Carl-Richard

Thank you! Sound good. Just to clarify, it's not that you should strive to achieve homeostasis in your body. Your body's sole function is to maintain homeostasis (to maintain a balance between inputs and outputs). Drugs are just one type of input. The problem happens when you start relying on a constant stream of inputs in order to function, and when the nature of the input is selective and rigid (like with fast-acting psychoactive drugs), this compromises the functioning of the system in various ways, the main point being a loss of flexibility in responding to challenges in the environment. Whatever is introduced to the system, the system will regulate itself as a response. If the nervous system produces a DMT molecule endogenously, then the system will accommodate the effects of this through various self-regulation mechanisms (e.g. by downregulating the activity of the related systems, e.g. the serotonergic system). Likewise, if you introduce some DMT from the outside, the system will also respond by regulating itself. The system is in a constant state of self-regulation. The question is just about how balanced it is, and the more unbalanced it is, the less flexible it is. Taking a large dose of exogenous DMT will definitely create an unbalancing effect. Drugs are non-essential and modulate existing activity already produced by the system. Many vitamins are essential and are not produced within the body. However, eating an unbalanced amount of vitamins will also produce an unbalanced response in the system. Same with essential amino acids. Say if you eat too much L-tryptophan (precursor to serotonin), then the system will respond by downregulating serotonergic activity. This is what is meant by eating a balanced diet: getting just enough essential nutrients that your body needs to sustain itself; not too much, not too little. The key takeaway here is balance The system is obviously in constant flux with the environment where the inputs and outputs are always changing. Homeostasis doesn't mean that the system is isolated from its environment. Rather, homeostasis is the different measures that a system has to take towards self preservation, i.e. "what do I need to do in order to keep surviving?". For any self-perpetuating life system to survive, it must maintain a fixed boundary between itself and its environment, and it does this by managing a relatively balanced flow of energy through the system. Signalling molecules like neurotransmitters are just one way that an organism can change its patterns of input and output, which is why the nervous system also needs homeostatic mechanisms like negative feedback loops in order to protect the larger integrity of the system.

The level of purpose that arises in reaction to the chaos of Red (namely Blue) requires a certain ability to abstract over space and time. The Purple sense of purpose and the Red sense of self-assertion is more embedded in "the now", in immediate impulses, and nihilism is the recognition of a lack of an abstract framework of purpose, something which doesn't arise before Blue. Blue is able to see outside of itself in time and space, beyond its immediate living conditions and desires and into the future, into the transcendent ideal dimension of God, the Law, family, virtue. Purple's sense of purpose is explicit and embodied (the immediately felt connection to the tribe), and it's the same with Red's reaction to it (the immediately felt egocentric impulses). Blue's sense of purpose is implicit and abstract: "me as a separate individual have to work to fullfil my purpose as a servant of God, as a lawful citizen, as a responsible family man, as a virtuous person". When a person evolves his ability to think abstractly and not merely adhere to a dogmatic construct but is able to employ self-consistent hypothetical deduction, then Orange rationality is born, and the Blue dogmas are no longer sufficient for providing a sense of abstract purpose. The way out is to reclaim the embodied purpose of the pre-rational Purple through the trans-rational domain: non-dogmatic mysticism.

Can you observe that?

Nihilism is the first response when the purpose of the transcendent dimension is undermined by the Cartesian-Newtonian paradigm (the transition from dogmatism to rationality), so it first comes online in low-Orange. It can get countered as early as mid-Orange through mental gymnastics or linger all the way into the beginning of the transrational realm at Green or Tier 2.

I still think it's right to call it direct experience. It's true that the content of non-conceptual experience is variable, but the recognition of the "directness" of this experience has more to do with the changeless aspect that underlies all experience (the formless void). This becomes more obvious when you actually experience the void in samadhi where all content or form is removed. It's nevertheless true that our experience of form is radically constructed. Experiments on the early development of the visual system demonstrate this pretty well. If you place a newborn kitten in a box with only horizontal lines in it and you let it grow up in that environment, it will not be able to perceive vertical lines, because its visual system has only been trained to perceive horizontal lines.

Asking "Who am I?" reveals exactly what you are, because there is no answer. There is just pure being.

This is meant mostly for young seekers who are juggling early life with self-transcendence. It's no surprise that the most awakened people you see in the world are some of the most well-integrated and resourceful people out there. While it's not uncommon for mystics to enter a deep introspective phase of their life, it's not an unproblematic endeavour. In the past, being a mystic was synonymous homelessness, and fortunately for them, there were structures in place that made it possible to survive (Indian culture is very accommodating to mystics). However, in the modern world of Western individualism, it's not a wise decision to leave your life behind, certainly not before it has even started. I recommend re-defining the concept of spirituality from the idea of seeking the highest to integrating the whole. What makes us human is our desire to expand endlessly, and the ultimate expression of this is the desire for truth. You can imagine the desire of truth to be an expansion towards the highest altitude of consciousness. However, the impulse of expansion does not only extend towards higher altitudes but also towards wider breadths and deeper depths. It's not just an movement upwards, but rather it's an expansion in all directions. So in other words, to be truly spiritual is to maximize all expansion in all aspects, not just the higher ones. In fact, when the lower aspects are denied their right to expand, they will impede your ability to go higher. For example, if you deny your sexual energy, this will create a disruption in your emotional system and impede your spiritual energy. There are a myriad of "lower energies" within you that need to be processed and expressed before you can fully move on to the next level (e.g. the desire for safety, belonging and esteem), and working on the wordly things will help you in that direction. So it's not just that it's impractical from a survival perspective to not develop the lower aspects of yourself, but it will also cause problems for your truth-seeking. I can use an example from my personal life to illustrate this point: I've personally had a little "wood mystic" phase in my early teens (dropped LSD a couple of times, started smoking weed heavily to expand on those insights). What initially began as an intense seeking for truth turned into a denial of personal responsibilities and avoiding the hardships of life (stopped caring much about school, friends and family), and the stress from having to deal with all those bad decisions made me very neurotic and depressed. I later realized that the dysfunctional part of my behavior stemmed from some emotional issues, namely having had very strict parents that didn't let me fully express my emotional impulses, and that me immersing myself completely in truth-seeking and avoiding responsibilities was me trying to fill that hole from my youth. Something as basic as the need to express one's impulses (to consume, to indulge, to "want", to self-assert), which I expressed through intense truth-seeking, was ultimately creating more problems for me and holding me back. What I was avoiding, and what I'm focusing on now, is to integrate my personality, harvest my potential, become a resourceful person and then go directly for truth without being a liability to others. I'm not saying that what happened to me will happen to you, but there are many things that can go wrong if you take the seeking approach over the integrating approach. Every part of your life impacts every other part in some way, and if you fail to address one part, it will have a detrimental impact on the whole. This is essentially a lesson in holistic thinking: of not getting too caught up in one aspect of life, but to be able to see the bigger picture.

@Human Mint @tuckerwphotography @VeganAwake ? It's perfectly fine to "leave" once you have established a firm foundation. The problem is that especially many young people overestimate their level of development and make short-sighted decisions which directly impede spiritual work and threaten basic survival.

Green is solid when teenagers look down on Richard Dawkins like they look down on creationists today.

It's the awareness of the fundamental nature of thought as self-talk, talk as a play of symbols, and the representational nature of symbols. The word "cat" represents a cat; it's is not a itself a cat. As thoughts are spoken, maps are written. When you stop speaking, you get to silence. Why do we speak? Why do we make maps? As means towards an end. What is silence? What is truth? It speaks for itself.

Let go

Women tend to have an easier time letting go.

It's very tricky to try to imagine how other people experience fundamental aspects of the world differently, and that is where concepts like the Folk Theory of Essences are brilliant tools. I was personally struck by this when reading about the pre-Socratic philosophers and their metaphysical ideas. How do you go about interpreting something that comes from such a vastly different cultural context than your own?

Relative reality is speech. Speak because you're spoken to, not because you understand (my new favorite quote ).

Such a view would be reductive, bad faith, coming from a place of hurt instead of inspiration. I could give a more optimistic analysis of a member of the Taliban.

LOOOL

I've watched the entire thing before and it perfectly summarizes my point: a career in science is not synonymous with construct awareness. This is nothing new (there are countless examples, not just QM). Don't be afraid to watch it anymore than you're afraid to watch Richard Dawkins debating Deepak Chopra. It's the same level of worldview disconnect. If you have doubts about the legitimacy of this work, then you're free to focus on something else. That is also one reason why it's not a cult. A cult robs you of your personal autonomy. Actualized.org is about strengthening your personal autonomy. If you think that this is me gaslighting you, then sure, don't listen to anything I'm telling you. If you've formulated your own thoughts on the subject and you're able to understand the arguments that people are making, then it's no longer about "trusting someone". It's about what resonates with you. However, if your idea of sensemaking is to blindly appeal to an arbitrary standard of authority, then do that, but then there is no reason to argue in the first place. This is what we're doing here: we're providing arguments, and it's up to you if it resonates or not. The authority question is anyway irrelevant, because that clearly goes both ways (there are academics on both sides).

See the lights out on the water Come and go, to and from In the time it takes to find them You can live, you can die And nothing stops the river as it goes by Nothing stops the river as it goes All alone and all together Every day, come what may By the time we find each other We can live, we can die And nothing stops the river as it flows by Nothing stops the river as it goes

If you appreciate Daniel's ecoliteracy approach, look into Fritjof Capra, Gregory Bateson and Arne Næss. He draws a lot of inspiration from them.

Weed can fuck you up.

For people who voted Tier 2, who are your heroes? (or name some Tier 2 thinkers).

That was Tim Leary, not Terrence McKenna

The mainstream's reaction to the counterculture in the 60s says it all.

As opposed to what?