Carl-Richard

Leo. Psychonautics = states > growth Spirituality = growth > states

I was saying "states > growth" is anti-spiritual.

I'm saying that too, and I want to highlight that difference.

Meditation is an organic activity of the body and mind. It's like flexing a muscle. Psychedelics is like injecting anabolic steroids. When you stop injecting, your body will rapidly adjust itself, because it's a self-organizing system which tries to maintain a steady balance between inner and outer states. It's true that if you stop meditating, your body will also adjust itself. But exactly because meditation is "less efficient and less powerful", it's closer to the normal functioning of the brain, and the more you meditate, the more meditation actually becomes a part of your default state. The same is not true for psychedelics. It's such a metabolically different state. You can argue that psychedelics can make changes to your default state, but the default state never becomes equal to the psychedelic experience. If that was the case, Leo would probably had to stop taking psychedelics by now because he would have trouble functioning as a human being.

Well, it was kinda a tongue in cheek hypothetical. Still, nobody who says "I went to a seminar about spirituality" actually means "I went to an Ayahuasca retreat in Peru for 10 days" unless they were trying to hide something.

I think this is bullshit. If you research just a modicum of their work, you'll find these ideas ad nauseum. The only way you can conclude this is if your analysis is at the level of words rather than the level of meaning, but if you do that, then no teacher is talking about the same thing.

@Leo Gura I think if you were to set up a seminar for "spirituality, consciousness work, and awakening", and the first thing you say is "Welcome! Today I will teach you how to stick 5-MeO-DMT up your butt!", people would be like "Wut? I didn't sign up for this."

Then why are no other gurus awake? They're by definition not in your category. The commonality between all those gurus is that they do not endlessly do psychedelic trips. They're into spirituality, but they're not into psychonautics. I'm not saying they're perfectly isolated categories. I'm saying they're better treated as categories than not.

I was being metaphorical.

Why are people so afraid of society? All this talk of being an original, independent thinker, not brainwashed by the herd; when taken to this extreme, is just narcissism and autism. You can make a meaningful and tangible contribution to the human project, or you can hide out in your ivory tower of highfalutin masturbatory non-existence. What is really the most courageous, virtuous, conscious and loving option if you have the choice? The Bodhisattva chose to be a sheep.

Opeth recently got a new and young drummer, and now the live performances sound almost like the studio version: The solo and the parts after couldn't have sounded more tight.

This topic devolved into a sad mixture of meta-ironic guru double-speak and sarcastic jokes. it's almost like somebody is going to be thrown out from the forum again.

Yes, you must eventually let go of the guru, or of the meditation practice, but it doesn't negate their value whatsoever.

Why is that a problem when looking for truth in itself is also a fundamental misunderstanding? After all, that is why Neo-Advaita exists. Why are you against Neo-Advaita? Why is doing any spiritual practice necessary when that only perpetuates the illusion?

It's not stale. It's just simple and ubiquitous. If you have a desire to be original and push the envelope of human cognition, you can do that outside of spirituality. The "state > growth" position is why it's better described as psychonautics. If a state is not integrated into your being and made into a platform for organic growth, then it's either forgotten or outsourced to the intellect, and the latter is inherently anti-spiritual.

Then it's impossible to awaken, with or without a guru, because if you're not awake, you're by definition constructing dualities, e.g. that there is even a truth to be found. You can never circumvent that problem in parts. You have to address the structure behind it, and a teacher is way too helpful for that to not take use of.

The teacher is literally you. You're constructing a duality.

I think what Leo is doing is different from spirituality. Call it psychonautics or something. There are many things Leo is doing that I would consider unspiritual, and there are other things which expand on such insights, and I think the desire to call other spiritual gurus "not awake" is a manifestation of both.

This guy got banned from competitions for winning too much. True freak.

We were talking about spiritual freaks earlier, so I'll arrogantly mention myself (I don't give a shit ): I had a sober awakening experience the third time I had ever sat down with the intention to meditate for an extended period of time. I haven't meditated for over 2 years and I still have regular moments of no mind.

@Nilsi wut. He doesn't literally have 8 arms. That's just a meme ? Steve Vai has probably the largest hands of any famous rock guitarist, and he is also one of the greatest. That said, he used to practice 12 hours every day. I believe he was talking about Allan Holdsworth in the clip (who also had massive hands).

The story of your life.

Probably the most harmonically and melodically complex song I've heard in a while.

People generally go to parties so they can stop thinking. You're better off trying to teach them meditation.

Most of these people are primarily mystics, not intellectuals, philosophers or psychologists. Nisargadatta was illiterate.