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Because the scale was tipped to perception & thinking, to compensate for a lack of feeling. Perception & feeling & no mind = bliss.

This “ego” doesn’t get anything out of meditation, meditation gets the ego out. The doer doesn’t care much for the stopping of it’s doing. Effortless living, your life’s dream unfolding wonderfully, emotional mastery, no mind, non reaction, bliss...the ego see’s this stuff coming a mile away. “Why would I meditate”. Dream board’s great for realizing preferences far more worthwhile, inspiring, & satisfying than a story on a screen. This actual story on a screen is a pinch superior imo. This story you’re actually creating.

Makyō The term makyō is a Zen term that means “ghost cave” or “devil’s cave.” It is a figurative reference to the kind of self-delusion that results from clinging to an experience and making a conceptual “nest” out of it for oneself. Makyō is essentially synonymous with illusion, but especially in reference to experiences that can occur within meditation practice. In Philip Kapleau's The Three Pillars of Zen, Hakuun Yasutani explained the term as the combination of ma meaning devil and kyo meaning the objective world. This character for “devil” can also refer to Mara, the Buddhist “tempter” figure; and the character kyo can mean simply region, condition or place. Makyō refers to the hallucinations and perceptual distortions that can arise during the course of meditation and can be mistaken by the practitioner as "seeing the true nature" or kenshō. Zen masters warn their meditating students to ignore sensory distortions. These can occur in the form of visions and perceptual distortions, but they can also be experiences of blank, trance-like absorption states. In the Zen school, it is understood that neither category of experience – however fascinating they may be – is a true and final enlightenment. Contemplative literature contains numerous descriptions of the perceptual distortion produced by meditation. It is characterized in some schools as "going to the movies," a sign of spiritual intensity but a phenomenon that is considered distinctly inferior to the clear insight of settled practice. In some Hindu schools it is regarded as a product of the sukshma sharira, or "experience body," in its unstable state, and in that respect is seen to be another form of maya, which is the illusory nature of the world as apprehended by ordinary consciousness. Tibetan contemplative literature uses the parallel term nyam, which fall into three categories, usually listed as clarity, bliss, and non-conceptuality. Many types of meditation phenomena can be classed under this rubric, and are generally tied to the reorganization of the body's subtle energies that can occur in meditation.

After a week or so in i start to feel like an AVATAR. As if i am existing in a higher dimensional plane and feel the perfection and purity in everything. Bliss! I have done 24 hour dry fasting naturally many times, i love being out in nature, i rarely eat and i feel very blissful.

I remember and I will make this short, that I saw God from my window appering as this immensly bright light, everything around this light were happy to see it, I remember becoming conscious of how specificaly the trees became happy. My family saw it too, well not really, but in another dimension they saw the light. Suddenly, in an instant, it disappeared and everything came to normal. I thought my family saw God, but they just looked at me and asked "What is it?". They were clueless and in shock and bliss I said "Did you see God?" And they said no. Which makes me think now, that it's indeed possible that we are within God's imagination. The way everything in an instant was thrown into this dimension even my family, then how it just instantly dissapeared, leaving only me knowing of what just happened.

Set and Setting I meditated for two hours that day. I had two good sessions: very focused and quiet mind. I entered the mushroom session with a clear intent: Contemplating about what I can do to heal or strengthen my body – I have to deal with a very rare genetic disease called FSHD 1, which causes muscle loss mainly in the upper body and is uncurable from the perspective of western medicine. Right before the mushroom session I did some breathing exercises. Before a trip I’m always nervous and this helps me to get the right focus. I did the session at a friend’s house, who also took 2,5 gr. He made sort of a tea with homegrown psilocybe cubensis. Upcoming Normally when I consume mushrooms as a tea, they kick in like hell. I had a 3,5 gr. trip, where after 10 minutes my head was so quiet, that I thought time had stopped – after 15 minutes everything was covered with strange patterns. But this time the upcoming was a lot slower, the mushrooms started to kick in after 50 minutes. I felt a lot of energy, my mind going quieter and a broadening of my perspective. I had some trouble to focus on my contemplation object, but somehow I got along. Darkness I was lying on a couch looking at the ceiling. Suddenly the ceiling turned into a dark moving substance, that seemed to move towards me. This is where the trip gets a bit creepy. I saw that a black tube is attached to my body going up to the dark substance. My first ‘thought’ was, that this is some kind of a spirit attack, because it felt like the dark substance is sucking energy out of my body. My second ‘thought’ was, that this dark spirit/being is stealing my energy and causing my disease. Strangely I felt rather strong in that situation and commanded the darkness to leave. A second later I was amazed that the dark substance actually withdrew. A few moments after the withdrawal I had the epiphany, that what I saw and felt wasn’t some kind of an attack, but rather a prenatal memory: me in the womb of my mother. However as far as I can remember I had also some ‘insights’ about my ancestors being haunted by dark spirits. Unfortunately I can’t remember a lot I experienced in this part of the trip – or maybe I just repressed it. Light After the darkness vanished, the light began to rise. I was ‘called’ by this light or beings of light. I got up from the couch and sat on the floor folding my hand as you do when praying and stayed in this position for over half an hour – normally I never pray. At some point my friend asked me, if everything is good and I replied yes, it is just too good. I don’t like the word ‘god’, I prefer universe, consciousness, infinity etc., but what I felt during this time, can best be described as being ‘touched by the love/grace of god’. A bath in an infinite sea of pure bliss and ecstasy. I remember being shocked and irritated because of the intensity, but at the same time I knew that there is a LOT more. Conclusion As much as I appreciated the second part of the trip, I am confused about the first one. Was the dark substance a visualization of my disease – a metaphor –, a prenatal memory or indeed some kind of a spirit attack – is an attack under these circumstances possible at all? During the trip my intuition told me that the spirit attack was real, but after the come down this seems like a big delusion and my mind making up a strange story. Have you experienced similar things while taking psychedelics? What would be your Interpretation?

5-MEO-DMT Bufo AlvariusTrip Report ROA: Smoking Dosage: 93 mgs After many months of failed attempts at experimenting with plugging 5-MeO at home. And many more months trying to find a professional facilitator close to me, and many more months getting our schedules to align, I finally got to do my very first Bufo 5-MeO ceremony this weekend. He was decades experienced, and had me stay at his home, where we did the ceremony. As it was raining up at the property up in the mountains where he usually holds the ceremonies. I was pretty calm leading up to the ceremony, until he said it was time. There were 3 of us there for ceremony. He would take us up to a room one at a time, for about an hour each. We debated who would go first, I requested I go first, as waiting and listening to what happened for someone else, would just make me more nervous. As it finally came time, I was really nervous. Him and his female partner sat with me in a circle and did deep breathing with me until I was calm and ready. He asked me if I wanted to start out with a low dose, or jump right into a high dose. I told him I am prone to panic attacks when I have time to resist the effects. So he suggested a high dose. I didn’t ask or want to know what he loaded. He later afterwards told me it was 93mgs. Not sure how much that translates to synthetic 5-MeO dosage. He explained to me how it was going to work. He would hold the pipe. I was to slowly draw in, until my lungs were full, as he counted to 10. Then as I lay back he would count back from 10, as I hold it in. I never made it to the pillow, and I only heard the count of 8 before I was gone. It is hard to describe what came next. It was indescribable unimaginable pure nightmarish Terror. There was no concept of who I was or what anything was. I was obliterated. But at the same time my ‘soul’ was being ripped apart in an endless cycle, over and over. There was zero possibility of resistance or surrender, it just was what it was and far too powerful to try to control. It was pure torture. Even though I was gone, I could tell I was screaming the loudest high pitch scream possible. This seemed like it lasted for only a few seconds. Coming back, I didn’t know who I was, where I was, who the people in the room were, for about a minute. Then I came to pretty fast, within another minute. There was an instant feeling of sadness. I knew right away that the ceremony was a failure. No experience being God, no infinity, no experiencing infinite realities, no insights into the nature of reality, no death (at least I don’t think, unless death is endless torture), no infinite love, no bliss, no insights, no epiphanies, no alleviation of suffering/depression/anxiety. I started to cry as all of it was for nothing. I felt exactly the same as I did before the trip. The facilitators told me I had been screaming for many minutes. Then was saying “Oh Shit!!!” over and over again as I crawled around the room thrashing about. They asked me if I wanted to do another dose, I said no. This was traumatizing enough, wouldn’t want to go through that again, even if there was a chance of a blissful God breakthrough. I was perfectly normal and fine within a few more minutes. They offered for me to go into a dark room to process, but I said that was unnecessary. I popped downstairs, and cheerfully said “hey guys!”. The two guys waiting for their turn looked traumatized. They said they wished they had gone first now, as they heard all the screaming and it made them all that much more nervous to go next. I felt bad about that. They asked me how it went for me, and I told them I would tell them later, as I didn't want to influence their journey. All in all, it felt like the trip had never even really happened. There was a few seconds of infinite torture and unimaginable terror, then nothing. So my trip only seemed to last a few seconds. I thought, if I knew nothing about Nonduality teachings, what was possible, or anything about 5-MeO, and a friend just invited me to participate in the ceremony, I probably would have angrily bitched him out for the horrible experience, with zero benefits (other than the awesome people who I shared it with). Oh well, I guess I have to get even more serious about my spiritual journey and try try try again. I’m not sharing this to discourage anyone. I’m not even discouraged. From what I hear, every trip can be different.

i feel this strange thing right now i love myself, i don't need anything, i just feel bliss about everything and nothing really bothers me and at this moment i feel like i want to start getting money, meeting more women and starting my own purpose it's paradoxical and i don't get it, did anyone went through this kind of "phase"? i love myself and i don't need anything soooo let's fucking get everything i can, wtf????

This is an important part of my spiritual training where my experiential understandings of these elements on this path are rapidly improving. All 4 of these elements - equanimity, tranquility, happiness and joy - are inter-related but highly distinct lines of development. A meditator eventually needs to develop these skills to a very high level and integrate all of them to their lives deeply before insights into different facets of awakening can arise. Especially love = consciousness will be 100 times easier if you develop these Samatha factors. To do that, you need to understand what skills you need to develop. Let's define these terms first. Happiness: This is a specific feeling of physical and mental pleasure in the mind-body. It can arise with zero meditation experience if 'things' are going your way. This is the usual dopamine high non-meditators experience. Happiness can also be trained to access all the time with stability in the higher stages of meditation. Happiness can also arise independently of joy. Joy: Joy is a comprehensive positive mental state. In the context of meditation, it usually arises with happiness in dependent of external circumstances in an internal manner due to unification of mind. It also can arise without any pleasurable feelings and happiness in the mind. Joy skews your awareness, emotional health and cognitive interpretations towards what is wholesome and loving effortlessly. In a joyful mind, the following will occur: Something that usually creates a lot of suffering and negative feelings in a non-meditator will only produce mild-unpleasantness. Something that produces mild-unpleasantness will only produce neutral feelings. Something that produces neutral feelings (like sitting down and breathing) will produce mildly pleasurable sensations. Something that produces a lot of pleasurable feelings will produce ECSTATIC levels of bliss. The combination of joy and happiness in meditation directly reduces craving and suffering in a significant manner. Tranquility: This is basically calm abiding contentment. Contentment is the keyword here. We tend to think that someone who is tranquil is dull and neutral. This has negative connotations. It is also inaccurate in the context of meditation. Tranquility induces a calm and serene state of mind. That is true but it does so with energy. So if you are dull, that is not true tranquility. Also, the feeling of neutrality is a misconception as well. Equanimity and neutrality are not the same things in the slightest. This is important because any lack of clarification here can result in a meditator wasting years of their lives getting deeper into sustained states of dullness thinking that they are developing tranquility. So watch out! You can have crazy levels of equanimity with joy and happiness. In fact, that is what you are developing with Samatha. The point is not to develop sustained dullness and emotional neutrality with equanimity. That means you've developed equanimity without happiness and joy. You still need to go back and develop these wholesome emotional states for optimal insight investigation. Back to tranquility! So tranquility means calmness and serenity. That is only 1 side of it. It actually means practicing contentment with calmness. Contentment is different from equanimity. It is extremely important in reducing craving. This one distinction helps you to develop and deepen meditative joy and happiness into daily life. Contentment will enable you to glean more satisfaction from the already existing joy and happiness. It will also reduce craving even more radically than just happiness and joy. If you've thought that high degrees of meditative joy and happiness you experience in meditation has already reduced a lot of craving already, think again! Contentment + meditative joy enables you to see how much suffering resides even in crazy high states of happiness and mental pleasure. This is 3rd jhana practice. But you deepen that practice further with Samatha factors and bring all of those qualities into daily life with TMI. This tranquility aspect of development naturally comes after fully developed meditative joy. Here is how it occurs in a nutshell: 1- Wow! I'm experiencing a lot of happiness and joy internally. This is fucking amazing. I can support this mental state with smiling as well. 2- Wow! This is extremely resilient. I can maintain this in stressful situations. 3- Hmmm...I sometimes experience a reduction in meditative joy when I get really tired and sleepy. Let me try to understand what leads to this experience. 4- I guess there is subliminal craving and suffering attached to meditative joy. I also fear that I might lose this in the future. The overall craving gets overwhelming when I get tired so happiness and joy go away. I don't really know how to combat this issue... 5- I also can't quite maintain joy and happiness in daily life when I'm moving around and doing stuff. It is still very stable but I don't momentarily taste the joy and happiness in evey microscopic movement of my body in movement. I think I need to work on this more. Because, meditative joy in movement results in craving and suffering. I guess I have developed a decades-long habit of urgency and movement with craving. I tend to move fast and speak fast. I lose a lot of mindfulness in these states. I need to add more contentment, tranquility and body awareness to every microscopic body movement, otherwise joy and and happiness can't be maintained on a momentary basis. I might get the illusion that it is stable but it actually isn't. And I'm still suffering quite a bit. 6- WOW! When I bring tranquility, joy and happiness are dominating my conscious experience with more stability in a state of contentment. I also experience more reduction in craving and therefore suffering less when I'm doing stuff in the world, talking to people and planning stuff. 7- This basically means that I can wake up in the morning - get the joy and happiness with tranquilty- pay EXTRA attention to maintaining this in movement with contentment and re-train the nervous system to stay in the present moment without craving. This is the next level after meditative joy development. Your entire life truly turns into high-quality meditation at this point. At this mastery, you are a stage 9 TMI meditator if you've also developed metacognitive awareness and stable attention sufficiently. The next step is adding the equanimity aspect of development. This is very challenging and is the final step in developing samatha. Equanimity: This is sublime non-reactivity to pleasure and pain. The nervous system shuts down its 'craving' operating system and activates equanimity. Your body and mind stop interfering with the present moment experience. This leads to the complete elimination of suffering at the HIGHEST level of mastery. But in its developing stages, it results in significant reductions in craving and suffering. As a stage 10 TMI meditator, you will have a highly developed equanimity. But it won't be high enough to result in full elimination of suffering permanently. That requires deeper and deeper awakenings, not just advanced Samatha development. So once you have meditative joy + tranquil contentment, you already have some degree of equanimity. But it is not enough to do advanced insight practices. You can probably get to profound equanimity occasionally in formal sits, the game plan is to get there every day. Then every sit. Then to get that equanimity in daily life. And then to start an adventure into insight development. At this point, you'll have the following skills applied both in formal sits and daily life: 1- Stable Attention & Momentary Attention (consistent upacara and kannika levels of samadhi) 2- Joy and Happiness (piti and sukha) 3- Powerful Metacognitive Awareness (satisampajanna ) 4- Tranquility and Contentment (passaddhi) 5- Profound Equanimity (upekkha) This is the end of stage 10 TMI practice. You can do many things at this point. Self-enquiry in no-mind? Go for it! You have the skills to do it. Dependent origination practice? Go for it! You have the skills to do it. Craving reduction? Go for it! You have the skills to do it. Mahamudra? Go for it! You have the skills to do it. Infinity and love? Go for it! You have the skills to do it. Compassion and Shadow work? Go for it! You have the skills to do it. Emptiness and Impermanence? Go for it! You have the skills to do it.

Some synonyms Well being Prosperity Progress Flourishing Essence Presence Protection Security Shelter Elysium Bliss Composure Equanimity Equilibrium Ataraxy Sang froid Expand Abound Thrive Vigor Wholeness Strength Maturity Eudemonia Eudaimonia Healthfulness Salubrity Comfort Eupepsia Feel good oasis Affluence Sanity Integrity Safety Prosperousness Robustness Luxury Enrichment Fitness Welfare Positive functioning

I look into your eyes I look into your eyes and see your face in pain For you are dying form the joy of seeing god Oh my god You said and paused in silence As if you stoped existing for a moment But your beautiful eyes reflected the whole existence With me and everything in it As you suffer from divine bliss I see the light in your eyes and felt the love that killed my sense of being apart I know who I see and who sees me I take a deep breath and held it in Feeling your energy flowing up into the void above my head Oh god Oh love We fell into silence not knowing what time is Dying and being alive Together and apart Loving each other for now and more So before you close your eyes Let me be with you for a little more In one moment of eternity We shall be here in bliss Together

You are not even a human being. You just are a point of awareness, coextensive with time and space and beyond both, the ultimate cause, itself uncaused. If you ask me: ‘Who are you?’ My answer would be: ‘Nothing in particular. Yet I am. • That which makes you think that you are a human is not human. It is but a dimensionless point of consciousness, a conscious nothing; all you can say about yourself is: ‘I am.’ You are pure being — awareness — bliss. To realise that is the end of all seeking. You come to it when you see all you think yourself to be as mere imagination and stand aloof in pure awareness of the transient as transient, imaginary as imaginary, unreal as unreal. It is not at all difficult, but detachment is needed. It is the clinging to the false that makes the true so difficult to see. Once you understand that the false needs time and what needs time is false, you are nearer the Reality, which is timeless, ever in the now. Eternity in time is mere repetitiveness, like the movement of a clock. It flows from the past into the future endlessly, an empty perpetuity. Reality is what makes the present so vital, so different from the past and future, which are merely mental. If you need time to achieve something, it must be false. The real is always with you; you need not wait to be what you are. Only you must not allow your mind to go out of yourself in search. When you want something, ask yourself: do I really need it? and if the answer is no, then just drop it. Nisargadatta Maharaj

Actualized.org forums is a fine community, and has been instrumental in my learning, but it's time to say goodbye. There'll come a point where you realize all form of 'seeking' is just more noise. And that left to its own devices, life will reveal the bliss you've been chasing for all this time as its inherent quality. So goodbye, and I wish you all well.

Welcome to spirituality! You're on your journey to heavenly bliss. So earthly bliss no longer seems important. I'm going through the same. I want liberation and freedom from the rules of planet earth. Spirituality is a golden dream. The rays of enlightenment touch the soul and transform the mind into an Astral body that travels through the spiritual maze of beauty and captivity. All splendor. All I need is my own company and maybe a cat. But I feel thrilled to experience the vastness of the universe, the beauty of the cosmos the infinite love from the universe filling into my body and soul and earthly entities now look so little so small, everything looks disinteresting and sometimes repugnant. It all is a distraction from the highest achievement of the soul. A thorn in the path. But the real bliss is from the universe. A godsend.

"Imagine that all around your body is an invisible field of peace and bliss. Try and surrender to that by giving in. Imagine you are expanding out of your skin to merge with that field. The obstacle will be the thoughts in your head trying to bring you back in your body. Whenever that happens, just kill the thought from the get go (clear your head) and resume. The intensity of your desire will determine your chance of success." Is this the practice you did until enlightment happened? Is this the same as feeling the sense IAM?

Sure it's a modern model used to convey the concept of infinity. In the scriptures they like to say "there is a universe in each atom, and in the atoms of that universe still more universes". It's the same concept. Well it's true, but that said, having a conceptual understanding is not the same thing as realizing it directly. For the latter case, the model is useless. In other words, I would not say that this model represents enlightenment in any meaningful or accurate way. Thank you 1. Becoming aware of consciousness directly and in the moment is the best approach. The two seemingly separate approaches you mentioned are really one and the same, they are just worded differently. When you become aware of consciousness, that results in surrender or integration (again these are the same). Focus on your direct experience, whatever it may be, and realize that whatever sensation you are experiencing is happening inside your space of consciousness AKA "You" or "I". If a car is moving in the distance, the sight of the car and the sound of its engine is happening within the same space the body is inhabiting. That's what's meant by the universe exists within (or is) consciousness itself, and that consciousnesses is you. Again, do not suffice to a conceptual imagining of what I'm saying. Really get in there and know it directly. 2. The aim is to wake up from a dream. It doesn't matter if you do it through sheer force of will and desire (ala Sivaists) or through abandoning worldly attachment (Zen etc.). In my case, I did it through intention. Concepts are useless for getting enlightened. Everything needs to happen in the moment and in your direct experience, rather than through imagination and thought. Lastly, there is no such thing as mistakenly believing yourself to be enlightened so long as you are honest with yourself. If you have doubts, you are not there yet, so be mindful of that and you should be good, desirous or not. 3. Happiness, as you know it is bondage and pain. You cannot be happy without creating the condition for misery since happiness is object-oriented. With enlightenment, the word often used is "bliss". It's inner, causeless joy accompanied by a conviction that you are in the truest sense of the word united and liberated. A person who is liberated, can experience the highest levels of pain and still be alright inside. They can experience the sensations of sadness, and still be free.

For me it is a dissolving/melting feeling of pure bliss. It feels literally like i am dissolving into Infinity. (Because that's what's happening) Its wonderful. I have never tried heroin but i imagine it couldn't even hold a candle.

To put it into context, I am 24 living in one of the metropolitan cities in India. I understand how the term Incel is derogatory to women. Women don't owe me sex. At the same time, my body (or rather I) craves for sexual contact with women, when i get horny. Solo female pornography where women display their selves, is I think one of the most beautiful things a person like me could ask for, where i can choose the women i am attracted to, and pretend to make love to her. And spill myself. In real life however, i look average. I have a girl in my life, but it is long-distance. We haven't defined the relationship yet, but we flirt a lot and act like a couple. Went out with her like 4 times in total over 3 years. Yeah, poor numbers. That being said, the amount of rejections i've had to deal with, in nightclubs or otherwise while asking someone I know on Instagram is say about 60-70 so far in total. If i go to a nightclub tomorrow, i will probably end up with a number or two, but any attractive girl I choose (I know i'm guilty of not picking the ones I don't find attractive, i don't even notice them), will have 10 other dudes texting her, and commenting on her Instagram, and so it takes a lot of investment on my part to even keep a girl's attention, and much more for her to feel the spark if I feel it too. And given how busy everyone has become with their 9 to 7 jobs, at least here, it is like that. There's no time. I know i could just sit back and relax. Focus on other intriguing aspects of life such as books, psychedelics and spirituality in a broader sense, and run the clock out, as it will. I could be genuinely fulfilled as i am when i do strong determination sittings. My parents will force an arrange marriage on me when I turn 30, but i don't like the idea. I could go to Thailand or some Latin country for sex tourism, but i don't like that idea either. At this point in my conscious evolution, i see the meaninglessness in the things that will unfold in the future. Not in a negative connotation, but a sense of indifference. It doesn't matter. and if it does, i will do it. I am a cog in a wheel. I am replaceable even by a woman i love most dearly. I have cried like 5 times in the past when that happened, but now it doesn't break my heart anymore. I try because i don't have the freewill to not try. I just don't see what is there to do or accomplish in this world, than just live it out. Am i just here on earth as a human, to rant, to do my own thing, possibly bliss out, and that's it? I just cannot come to terms with it. With it all.

I studied the etymology of the word and i'm convinced it means "One's own self". I don't believe in God as an all powerful entity that stands outside of consciousness and lords over it. Short answer: No. Thank you. I won't be here for long though 1. 25 2. Surrender. Just consume yourself with the desire to awaken. 3. I don't know fore certain. A few years, but I do believe I've put in the work in a past life. 4. A symptom of depression or deep dissatisfaction with life. Don't waste your time on nonsense. The point behind these Koans are to get your brain to be quiet, not finding and actual answer to them. Well someone told me how they had realized how everything they feel and sense happens within their space of consciousness and that flicked the switch in my brain. It's as if it was an activation phrase. Mind you, I had several spiritual experiences before this and so I had already begun to "get it" so to speak, but hearing that from another person just started a wholly automatic process. What happened was that my sense of being a person collapsed, and the consciousness which I thought was trapped in my head prior revealed itself to actually be infinite. The part about teachers being incapable of pointing it out to you is a bit of a lie. At the very least its exaggerated. That thing that they are pointing out is "you", literally ie. your direct experience. You don't need a sign to show you your direct experience. You are already keenly aware (for example your direct experience right now is one of reading these words). So then you need to get a sense of what you identify as yourself vs. not yourself (which for a typical person is defined by the boundaries of their body). Once you have that sense of what you believe is yourself vs. other, try this practice: Imagine that all around your body is an invisible field of peace and bliss. Try and surrender to that by giving in. Imagine you are expanding out of your skin to merge with that field. The obstacle will be the thoughts in your head trying to bring you back in your body. Whenever that happens, just kill the thought from the get go (clear your head) and resume. The intensity of your desire will determine your chance of success. They are all appearances within consciousness. They lose their edge so to speak. They won't bother you anymore. Yes there is. I am aware of my own past lives. When an ignorant person dies, their memories and tendencies construct a new "life" to be experienced anew. It's different for an enlightened person. For some people who awaken there is a deep desire to share the extreme joy they feel inside with others. The language used (the enlightened master vs ignorant pupil) is completely retarded from the master's point of view, but they usually roll with it due to various reasons - mostly convenience. There is quality control but it's not available to a student outside of how peaceful they feel in presence of a teacher, but even that is not good enough because people with expertise at making you feel at lease exist who have evil intentions. If you can see auras, a guru will have a pure white or blue colored-aura. There is really no such thing as partial awakening. You either get it or you don't. You might have many different realizations, but if it's not self-realization then it's not. After awakening your consciousness continues to expand infinitely. Some people also begin to develop certain abilities and powers. None of that means that new steps have been made in "deepening" one's enlightenment, though the experience becomes nicer as time passes. The actual next-step for an enlightened person happens at the moment of the body's death. The above also relates to you. The liberation you'll feel from the moment of self-realization until your death is already satisfactory enough. You won't go yearn for more, but "moksha" happens when the body dies and consciousness manages to not lose itself. When that occurs you evolve from having to need bodily incarnation to experience or enact changes to something beyond. The crossing point is the losing of one's belief that they exist inside a body, experiencing the outside world as an individual. The experience is always internal (it happens to you, by you, for you, and to you). There is no outside or inside.

Great and amazing - yes sometimes. Other times life is just a pain when I'm resisting what needs to be done. But I'm in a place where I can feel the deeper sense of ease, effortlessness, a gentle bliss beneath my surface layer of turbulence (amazing and horrible). You're right there's wisdom in changing what needs to be changed. Also wisdom in not changing anything, infinite acceptance. Relative truth is just as important as absolute truth.

Even before getting into spirituality I realized the joy of being alone, and this cured me of any feelings of loneliness, while also making deliberate socializing for the sake of socializing seem pointless. I rarely make plans to get together with friends, but I end up having some really good interactions with people at the yoga center I go to, and other times when encountering familiar faces while out and about. Other times I barely talk to anyone all day, and that's perfectly fine. When I feel really in my bliss is while I get to be home alone by myself, or out on a walk outside with no one else around. A very positive side effect of being very comfortable alone, one which I am developing more of, is I don't need to talk about myself when I do interact with friends. And so I have learned to be genuinely interested in people and be a good listener, which actually makes me more likable. The old way was using an opportunity to talk to someone to meet my own perceived social needs, and from that angle I ended up stuck in my own head blurting out things just to fill any silence and hope I am being a good enough talker.

What potential actions and paths offer the most value to yourself and your community? Have you gone through Leo's Life Purpose Course? If not, I highly recommend it. What would Love do now? --- Fruitful. Fertile. Generative. Valuable. Arable. Abundance. Value. Help. All In. Giving. Efflux. Acceptance. Patience. Beauty. Assistance. Peace. Joy. Cooperation. Creation. Intelligence. Efficiency. Grace. Passion. Vibrance. Contribution. Focus. Care. Gentle. Soothing. Inspiration. Growth. Mastery. Vision. --- “There is nothing I have to do, nowhere I have to go, and no way I have to be except exactly the way I am being right now. My happiness is knowing this, my joy is expressing it, my bliss is experiencing it.” How can I serve myself in the highest creation? How can I serve humanity today? How can I spread love to others today? How can I help others grow today? What would Love do now?

@thetrut11 You are correct about relative love. From a relative perspective, everything you say is true and I don't think anyone on the forum would disagree with you regarding relative love. You are missing something about unconditional Love. Yet you don't seem more interested in protecting your relative view as absolute, than to expand. Here is the key question for you. . . Which people should we tell it is relative? If we tell non-cannibals that cannibalism is beautiful, they will be disgusted. If we tell cannibals that cannibalism is beautiful it will resonate with them. Watch how the cannibal talks about human arms and legs in the first video. Watch interview with Jeffrey Dahmer. He was very open open about his cannibalistic nature. From their perspective, human limbs are beautiful. Observe how the man talks about human limbs in the first video, he has a deep appreciation and he is in bliss. This is undeniable. You can observe it for yourself. Obviously, the disgusting nature of cannibalism is not universal - if it was universally disgusting, there wouldn't be any cannibals! The nature of cannibalism is relative. Personally, I have the genetics and social conditioning to perceive cannibalism as being disgusting. The idea of eating another human is repulsive to me. As well, I would help protect someone from a cannibal. However, there is transcendence that is aware my orientation is relative and that a cannibal has a different relative orientation. Importantly, no one is saying the opposite to your view is universally true. Your view is that cannibalism is disgusting. No one is saying that you are wrong and that cannibalism is not disgusting - rather that it is beautiful. The point is that cannibalism is beautiful to a cannibal. This is a half-step to realizing absolute. Yet it is an important half-step. Without this half-step, a person will conflate relative and absolute - just as you are doing here.

I relate with what you said, I've lived most of my days in the solitary bliss of my room But but there's a catch. I realized that I 'need' to be alone for long periods of time after socializing. And that means that people are draining my energy. Why are they able to drain my energy? Because it is not in my control. I find superficial discussions on general life and politics very uninteresting and whenever someone starts discussing these topics, my mind wanders off into some other place, a.k.a. I lose my presence and awareness, which causes the loss of energy. If I can figure out a way to remain present equally in all scenarios, with or without people, company would be as blissful as solitude and better still, there wouldn't be much distinction between what I find interesting and what I don't find interesting. And I have a long way to go. (Do you notice how enlightened people have no need to be alone nor do they need to be around people all the time? They do whatever is necessary for whatever work they are doing.)

Okay, it has been a few years, same phantom pain but its irregular, sometimes its just pure bliss but when its there there is almost bo way getting rid of it. Sometimes there comes a deep sense of resistance to meditation that you almost makes you want to move the body psychologically. However there are some other techniques that kinda reverses the strong determination sitting principle like working with fear and completion also listening to existential truths works. Thanks!