Heart of Space

No reason to be, bud.

If you take it to an extreme, yes. If you socially isolate yourself and live a mentally unhealthy lifestyle I believe that, yes, you can cause serious psychological harm to yourself.

It is a delusion. Most of what people on this forum practice is essentially just a really cleverly disguised religion. Enlightenment doesn't exist and the tooth fairy is not real. This is not to say mediation is not worth practicing.

The more you do it, the more you're unconditioning the minds thought and feeling patterns that it's addicted to. I get anywhere from 2 to 5 hours a day of meditation and you can tell a big difference between 1 hour and 4. If I could discipline myself to meditate more I would and will.

When you are in a state of deep love for yourself and the world around you. Compassion is literally effortless. If you're consciously forcing it, it's not genuine. None of this is consciously forced by the mind.

You just let your body do it. If you can't allow your body to do what it wants, then you just have too much mind chatter and you'll have to practice a lot more to quiet it.

This forum has gotten incredibly wacky and more so as it's gone on. Whether it be ridiculous superfluous beliefs about chakras or negligent over usage of psychedelics and the delusional beliefs acquired from them, people here are way off base. Many people have trouble understanding the basics behind meditation and spirituality and get caught up in the pretty lights. Not to mention the disingenuous spiritual attitude and demeanor people have that is a personality they've created by absorbing themselves in this culture. Being on this forum for too long is negative for your growth as a spiritual human being. Shame really.

I didn't know Emeril Lagasse decided to start mediation.

Delusional feelings and beliefs caused by psychedelics can persist. I've had it happen to me as well, and I've seen it happen to others. I'm just warning you that these drugs can have you fully one hundred thousand percent convinced of something that is not true. Or maybe I'm just being a jaded disillusioned curmudgeon and you really did experience the absolute. *shrugs* I don't know, Leo. I guess just be careful about where you going with these drugs, man. They literally do create completely convincing false experiences for many people. I hope you're at least open minded to the possibility.

I'm too lazy to look it up right before I go to sleep, but the idea that consciousness is magically effecting the outcome of the experiment is a false new age interpretation of the experiment. The experiment says more about the wave/particle properties of matter rather than some magical telekinesis done by the observer. There's tons of rational scientific explanations that are suggested, so I wouldn't get too excited about being able to pick up cars with your mind any time soon.

Ask your therapist for a coherent reason for you stopping meditation. If he makes any sort of scientific claim ask for evidence of his claim in peer reviewed literature. If he fails to do either of these things then don't listen to his dumb ass. Therapists are usually not that rigorously educated and often not emotionally intelligent enough to really make reasonable suggestions to clients about their life. They often work best as "accepting, listening ears," someone who you can unload all your emotional problems on without fear of judgment.

Seen the documentary. They're incredibly vague descriptions. Not very compelling at all tbh. No one has ever come back from a DMT trip with a new never before seen solution to a physics problem or anything like that. Nothing that's not easily explainable. Psychedelics have their uses. They can motivate you in general, they can help you understand yourself psychologically, and they open your mind to new possibilities. Do they send you to the 12 dimension with aliens and worm holes? Nah, probably not.

Vaguely similar experience of something that can barely be put into words if at all? Similar effect on visual cortex? Similar cultural background? Extremely biased researchers who have already come to a conclusion before even doing the research? Anecdotal evidence is the worst evidence? Explanations a plenty. Should I go on? Or perhaps they all entered the same part of the 11th dimension in the center of the universe. You decide what's more plausible. Oh here's a fun experiment. Do you have a friend who wants to use a psychedelic? Wait till he's peaking on LSD or something similar and tell him the drug gives him the ability to read minds. And like magic he or she will start to think they're reading other people's minds. It's hilarious. People are so open to suggestion it's crazy. Or another way to do it is to wait until they say a private thought out loud (people who are tripping often do this without even realizing it) recognize that they are saying a thought out loud and just repeat it. Your friend will be floored by your seemingly newly revealed telepathic abilities. I honestly feel a little bad sucking the magic out of psychedelics for you guys, but you guys need to be brought back to planet earth.

No, no. I'm not believing firmly in shite, baby cakes. Leo and others are affirming with seemingly 100 percent certainty that there is no external reality and it's all a complete hallucination. Now, I think after it's been explained further the issue with the word was partly semantic. But, what I still have an issue with is the fact that there is a consistent, deterministic reality that is corroborated by experience over and over countless times. This is evidence of an external world in some form, even if it is not as it appears directly to our senses. I don't claim to know if there is an external world, but I'm very open to the possibility. I'm only against the position that completely disregards any possibility of a consistent external reality in any form. It's coming across as a bit dogmatic.

But, do you experience it now? No? You experienced it on drugs, right? Yep. I'm just curious when you're going to have the realization that psychedelics simply just make you into a temporarily insane person that misinterprets reality. The misinterpretation is usually heavily influenced by what idea's you surround yourself with, which happens to be existential spirituality. I've seen it before Leo, tons of times. Experienced it too. Just don't be too disappointed when you're tripping one day and you realize that you're just really, really high and you're not actually experiencing what you think you are. It tends to be a disappointing moment for most people, it was for me years ago. When it happens, just remember that even though there's a lot of wu wu bullshit, there's still a lot of important work to do in spirituality. It's got a lot of profoundly beneficial aspects to it in a pragmatic sense.

Love you, Leo, but do you really even believe that? As in, are you experiencing a completely non-distinctive reality the reality this moment? Or are there many different parts in your reality that are distinct from another which in all creates a complex reality? If there were no distinctions you wouldn't be able to read this sentence of distinct letters and words and then respond to me. I understand non-duality and what its implications are. Everything could be made of the same substance of awareness, but awareness still somehow can paint a complex reality. Without some type of distinction between 'this' and 'that' reality as it is wouldn't exist. This stuff might seem like kindergarten level spiritual stuff The difference is that I don't parrot what I hear, nor do I just go with what is generally agreed upon in my social environment at the time. I go with my own reasoning and what I know and understand myself. I'm skeptical (but also open minded) of everything I hear. You need to be with spirituality, there's far too much bullshit and delusion to not be skeptical.

Pretty weak response, dawg. You literally were trying to say that a dream is the same as ordinary reality while blowing off what makes them destinctive. There's been some pretty thoughtful posts in here and your response is go snort drugs. Lol, come on, man.

I've said on here before and I'll say it again. Once you get the message from psychedelics you should quit immediately for the rest of your life. It's easy to get caught up in how amazing they are, in fact it's almost impossible to not initially get caught up in them because of how profound the experiences are. Just trust me on this, or find out the hard way yourself.

In the very least, it's bizarre that they don't acknowledge the difference in the qualities of a dream versus ordinary reality. They are very dismissive of the consistency and deterministic quality of ordinary reality when that's a pretty enormous difference. In fact, it's the only difference that makes ordinary reality seem like it's not a hallucination. It's what separates it from all other forms. I'm still totally open minded to the idea that it's an illusion and in a lot of ways it is, but to totally dismiss it as a hallucination no more valid or different than a dream is a bit much in my opinion.

What kind of crack are you smoking? And can I have some? Lmao

Yea, hallucination is kind of a weird word to use. I understand what people mean by it when they use it, but I feel like its use is a bit dismissive.

It's not necessarily bias considering the reality that is referred to has a solid sense of consistency that the reality psychedelics produces simply doesn't have. There are fairly strict rules that supposed "objective" sober reality adhere's to, which is corroborated over and over again by experience and other people through language. I wouldn't call psychedelics random, that's a poor choice of word, but they aren't grounded in a consistent set of seemingly universal rules. It is valid, even important, to bring up the fact that a human only ever experiences its own subjective perspective and that certainly has implications on the knowledge one can have about reality. But regardless, you have to address the fact that there is in the very least an incredible amount of consistency, predictability, and a deterministic quality to sober reality. Based on those qualities I would say that it is very unlikely that trolls exist in the reality that I perceive.

Shadow of the Colossus 10/10 game and probably the most perfect and apt metaphor for the path to enlightenment there is in a video game.

I would assume simple evolved human creativity. Our ability to put multiple different idea's and things together in our heads from various things we see and experience in the world. I'm don't mean to be a hater on the open mindedness thing, I try to practice it myself. But I don't completely throw out my rational understanding of the world. It is perfectly valid to consider your possible explanation, but based on my observations on how the world works for me it is very likely that there are no actual trolls and they only exist in the imagination.

The hallucinations you get are influenced by your background and culture, hence people from that area of the world seeing trolls.