (it can be a hindrance for some). Higher doses will be a very different experience. Hard trips will deconstruct the self, leading to various nondual experiences. For sure. Two common performance enhancing drugs there are Adderall and psychedelic microdosing.

This site and psychedelics transformed a scientist into a budding mystic. No small feat.

@CreamCat My point was not to analyze the value of a diversity committe. Rather, I just described with a simple example how it might be viewed from Orange and Green perspectives. Regarding my place of work: there had been 160 years of white privilege. Women and minorities were very rare and had virtually no power. Finally, a critical mass of white males realized things would not change unless action was taken to change institutional biases . There were reasons why the institution was doninated by white males for 160 years and why women and minorities were few and far between. These are deeply ingrained institutional biases that don’t get fixed with a few memos and rallies. All the upper-level positions and the entire board were white privileged males. Nothing changed decade after decade. We were finally allowed to form a diversity committe with teeth. Many initiatives from the committe have been adopted which have led to a complete overhual of the college. We know have women and minorities in upper level positions. We are one of the most multicultural institutions in our state. I’ve traveled to over 20 foreign countries and my workplace us now as diverse as any place I’ve traveled. We have workshops to increase awareness and promote cultural competence. We are now a multi-cultural community. These initiatives did not lead to divisions. Rather, it was our differences that brought us together. There is an integration of diversity including socio-economic, ethnicity, nationality, gender, age, and life perspectives. When all this integrates, it’s beautiful. My workplace environment now is sooo much better than when it was all crusty white privileged men. And it took a lot of work and action to make these changes - much if which came from our diversity committee.

To me, what you describe seems more like a concept of nonduality. The direct experience of nonduality is much different than the intellectual concept. Regarding my direct nondual experience: When I go full-on nondual, there is no "me". There is no distinction between me and anything in my environment. I pretty much just sit or lie down and stare. Perhaps I can walk a bit. Yet, I couldn't do even the most basic tasks like cooking dinner. I wouldn't know the difference between me, a knife and broccoli. I can't speak, since language is dualistic. Words no longer make sense. I wouldn't be able to recognize my girlfriend or my mother. All distinctions dissolve. . . I need to have a dualistic perspective to function in life. To cook, drive a car, paying my bills etc. I can't imagine trying to drive a car in a nondual mindstate - there would be no distinctions between me, the car, the road and other cars.

@kev014 It sounds like you are expanding/transcending love. I've experienced sorrow so pure the distinction between sorrow and love dissolved.

@How to be wise Ah yes, there are many nuances to SD. My understanding is: the levels are not the action/expression itself - the levels are the underlying "meme". Consider someone who joins a diversity committee at their company: An Orange-level person may join the diversity committee so that he "looks good" to improve his chances for a promotion A Green-level person may join the diversity committee to promote equality and inclusion at her company The hallmarks of Blue stage is "either / or" thinking. Right or wrong. Moral or immoral. Strict rules and laws. Consider how the stages viewed the NFL player protest (NFL players kneeling during the anthem). Blue Stage: Either / Or thinking. You are either American or anti-American. Standing during the national anthem is American, so kneeling during the national Anthem is anti-American. Orange: How will NFL players kneeling affect our profit margin? Is viewership declining? Can we retain high profits off of commercials if the kneeling continues? Green: The kneeling brings awareness to racial inequality in the country. By increasing awareness, we can move toward a more egalitarian and equal society.

Haha! You are correct

@WekzTo me, this sounds like a personality trying to take a backdoor and use psychedelics to improve the personality (itself). Psychedelics don't improve the personality, psychedelics dissolve the personality. They reveal the illusionary nature of the personality. They don't care about the personality. . . For me, I think this hypnosis hack would likely backfire. The psychedelics would laugh at the attempt, take control and kick the personality's ass. That's just my POV. People have varied experiences on psychedelics.

Great example. There are many ways to perceive happiness. I've also experienced deep sorrow. From one perspective, it was experiencing the depth of human emotion in absolute purity. I didn't try to think my way out of it and I didn't suffer. I didn't want to have any other experience than the one I was having. I went "all in". I surrendered to it and fully experienced the sorrow. From this perspective it was beautiful. In a way, one could say it was joyful. Joy and sorrow are not polar opposites.

This is a good example of an Orange-level rational thinker that is unable to utilize relative thinking. He has a limited definition of "happiness" and he assumes his idea of happiness is normative. (It applies to him and everyone else). Everything he hears goes through his lens of what happiness means. Without relative thinking, one becomes rigid. It is no surprise that he is disturbed by what he hears. I'm not saying that Leo or the critic are "right". They each have a relative perspective. The critic is unable to see that because he is locked into a perspective that he is attached to and identifies with. I can sense the inner turmoil in the critic. He is not at peace with his beliefs and is getting triggered by what he watches in the video. A lesson to us all: don't get attached to, or identify with, any one perspective.

@Seed I also experience this type of thing. Part of my journey has been learning how to develop the skill. There are a few mental states, like radical empathy, I'd like to be able to turn on or off. Kind of like astral projection. I wouldn't want to suddenly astral project while driving on a highway.

For sure. And if someone refused to surrender prior to breakthrough there can be a terrible struggle. Once the ego surrenders, it becomes a mute point - because as you can attest there is no ego on the other side to surrender.

Very nice insight. I've thought of limited space as being "contracted". For example, a mind that is replaying a story about an ex-girlfriend can get contracted into the story. Thinking more and more about what she did and if I had only said such-and-such. . . Their world gets more and more contracted into a tight ball. I try to be aware of what contracts and what expands. And to let go of contraction and walk toward expansion.

There have been studies that rank drugs based on harm to self and society. Psychedelics consistently score among the safest. However at 16 yo, the brain is still developing- especially the frontal lobe. And lots of neuronal pruning goung on. Some studies have suggested that drug use during this time may interfere with proper development.

How can we be so sure that what we experience sober is real? How do we know it’s not just something artificial (the chemicals in our brain making us think that this is the absolute truth/realty)

@LaraGreenbridge All words are manipulated. Language is bulky, awkward, inefficient and limited. After millions of years of evolution, is this the best humans could do? How disappointing. In 500 years spoken language will be extinct. A more efficient form of communication will arise.

IME, the psychedelic mind state and the sober mind set are gradually moving closer to each other.

I just read the whole entry. I find it interesting how his lens of perception interprets Leo and the actualized forum. What might be considered a couple kernels of truth got exaggerated and distorted beyond recognition. The level of emotion and conviction of this fellow runs very deep into him. He is stage Orange for sure, yet it is a mix between rational and irrational thinking. In general, how does stage Orange view Turquoise? They dismiss Turquoise as "woo woo" or they are threatened by Turquoise. What might an Orange feel threatened by? Well, Orange (and the author) seem ok with personal development stuff. Yet, when we get into higher level stuff like the illusionary nature of the self, there is no free will and dissolving of the self - it is *extremely* threatening to the ego. His essay is a classic example of a fearful ego trying to protect itself. Over and over he refers to Turquoise-level concepts are narcissistic and nihilistic. Yet, he doesn't understand these terms. He is also threatened by Leo's use of the term "God", yet lacks understanding of the context of Leo's usage. He lacks any higher level direct experience or proficiency with relative thinking. With that said, I can feel the angst in his words. He is filled with inner conflict, uncertainty and insecurity. His emotionally-unstable essay reflects his inner turmoil. I doubt he was just blowing off steam. More likely, he lives with this inner turmoil everyday. I hope someone who can access his inner conflict enters his life to help him.

@legendary Don't get hung up on comparing dosages between different psychedelics. The important thing is the dosage necessary for a breakthrough experience on a given psychedelic. Breakthrough experiences on any psychedelic are extremely profound. I'd say in general, most people would consider 5-meo-dmt to consistently offer more profound experiences than LSD. It is the "crown jewel" of psychedelics. Yet, many many people (myself included) have had deeply profound experiences on LSD. It's like asking why someone would drive a Ferrari over a Jaguar. They are both awesome. Those that use LSD and 5-meo generally take a dose that will produce an ego death breakthrough experience. This might be 200ug of LSD for someone. If you go way higher, one could go into a black out or the experience could be completely incomprehensible. Afterwards, it can be nearly impossible to integrate those lessons into one's sober life. For example, I go into a blackout around 300ug of LSD. Why would I go that high or even higher? So I can super-duper blackout?

@graded24 Yes. There is a section for video requests for Leo: https://www.actualized.org/forum/forum/17-video-requests-for-leo/ Yet, I'm gonna let this one hang out here for a bit because I too would *really* like to see a Leo video on time. It is such a juicy topic.