Carl-Richard

"I'm completely alone" is a thought. It's an egoic projection trying to make sense of the experience (or triggering the experience like a pointer). It's one possible projection out of many, but you usually don't get many at the same time because you can only project so much at a time, and you tend to get fixated on one at a time because of their seeming profoundness in describing the experience.

To be clear, this has definitely not been established in the science. See my point about ecological validity. If you want a brilliant study, study bodybuilding competitions, interview all the participants about their workout regime and see whether "science-based lifting" correlates with competition placement (it doesn't just have to be those who place #1 where you will blame genetics; you can use linear regression for all placements). It happens for many reasons (balance between skill level and difficulty level, actions giving immediate feedback, believing you can succeed, etc.), and it overlaps with concepts like mindfulness and focused attention, all of which show individual variation. I touched on flow in my bachelor thesis 😆 Again, tapping into flow is in a sense synonymous with performing at your best. And it just happens that the way your body performs at its best is dictated by indeed your body, so you have to listen to the body to tap into that. Some people are better at listening to their body than others, even among atlethes.

There is no "solipsistic awakening". It's the ego reacting (in this case with fear) to non-dual awakening, projecting (in this case clutching onto) its preconceived notions like other minds and bodies, and because of resistance, what would be bliss turns into terror and despair. Non-dual awakenings are inherently blissful, but you can also have energetic discharges and processes (kundalini) which are supremely blissful. But there too, if there is resistance, bliss turns to agony and terror.

@Natasha Tori Maru One time, me and my buddies were smoking (not cigarettes) on the top of a mountain (not big), then we decided to drive down to McDonalds to eat. The guy who drove the car (who I'm pretty sure was the one who suggested it or was at least very hyped for it), after stopping in the parking lot at McDonalds, said he was too scared to go in and order food. It was late in the evening, dark outside, and not really many people inside. And we had been at McDonalds in the same state many times before. I had to literally give a pep talk and go through a whole ass therapy session before we finally went in. The mind is peculiar thing.

I felt like posting a response to a YouTube comment under Mike Israetel's new video responding to Sam Sulek's critiques of "science-based" lifting: Ecological validity is a MAJOR problem for behavioral science (and yes, exercise science is a behavioral science). To use scientific studies that lack ecological validity to decisively declare what is "optimal" and "the best option", is a metaphysical commitment, not a scientific one. The science doesn't say that; it doesn't prescribe what is best for you working out as yourself in your gym, in your gym session, in your flow state. It's the Church of Science-Based Lifting that says that.

"95% intensity" is a cue for sprinting, which is all about removing the "I have to move like this" (what your mind tells you to do) to pulling back and feeling what the body wants to do on its own. All kinds of embodied sports or martial arts, at the highest levels, are essentially teaching you to access the natural flow of your body. Because accessing that flow is how your perform the best. And you can see when it happens. The best feats of the human body have a certain aura to them, and it's what the natural flow looks like:

You just have to be willing to let go into the fear and trust yourself infinitely. If there is resistance to that, ask yourself why. Then it's up to you how to proceed. You don't have to be ready if you don't feel ready. You can keep exploring being a human if that is what you want. Stay true to what you want.

India has literally the #1 cheapest weed in the entire world lol

You just can't keep yourself from stealing more of my thoughts? 🙈 I'm not even joking.

Bernardo Kastrup became suicidal after acquiring severe tinnitus. He still has the tinnitus but is no longer suicidal.

But making conceptual statements and making inferences about the boundaries and the limitations and the ontological status of those sensations, of course, are. "The isness that can't be seen as an object" is a profound description which is the point I'm getting at. The moment you start talking about objects that can be seen, then what are we talking about? Objects that can be seen. The isness in its most fundamental sense stands impartial to the objects that can be seen.

Do you realize that investigating your experience in any way that can be spoken about is a conceptual exercise, just like investigating what might be outside or separate from or not immediately apparent in your experience is a conceptual exercise? For example, investigating a sensation and then saying "here it is, here is its shape, here is its texture, here is where it extends, here is where it seems to end" is at the same level of conceptual density as saying "what this current sensation seems to be might be a part of a larger class of many sensations or a larger space of sensation that doesn't end here".

You can perfect the technique to maximize flow. That is essentially the goal of perfecting your technique in sprinting.

Do we recognize that "being that which knows everything" is very different from saying "what is currently known is all that exists"?

Then you also have people who just know how to dance:

Holy shiet I've never been that caught by surprise before in the start of a song

Then the question obviously becomes "what is truth?". And you'll give me an answer, but that's just your answer, and we've come no further than what people say (and people disagree strongly), hence saying you value truth doesn't mean much. It's an extremely generalized concept where people tend to just fill in whatever they like. I meant a list of five actual people, names, individuals, not a group of people.

Reincarnation makes sense and seems like there is evidence for but I don't rule out immaterial/heavenly realms either. I'm of the impression that there are many layers of reality we're not currently aware of.

Sorry to derail, but I read this and another comment in another thread, and it's actually uncanny how much your thinking is like mine.

The ideal would be to have robotic blackout curtains connected to a smartwatch that open when it register you're waking up.

Ever tried not using theory as much and going with what you feel? That's the true phallic position.

Some people are very forward-moving and goal-oriented, which is synonymous with dopamine. Even if they can't relax and look at the flowers, they do feel like things are moving, and there can be a lot of excitement, flow and creativity involved there. If you want to look at it very simplistically: meaning, action and loftiness is dopamine; being, depth and groundedness is serotonin. The former is more emphasized in current society, the latter is more emphasized by spiritual approaches.

One time during a college lecture, I sat trying to focus on what the teacher was saying, and I noticed a kind of tension related to this, that I was trying really hard to hold my attention on every word, every word on the slide, every moment of the lecture. And when I noticed this tension, I chose to let it go, to let the tension dissolve. Then for a while, nothing much was different, only I felt a little lighter, more fluid. But then suddenly, it hit me. There is literally no time. Things are happening, but it's perfectly still, not moving, just being. It's a singularity morphing onto itself, but nothing moving it in time. And there is literally no me. All of me is plastered on the walls of the room. And this felt like ultimate groundlessness, like reality had disappeared beneath my feet. All that was left was a surging energy that was at the same time completely silent. I felt like my heart had sunk beneath my chest. I grasped my hands to my desk and clenched my leg muscles, trying not to die of terror. And then when the lecture ended, I exited the lecture with my friend, levitating, spending no effort in moving, and the singularity feeling was back as I was talking and making sounds, walking down the stairs, entering the bathroom stall, closing the door and telling myself to get it together. This was the result of more than 1000 hours of seated meditation practice, and more than 16000 hours of complete obsession to awaken. And it was then I decided to stop seeking, because enlightenment, at that stage, was too much for me. Being dead but alive, being in terror but in bliss, was the biggest Catch-22 situation I could have ever imagined. And I wanted out. Turns out that wasn't so easy, but that's another story. Anyways, I've been talking about "deconstruction" before and I felt that it didn't land for many people, maybe that it was too "mental" in its connotation, that it's something intellectual you do. But it's simpler than that. It's just about letting go of whatever thing or process that might be holding you back from experiencing reality as it is. It can be as subtle as a tension associated with focusing on what somebody is saying, or it can be as gross as the sensation of sitting in a room right now and that there is a house surrounding it and that there is a world outside the house and that there is a universe outside the world. Every tension, every feeling of solidity, every ground, every roof, every level, every notion of reality, must be let go of. - Jan Esmann While you can distinguish letting go from the concept of "technique", it can also be thought of as a technique, if you practice it. And practicing letting go in meditation can be quite explosive. It's not necessarily as light and non-confrontational as "ah I'll just let go and sit here and just be still". It can be a quite visceral and energetic process. It can cause all kinds of movements and releases, both physically in the body and emotionally. And using other techniques are in a sense tools for helping you getting to the place of letting go, where letting go gets you to the place you want to go. Because training your focus through focused meditation, or elevating your energy through psychedelics, matters, but they will do nothing if you do not let go. You can take psychedelics and flail around, trying your best to hold on without dissolving into nothingness, and you may be successful in doing so, if not for some intense suffering, but it will not lead you to an expanded state unless you let go. And that's what suffering is about. It's when you can't for the life of you let go. And you keep holding on despite what reality wants you to do, to just accept it. Anyways, even people who are big proponents of psychedelics and who also are big proponents of the non-dual perspective, emphasize the importance of letting go: - Martin Ball And of course, other non-dual proponents say the same thing: - Ramana Maharshi - Rupert Spira And letting go and seeing reality for what it is is synonymous with truth. Just like how Leo says truth is the highest value, letting go is the ultimate meditation, because letting go reveals what is true.

Thank you ☺️

Lol. If you want to call eliminating fun and beautiful things from your life "withdrawal symptoms", then go ahead.