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And brutal honesty with your present moment experience - holding the experiencer, the subject and not attaching to the forms - forms include sensations, thoughts, emotions etc. Anything in the realm of the changeful. As long as your attention is on any object, the false I is there. "Oh I am experiencing bliss, I must be enlightened etc etc" The mind will say "just being" as if it's something it can do. No, the truth is you always are that. There can be 10000 waves in your awareness that are always doing doing doing, but you are not any of them. If you isolate your current sense of subject, of self, it will slowly start to dissolve and open up the space for truth to shine through.

Savanna scatters and the seabird sings So why should we fear what travel brings? What were we hoping to get out of this? Some kind of momentary bliss? I waited for something, but something died So I waited for nothing, and nothing arrived It's our dearest ally, it's our closest friend It's our darkest blackout, it's our final end My dear sweet nothing, let's start anew From here on in, it's just me and you I waited for something, but something died So I waited for nothing, and nothing arrived Well I guess it's over, I guess it's begun It's a losers' table, but we've already won It's a funny battle, it's a constant game I guess I was busy, when nothing came I guess I was busy (when nothing arrived) I guess I was busy (when nothing arrived) I guess I was busy (when nothing arrived) I guess I was busy I waited for something, but something died So I waited for nothing, and nothing arrived I waited for something, but something died So I waited for nothing, and nothing arrived nothing arrived Great topic by the way! I heard this song before but recently I heard it again and it really clicked with me.

I don't know what exactly he said, but there are different facets and qualities that "awakenings" can take. A good teacher or certain practices can point you in a certain direction. Sat: "Mountain of peace", Beingness, more a physical quality, "enlightenment on the level of gut" Chit: "enlightnement on the level of mind", spacious, empty, consciousness, vastness Ananda: "enlightenment on the level of heart", love, bliss, intimacy These are the main qualities that an awakening beyond ego can take. It is on the "I am"-level. True enlightenment goes beyond that and includes all of it. So, a good teacher point you directly at certain of these qualities, you can get a taste even if you are not enlightened. And certain teachers / practises are concerned mainly with one quality.

That's what some people here will tell you, but I personally find that line of thought to be bullshit and the product of extremism. There are a lot of escapists here, people who don't want to deal with their responsibilities, their limitations, their flaws, their challenges, their opportunities for growth, their false sense of superiority, their false sense of inferiority, their vulnerabilities etc. They want to be gods, invulnerable, living in a state of permanent ease and bliss. They don't want to put in effort and be vulnerable and build things. The very clear reality is, each one of us is a self-contained environment, with self-contained issues that need to be handled and harmonized. This self-containment does not mean isolation or separation, no instead it means distinction and difference WHILE STILL BEING CONNECTED AND A PART OF SOMETHING BIGGER. We are both those self-contained environments and part of the larger self-contained environment that is a family or group, and a larger one that is a country, and a larger one that is humanity, and a larger one that is the planet, and a larger one that is the universe, and the largest of them all that is Life. It's a nested principle. Each nest is connected to a larger one and each nest requires time and consideration. None should be demonized or discarded as fake. They all matter. Each one superimposed on top of each other. Why choose to care about only one, when you can care about it all? Of course people will disagree with this, but in order for them to do so, they would have to discard or relinquish their consideration and responsibility for one or more of those nests, which again is bullshit, escapist, lazy, and selfish. So many of these no-self people are egotistical as fuck, to be honest with you. Their like little kids who think the whole universe revolves around them and they create it... yet they can't create a single damn thing in the physical world and instead escape to the safest and most secluded places they can find while other people take on the responsibility of life. All the while proclaiming how loving and enlightened they are. If you just fucking sit there all day, your love doesn't have shit behind it. No effort, no meaning, no actions to actually make things better and more harmonious. You have to touch the world, involve yourself in it, to be a difference.

Why would one should aim for bliss?

@Annetta I felt awesome. For like an hour haha. Then the labour of coming into that state began. But it kicked so many doors right open... painfully so in the short term, but in those doors paths that lead directly to bliss.

Shaivism (Origin: India – Started: At least 2000 years BCE) Shaivism theology ranges from Shiva being the creator, preserver, destroyer to being the same as the Atman (self, soul) within oneself and every living being […] It is the Hindu tradition that most accepts ascetic life and emphasizes yoga, and like other Hindu traditions encourages an individual to discover and be one with Shiva within. God (Shiva) is within man, God is within every being, God is present everywhere in the world including all non-living beings, and there is no spiritual difference between life, matter, man and God. Zoroastrianism (Origin: India/Iran – Started : 2000 years BCE) There is only one God, the singularly creative and sustaining force of the Universe. In Zoroastrianism, Ahura Mazda is the beginning and the end, the creator of everything that can and cannot be seen, the Eternal, the Pure and the only Truth. Zoroastrianism's divinity covers both being and mind as immanent entities, it is better described as a belief in an immanent self-creating universe with consciousness as its special attribute. In Zoroastrianism, the purpose in life is to "be among those who renew the world...to make the world progress towards perfection". Its basic maxims include: Humata, Hukhta, Huvarshta, which mean: Good Thoughts, Good Words, Good Deeds. There is only one path and that is the path of Truth. Do the right thing because it is the right thing to do, and then all beneficial rewards will come to you also. Jainism (Origin: India – Started: At least to the 6th century BCE) Jain texts reject the idea of a creator or destroyer God and postulate an eternal universe. Jainism has been described as a transtheistic religion, as it does not teach the dependency on any supreme being for enlightenment. The tirthankara is a guide and teacher who points the way to enlightenment, but the struggle for enlightenment is one's own. Jain texts propound that the universe was never created, nor will it ever cease to exist. It is independent and self-sufficient, and does not require any superior power to govern it. According to Jain belief, souls, intrinsically pure, possess the qualities of infinite knowledge, infinite perception, infinite bliss, and infinite energy in their ideal state. In reality, however, these qualities are found to be obstructed due to the soul's association with karmic matter. The ultimate goal in Jainism is the realization of reality For Jains, non-absolutism means maintaining open-mindedness. This includes the recognition of all perspectives and a humble respect for differences in beliefs. Jainism encourages its adherents to consider the views and beliefs of their rivals and opposing parties, including other religions. Buddhism (Origin : India – Started : Between the 6th and 4th centuries BCE) Early Buddhist canonical texts and early biographies of Buddha state that Gautama studied under Vedic teachers [...] learning meditation and ancient philosophies, particularly the concept of "nothingness, emptiness" from the former, and "what is neither seen nor unseen" from the latter. According to Buddhism there ultimately is no such thing as a self in any being or any essence in any thing. The nirvana state has been described in Buddhist texts partly in a manner similar to other Indian religions, as the state of complete liberation, enlightenment, highest happiness, bliss, fearlessness, freedom, permanence, non-dependent origination, unfathomable, indescribable. It has also been described in part differently, as a state of spiritual release marked by "emptiness" and realization of non-Self. This insight in the Mahayana tradition, states Shōhei Ichimura, has been the "insight of non-duality or the absence of reality in all things". Nirvana In the Buddhist context, nirvana refers to realization of non-self and emptiness, marking the end of rebirth by stilling the fires that keep the process of rebirth going. Bodhi (Enlightenment) It is the mind's natural and pure state, where no distinction is being made between a perceiving subject and perceived objects. Taoism (Origin : Chinese – Started: At least to the 4th century BCE) The Tao is a fundamental idea in most Chinese philosophical schools; in Taoism, however, it denotes the principle that is both the source, pattern and substance of everything that exists. Tao literally means [...] "the One, which is natural, spontaneous, eternal, nameless, and indescribable. It is at once the beginning of all things and the way in which all things pursue their course." It has variously been denoted as the "flow of the universe" […] The Tao also is something that individuals can find immanent in themselves. Human beings are seen as a microcosm of the universe […] As a consequence, it is believed that deeper understanding of the universe can be achieved by understanding oneself. Taoism rejects the Confucianist emphasis on rituals, hierarchical social order, and conventional morality, and favors naturalness, spontaneity, and individualism instead. Taoist ethics vary depending on the particular school, but in general tend to emphasize wu wei (effortless action), "naturalness", simplicity, spontaneity, and the Three Treasures: 慈 "compassion", 儉 "frugality", and 不敢為天下先 "humility" Neoplatonism (Origin: Athens – Started : 3rd century BCE) The work of Neoplatonic philosophy involved describing the derivation of the whole of reality from a single principle, "the One." Source, Absolute, or One is what all things spring from According to Plotinus, The One is not a conscious god with intent nor a godhead nor a conditioned existing entity of any kind, rather a requisite principle of totality which is also the source of ultimate wisdom. One must become "God" (henosis). This is reached through contemplation of the primeval Being, the One — in other words, through an ecstatic approach to it. Thought cannot attain to this, for thought reaches only to the nous, and it itself is a kind of motion. It is only in a state of perfect passivity and repose that the soul can recognise and touch the primaeval Being. Beginning with the contemplation of corporeal things in their multiplicity and harmony, it then retires upon itself and withdraws into the depths of its own being, rising thence to the nous, the world of ideas. But, even there, it does not find the Highest, the One; it still hears a voice saying, "not we have made ourselves". The last stage is reached when, in the highest tension and concentration, beholding in silence and utter forgetfulness of all things, it is able, as it were, to lose itself. Then it sees God, the foundation of life, the source of being, the origin of all good, the root of the soul. In that moment, it enjoys the highest indescribable bliss; it is, as it were, swallowed up by divinity, bathed in the light of eternity. Gnosticism (Origin : Jewish – Started : 1st century CE) In many Gnostic systems (and heresiologies), God is known as the Monad, the One. The Sethian hidden transcendent God is, by contrast, defined through negative theology: he is immovable, invisible, intangible, ineffable; commonly, "he" is seen as being hermaphroditic, a potent symbol for being, as it were, "all-containing". Christian Mysticism (Origin : Jewish – Started : 2nd century CE) Bernard McGinn defines Christian mysticism as: [T]hat part, or element, of Christian belief and practice that concerns the preparation for, the consciousness of, and the effect of [...] a direct and transformative presence of God. ...new ways of knowing and loving based on states of awareness in which God becomes present in our inner acts. Religion is based on a feeling of the infinite. Mysticism thus becomes seen as a personal matter of cultivating inner states of tranquility and equanimity "one of the immortal spirits waiting to introduce the reader to his own unique and intense experience of reality" The path of illumination, has to do with the activity of the Holy Spirit enlightening the mind, giving insights into truths not only explicit in scripture and the rest of the Christian tradition, but also those implicit in nature, not in the scientific sense, but rather in terms of an illumination of the "depth" aspects of reality and natural happenings, such that the working of God is perceived in all that one experiences. The awakening, the stage in which one begins to have some consciousness of absolute or divine reality. Dzogchen (Origin: Tibetan – Started: 8th century CE) Rigpa is a central concept in Dzogchen. It is "reflexively self-aware primordial wisdom,"which is self-reflexively aware of itself as unbounded wholeness. "In Gelug, the conscious experience is some level of blissful awareness of voidness." The Dzogchen meditation practices also include a series of exercises known as Semdzin (sems dzin), which literally means "to hold the mind" or "to fix mind." The practice of Trekchö […] In this practice one first identifies, and then sustains recognition of, one's own innately pure, empty awareness. Insight leads to nyamshag, "being present in the state of clarity and emptiness". Sufism (Origin : Islam – Started : 9th century CE) Haqiqa (which means « ultimate truth ») In Universal Sufism, Haqiqat is the "phase" in which the central ongoing question/concern of the seeker is subsistent (as opposed to transient) reality. The life of the seeker becomes a fathoming device in which what is timeless, formless, weightless etc, is recognized and valued above all. Entering into marifat in Universal Sufism, the seeker no longer asserts or defines anything […] Or better said, all conversation topics are of equal interest. The seeker's life is then, itself, revelation. Fakir In mystical usage, the word fakir refers to man's spiritual need for God, who alone is self-sufficient. "Faqir attains eternity by dissolving himself in oneness of Allah. He, when, eliminates his-self from other than Allah, his soul reaches to divinity." They were known as performers 'mad' in a worshiping trance of joy - transcending above both good and bad. [...] They believe the soul that lives in all human bodies is God. Kabbalah (Origin : Jewish – Started: 12th century CE) Kabbalah is a set of esoteric teachings meant to explain the relationship between an unchanging, eternal, and mysterious Ein Sof (infinity) and the mortal and finite universe (God's creation). The nature of the divine prompted kabbalists to envision two aspects to God: (a) God in essence, absolutely transcendent, unknowable, limitless Divine simplicity, and (b) God in manifestation, the revealed persona of God through which he creates and sustains and relates to mankind. Kabbalists speak of the first as Ein/Ayn Sof (אין סוף "the infinite/endless", literally "that which has no limits"). God's existence is higher than anything that this world can express, yet he includes all things of this world within his Divine reality in perfect unity, so that the Creation effected no change in him at all. Compassionate actions are often impossible without faith (Emunah), meaning to trust that God always supports compassionate actions even when God seems hidden. Ultimately, it is necessary to show compassion toward oneself too in order to share compassion toward others. Sikhism (Origin : India – Started : 15th century CE) Sikhism rejects claims that any particular religious tradition has a monopoly on Absolute Truth. Guru Nanak taught that living an "active, creative, and practical life" of "truthfulness, fidelity, self-control and purity" is above the metaphysical truth In Sikhism, the concept of "God" is Vāhigurū—is shapeless, timeless, and invisible "God" is omnipresent and infinite with power over everything "There is but one all-pervading spirit, and truth is its name! It exists in all creation; it does not fear; it does not hate; it is timeless and universal and self-existent, You will come to know it through seeking knowledge and learning! (meditation and self-inquiry)" Once truth starts to shine in a person's heart, the essence of current and past holy books of all religions is understood by the person. The goal of man, taught the Sikh Gurus, is to end all dualities of "self and other, I and not-I", attain the "attendant balance of separation-fusion, self-other, action-inaction, attachment-detachment, in the course of daily life". Transcendantalism (Origin: USA – Started: Early 19th century CE) Transcendentalists also believe that all people possess a piece of the "Over-soul" (God). Because the Over-soul is one, this unites all people as one being. Neo-Advaita (Origin : USA – Started : Mid 20th century CE) The basic practice of neo-Advaita is self-inquiry, via the question "Who am I?", or simply the direct recognition of the non-existence of the "I" or "ego." This recognition is taken to be equal to the Advaita Vedanta recognition of the identity of Atman and Brahman, or the recognition of the "Formless Self." Christian Science (Origin: England – Started: 19th century CE) In particular, adherents subscribe to a radical form of philosophical idealism, believing that reality is purely spiritual and the material world an illusion. Eddy saw humanity as an "idea of Mind" that is "perfect, eternal, unlimited, and reflects the divine," according to Bryan Wilson; what she called "mortal man" is simply humanity's distorted view of itself. Eddy viewed God not as a person, but as "All-in-all." "for God is one, Time is one, Individuality is one, and may be one of a series, one of many, as an individual man, individual horse; whereas God is one, not one of a series, but one alone and without an equal." The Infinite Way (Origin : US – Started : 20th century) The Infinite Way reveals the nature of God to be one infinite power, intelligence, and love; the nature of the individual being to be one with God's qualities and character, expressed in infinite forms and variety; and the nature of the discords of this world to be a misconception of God's expression of Himself in His universe." "'The Infinite Way' is not a religion... but an experience in spiritual living. New Age (Origin: Western countries – Started: Late 20th century) This intentional vagueness as to the nature of divinity also reflects the New Age idea that divinity cannot be comprehended by the human mind or language. There are nevertheless a number of traits that are repeatedly associated with divinity in New Age literature, the first of which is the idea that it is holistic, thus frequently being described with such terms as an "Ocean of Oneness", "Infinite Spirit", "Primal Stream", "One Essence", and "Universal Principle".A second common trait is the characterisation of divinity as "Mind", "Consciousness", and "Intelligence", while a third is the description of divinity as a form of "energy". A fourth trait is the characterisation of divinity as a "life force", the essence of which is creativity, while a fifth is the concept that divinity consists of love. The New Age worldview emphasises holism and the idea that everything in existence is intricately connected as part of a single whole, in doing so rejecting both the dualism of Judeo-Christian thought and the reductionism of Cartesian science. "Higher Self" which is a part of the human but which connects with the divine essence of the universe, and which can advise the human mind through intuition. Actualized.org (Origin: But Leo ... - Started: HEYYYYYYYYYYY)

@Loreena, in my opinion it does to a certain degree. Before I started working in my profession I had just enough money to live my student life. Then, when I began working I got enough money to not care any more how much I spent on my groceries, whether I can go the bar with my friends this weekend, whether I can share a beautiful dinner with a woman and take her out. And this gives at least me some kind of freedom. It supports the life that I want to live, so it's a basis in a sense. However, it won't make you happy in the way you want to be happy. When you share a deep conversation with a friend, when you are in love, when you have a great meditation or an enlightenment experience you tap into a kind of bliss that is so beautiful and spontaneous that you'll instantly recognize that everything material you can possess cannot compete with that.

@Socrates If you find your life purpose, that will serve as the backbone for much of your education guidance. But also nonduality, etc is sure to come in handy no matter where you go. Just following your curiosity and bliss is also a good way to go. Study what you LOVE. Yes, more great books coming.

If you meditate, love will follow; if you love, meditation will follow. Meditation is easier, love is difficult. Meditation means living with oneself, forgetting the other completely – it is a less difficult dimension than love. Love and meditation are two aspects of the same coin; if you have gained control of the one aspect, the other follows. A glimpse of bliss, love, means you had come close. But glimpses are bound to be lost. Meditation can, at the most, give only a glimpse. But do not stop there; do not get stuck looking for that same glimpse again and again. Then one has to go ahead.

@Annetta @Toby We are born alone, we live alone, and we die alone. Aloneness is our very nature, but we are not aware of it. Because we are not aware of it, we remain strangers to ourselves, and instead of seeing our aloneness as a tremendous beauty and bliss, silence and peace, at-easeness with existence, we misunderstand it as loneliness. Loneliness is a misunderstood aloneness. Once you misunderstand your aloneness as loneliness, the whole context changes. Aloneness has a beauty and grandeur, a positivity; loneliness is poor, negative, dark, dismal. Everybody is running away from loneliness. It is like a wound; it hurts. To escape from it, the only way is to be in a crowd, to become part of a society, to have friends, to create a family, to have husbands and wives, to have children. In this crowd, the basic effort is that you will be able to forget your loneliness. But nobody has ever succeeded in forgetting it. That which is natural to you, you can try to ignore -- but you cannot forget it; it will assert again and again. And the problem becomes more complex because you have never seen it as it is; you have taken it for granted that you are born lonely. The dictionary meaning is the same; that shows the mind of the people who create dictionaries. They don't understand at all the vast difference between loneliness and aloneness. Loneliness is a gap. Something is missing, something is needed to fill it, and nothing can ever fill it because it is a misunderstanding in the first place. As you grow older, the gap also grows bigger. People are so afraid to be by themselves that they do any kind of stupid thing. I have seen people playing cards alone; the other party is not there. They have invented games in which the same person plays cards from both sides. Somehow one wants to remain engaged. That engagement may be with people, may be with work.... There are workaholics; they are afraid when the weekend comes close -- what are they going to do? And if they don't do anything, they are left to themselves, and that is the most painful experience. People are playing cards, chess; people are watching television for hours. People are listening to the radio... just to avoid themselves. For all these activities, the only reason is -- not to be left alone; it is very fearful. And this idea is taken from others. Those who have known aloneness say something absolutely different. They say there is nothing more beautiful, more peaceful, more joyful than being alone. But you listen to the crowd. Millions of people agree that to be left to oneself is the worst experience in life; it is hell. First basic thing is to know your aloneness absolutely. This escape from yourself you have learned from the crowd. Because everybody is escaping, you start escaping. Every child is born in a crowd and starts imitating people; what others are doing, he starts doing. He falls into the same miserable situations as others are in, and he starts thinking that this is what life is all about. And he has missed life completely.

@Dingus The trap is that many seekers use the "illusion" as a means of escape, with hope that they can rest in non-duality for the rest of their life and then pass away. 1. This will make enlightenment impossible. 2. If there iss suffering created within the illusion, then surely bliss can be created as well!

I've been thinking about this for quite awhile and it's been holding me back in my ability to find meaning and inspiration in life. I mean if reality is meaningless and there is no good or evil, then how can the so-called "positive" emotions like passion, bliss, joy etc. be actually positive, are they just an illusion? The same goes for negative emotions...

@username IN a way yeah. At the same time mindfulness is just a very very beginning stage of this. You gotta kinda notice the nervous system. But then it becomes redundant. What is really important is love! The quickest path to enlightenment (ok im not enlightened so this is a total pretense) is loving yourself relentlessly. Love yourself and watch every emotion transform into goodness. And soon enough, this goodness will start matching the bliss of existence. And as those 2 vibrations get aligned, you merge with your infinite nature.

@electroBeam Awareness is always there, it is you, its the presence. There is nothing behind YOU and IT because YOU are IT. Always have been. EGO = overstimulated nervous system You can imagine awareness being this vast sea of bliss and presence. At the same time there is this little "ball of emotions and thoughts and sensations" screaming HEEY YO LOOK AT ME! HERE! THERE'S LOADS OF SHIT GOING ON! HEY! ME! MMEEEE!! LALALAL DADADADADAD MEE MEE MEMEM MEE TOODLE DOODLE POOPY DOO So awareness is like. WOaaah. Look! There is so much interesting shit going on!!!!! Emotions, thoughts, sensations.... SO COOL! Let me identify with that so I can get to know it better! So you go and you calm down the nervous system. That is why I love shadow-work. Because until you do enough of clearing out your negative beliefs, and your emotions and recations calm down, you, as a body/mind complex will literally stop being that interesting to awareness, and you will in a sense explode into open space realizing that you have never been that interesting ball of attention seeking sensations!

Every seeker is in this situation: you don't know what you are seeking, you don't know what the goal is, you don't know where you are going, why you are going. But if he has not escaped, not turned his back and run about in the world, he will laugh and smile, because out of this night such a beautiful morning. We are too much attached to the body, it seems like death; because we think the body is our life, we think it is terrible. And this is one of the greatest preparations for death. One day death will come: before it comes, you will be ready, you will be ready to die! Out of this troubled state, out of this hell and fear and anguish , you will find absolute bliss.

You made me laugh out loud! I'm fascinated however, by the possibilities with mocro-dosing acid or mushrooms, etc. Need to do some research. I'm wondering as well if you can micro-dose for months and then go to a full dose and have full effect when desired. Likely, as by micro-dosing you haven't so radically depleted your fun brain chemicals. The thing is, I often forget how awesome and fascinating life is, and when I do get into altered states - I actually do feel the God-consiousness strongly when I go for it. It's that realization that brings the tears and exposes the love for all all all all. Also, when in an entheogenic altered state I am not inspired, I AM INSPIRATION EMBODIED, fueled by pure love and fascination and beingness. I could play guitar and keyboards all night while barely being able to wait to draw, paint, 3D model, and then I want to bask in music for hours and hours, lost and in love. Then I want 4 hours of slow intimacy with someone that wants the same. I feel a bit weak sometimes, when I realize that a substance will catalyze my love for life and all manifestations within, and I so easily and habitually draw down into a morass of self-doubt and mickey-mouse living when not all enhanced and altered. Splitting fine hairs here, I know - as it all points to a lesson to learn, and a realization that if I can rule my world like a majestic god of creation and pure life consiousness when tripping along, I have everything within me to achieve this bliss of creation and love for all 'isness' every day, regardless of tabs, blotters, and fun fun fungi. They sure are awesome pointers though eh? But, you know... people regularly dose their day with big-pharma commercial crap ssri's, for just that same reason; reduced self-sabotage and enhancing day to day functionality.

I think the mix of pain and sex is very interesting to look at if we want to get another perspective on this topic. The people who are into BDSM manage to use pain and suffering in a pleasurable way. I think it's a matter of opening your heart. If you truly believe and know that the pain and suffering in your life has amazing lessons to teach you, that they will lead you straight to new insights about yourself and the world you can experience these specific feelings in a new way. If you know that there's no distinction between pain and bliss, that they walk hand in hand, you could even be grateful when you're in pain because you know it will lead you to greater bliss. I already gave this example once but basically imagine this : if you knew you'd have to suffer intensely hard during 100 days, but after that you'd live forever in complete amazing bliss, you'd take the chance right away to suffer a 100 days. You'd have a hard time the first 10 days, but by day 50 you'd be counting down the days, looking forward to the end. You'd be in peace, because you know for sure that soon the pain will be gone. Peace in suffering and pain, is knowing that the suffering and pain is leading you to a greater place. It's not an obstacle, it's a stairway. To nurture this trust, to nurture this acceptance, is to nurture the inner fire that will you keep you warm and loved at all times, no matter what happens to you. when one closes their heart to pain and suffering, then it becomes very hard to live, any negative event that happens to you or someone else becomes torturous. If you open your heart and believe in the insights of negative events, if you believe in the positivity in the negativity, then it becomes easier to go through pain and suffering and to see others go through pain and suffering...easier and easier till you don't even notice when you're in ''pain and suffering'', because it has become a part of you, because even in ''pain and suffering'' you have this amazing joy in trusting the process, the growth, a joy that illuminates the pain and suffering and thus ''it'' disappears. And it appears that ''it'' was merely a negative definition of a part of your life.

Such tears, much bliss, wow LOVE http://www.wakingtimes.com/2014/11/14/god-true-teachings-jesus/

So I´v been sitting on my 5-meo not using it for months now , one reason for that is that I have had enormous respect for this substance and that I don´t want to leave anything by chance when tripping, even though I knew deep inside that´s not possible with this substance. So finally this week I had my first trip, my plan was to move forward really slow and safe with this so I tried to weigh out 10mg on my scale, turned into 11mg, had a hot shower, half a cop of coffee, half a spoon of honey, got myself together and snorted it up. I was expecting a hell of a burn in the nose but it was not that bad at all, just a little sensation. I layed down on the bed in my hotel room opened up my body and did some conscious breathing - inhale on 1,2,3,4,5,6 then micropause and exhale on 1,2,3,4,5,6, through the nose the slowest and deepest I could, waiting for the kick in. After 5-7 min I felt things started to happen, my heart was beating faster and faster and I just continued counting 1,2,3... Then after 12-14 min I knew I had made it through the come up and the plateau was coming. Very, very nice, I became very peaceful, still and happy. I have been so afraid for this! I thought, ok it was only 11mg but still...now I know how to do it. I looked out through the window and I saw some green grass, threes, a dutch truck with som orange and green colours, and birds. Everything was telling me - come play with us, it´s a play. I felt joy and warmth in my heart. Everything looked so still, peaceful and in a flow, like in slowmotion. After 1 hour I was back to base, happier than before and with no side effects from the trip. A very mild and positive first trip. Second trip, this time I took 18 mg with the same set and setting but in the nighttime. The com up went good this time too, when the plateau came this time it was very different from the first time, my sense of time disappeared, I layed down in my bed with closed eyes and it felted like a vast hole opened up inside of me from very it pored out light and fire, very beautiful and hard to describe. I knew that I had touched something that I´ve never touched before inside of me. Third trip, because i wanted to play this safe when last time was very powerful and mysterious I,ll do 13mg this time I and work on with my technic, I thought. So I weight out 13mg and it hits me that the scale didn't respond to the first grains i was putting in and it did look a lot more than last time, but since I had just calibrated this new expensive scale I didn't give it a second thought. (the dot that indicate that the scale is straight was totally out of position, didn't even know that there was a dot for that on the scale, the amount I had weight up was approximately 30-40mg I realized later.) Now I snorted this like a walk in the park, layed down on the bed and counted 1,2,3...after 10 min this hits me so hard and I just know something must have been wrong on the scale. My heart was beating like never before and I felt I was going far away, oh fuck I'm breaking through was my last thought. Then very mysterious things happen and I was in total bliss, even though I vas feeling very sick most of the time and on the edge of throwing up. This state that I used to hate more than anything, when you´re about to throw up! Now I didn´t even want it to be different, because I knew - it can´t be different. After maybe 30 min I went to the toilet, looked at myself in the mirror and laughed. So you finally made it, you found me I said quiet, knowing that I had access to an enormous power that had nothing to do with this body. There is no-one home in this person that i´m looking at, just a shell, everything that is worth something is flowing through this shell. This shell is just something because of the one life that is flowing through it. Nothing comes from this shell. Now, this moment God have found itself through this shell that was nothing but an empty shell all the time, what a play! At this point I had no questions, nothing could be more beautiful than this, everything was answered because I didn't have a need to know anything. The day after - I´m a little bit confused now and I will now work to integrate this in my everyday life which will be quite a task. 5-Meo has shown me my true nature. Looking back, the thoughts and fears around this substance that I had was way worse than it was to actually take it.

all of it is pain and suffering. there is nothing wrong with the way world is. but there is nothing wrong with the way you view the world either, it's part of your spiritual growth to go through this negativity the first step to enlightenment is realizing the gap between your current intelligence and the intelligence of the universe, which is infinite. not only to humble yourself, but open your mind to new perspective. the world as it is, is an empty circumstance, you assign the meaning you want to it, the illusion is that one might think that the world has inherent meaning and you're merely observing what's going on. This is the illusion most of us are under. You are the creator. You can see the glass as half full or half empty, this is really what this stuff comes down to. Positive or negative. You can chose to see the bad in the world and believe in that or you can chose to see the good and believe in that. the problem is that negativity is of lower intelligence, it leads to fear, distinction, separation, conflict and self-violence and violence. While positivity is of higher intelligence, it leads to open-mindedness, connection, exploration,curiosity, clarity. it's hard to get this, if you don't get how deep and overwhelming the meaning you assign to the world shapes your awareness of it. I've done a lot of psychedelics so I explored states of being where I felt completely peaceful, sometimes in complete bliss, in the same world that I thought was so shitty. How could I feel so good if the world was so ''fucked up'' as I used to think? it made it easier for me to realize the deep impact my view of the world has on the way I experience it. I'm a thousand miles away from needing psychedelics to feel good about the world now,I can assure you that if you open your heart and your mind, to positive definitions about the world, you will be amazed by the things you will understand. this world is amazing, but it takes you to raise your intelligence to get why it is, it takes you to raise your sensibility, so it takes you to raise your spiritual vibration and you will get all that. You need to grow spiritually to get what's going on and why it's going on. it's a matter of trust, you can't make these spiritual insights come down to you if you keep believing in negative stuff that you make you feel bad. this knowledge won't flow down to you while you're hanging on these dark ideas about the world. first you need to release these concepts, and be in a state of openness, a state of not knowing. to be able to be in a state where you consciously know that you don't know shit about the world and about what's going on in it is the highway to spiritual growth. literally objectively you are not wrong, if the world feels shitty to you then it is shitty. but know that the world is not a static circumstance, it could be an amazing place, you are the one creating your awareness of the world....the world could feel amazing or it could feel shitty, there is no truth,there is no right or wrong, you chose how the world is, that's your power as a creator of your own reality. I really mean it, I had a few months where my mantra, my way of growing was constantly repeating to myself : ''I don't know shit, I don't know anything, I don't know shit about what's going, I have not a single clue what is going on, I know nothing, nothing at all, I know nothing, call me Jon snow'' slowly as I practiced a humble state of not knowing did I start to actually know more. you have to be humble and open-minded to receive knowledge from your higher self. how can you grow spiritually if you think you've got the world figured out? where is the space to grow if you think you know everything about how the world works? How could you possible learn something new if you think you're on to everything? be aware of that

@zazed I agree. The circular thought processes are especially a problem for people suffering with anxiety. Thats actually the entire problem. From my perspective, first I learned that a thought is just a sensation. I had never thought about it before, but it is. Then I started to look at it in terms of identification. I do not identify with tastes, touch, sound, etc. So my mind said, well I must be the totality of my sensation. That cant be right either, because that would mean that I wouldn't exist between sensations. This is when I realized that everything is arising in nothing. "I" am the nothing in which it arises. This is where I started to identify with what is outside my body. It makes way more sense that we are that, rather than the body. Recently, I have been watching me thoughts. When they arise, how they arise, etc. I have been going through the process of dis-identifying with them. I can't control them, so now I observe them like a sound. When I really started doing this, I would have moments where there was no middle man between me and what occurs. My body just moves and it's really weird, like I'm not necessarily in control of it, but also, I know its coming. It is complete engrossment in what is going on around me. I went through a few cycles of that over time, as I tried to kind of figure out what the me thought was. Then the realization hit me that the me thought never really carried the meaning that had been assigned to it. it was an mascarading as the executive that was seeking, and really controlling everything. That has been the emphasis, until this morning, i was driving to school and I guess it just sunk in that the thought that was occurring was a me thought, and it was only arising in me. This thought rolled through my head: The me thought is swimming in an ocean of nothing. After that the thoughts kind of stopped arising and I felt physically just like I did after my awakening. Blissful. during class, it seemed like my body was on autopilot. I felt as though I was only in the background, watching. That sounds like it would be a terrifying experience, but it is the best feeling. Words dont do it justice. It is sort of like a yoyo. The identification breaks down in waves and true identity becomes more and more established. I know this time that the bliss wont last, but I don't care. The ego is losing its control, and this morning was a big step in that direction. It's funny how living as nothing feels more real than when I thought i was something. I don't feel like this is happening to me, but I dont really know how else to write it without using that language.

Same here ryan iam going through same thing. Last year was kind of very emotional for me and not anymore coz of meditation. But now i dont care about anything and there is lack of enthusiasm. on things like relationship and all i dont even care i dont even care to speak to my family members. .I know my life purpose and all but it is not motivating me much. i had a small Truth experience four weeks back (a day of bliss) and after that i reduced meditation time to half hour and even stopped Self enquiry and mindfulness.. last two days iam kind of doing shadow work to know what is happening but no result yet. (I even raised my voice at mom and throwed pillow that kept under my hands at her for disturbing me during meditation since i was in meditation i could notice there wasnt no anger or anything in me and i started laughing. ya apathy and turning nuts ?)

I painstakingly wrote the entire transcript because this video for me is probably the most important video or message of my life. It opened the road to self-actualization for which I will forever be indebted and grateful. If it inspires you, then I am glad. This was the first video that opened my eyes and for the first I saw how important it is to focus on self and changing oneself in order to see a change in life... ..............So Enjoy The transcript is typed a little haphazardly. So I apologize for that. Mattieu is very gifted scientist who became a buddhist monk. He was regarded as the one of the most promising scientist of his generation. Sorry biologist. I took it from web. He completed his PHd thesis in 1972 before like most of you were born.and unfortunately he wasn't able to join google at that time. So he went to nepal and became a biologist. Now thats kidding. He became a monk. He has lived and studies in the himalayas for the past 35 years where he has been doing humanitarian projects. . Mathieu is also a best selling author.he is a translator and he is a photographer. And all these pictures they are taken by him. He is also an active prticipant in current scientific research on meditation and the brain. And inmany of the those studies he is the brain. So mathiey so he wrote an entire book on happiness. Its honour and pleasure form me to welcome mattieu ricard in our presence. There called noora nasrudden. He asked how do you know its me. Enjoyabl eplace i see people with their swimming trunks moving in the alleys going to the swimming pool Occasonaly meng as he leaves his massage chair to go to his office. So definitely i would like to work here. this is better than being at home. So probably i have nothing to teach you about happiness. Someone told me equally that I should never have written this book because i never suffered very much in my life i am the last person to write a book on happiness and suffering. So anyway. I though to share few ideas because they were very dear to me. ............. ..... This came through meeting beings of great wisdom. It sort of started like that. We speak of leadership. Leadership has to be someone who somehow inspires you the potential that you can actualize, showing you what you could become. And give you a sense of direction and inspiration. Thats not very frequent in life.i was quite lucky in my teens to be born in a family in France where my father was a philosopher and we so got all these poets and thinkers at home My mother was an artist and all these soriya painters coming becaue of the muscial connections when i was 16 years old i had lunch with Stravinsky himself just for 2 hours with three people all together my uncle was an explorer. He went around the world on an board after the second world war and worldclass of eccentric friends Such as one when we went to paris there was a small note on his door saying i left on foot to Timbaktu. And things like that. So lot of wonderful people. And in science of course... The lab i was working with 2 three nobel prize winners in medicine jakolt mono and wolfe at Pasteur Institiute .So it was very exciting very there was definitely lot of people to look at as to know what could i do what could i be inspired . At the same time definitely i would have wish to play the piano you know like Stater srivester or the chess like bobby fisher. I dont know if you remember bobby fisher . But Who wants to become Bobby Fisher. So there was some kind of discrepancy you know you could take 100 governors and you will have a number of wonderful people and some governors who are quite short-tempered not so as to deal with but the same thing with philosophers same thing with scientists same thing with artists no matter what their particular skill or genius was there was no correlation as such between their human quality and their particular genius. So you could try to pick up things and make your own salad and try to but thats somehow didnt seem bit artificial.Like making a palace of all that and think its going to work. So then I was lucky enough to travel to the Himalayas. And Then i met something different. I saw men of wisdom men and women of wisdom. What was bit special about them and they are all great tibetan teachers who have fled the invasion of tibet and towards india and other places.I didnt really care so much what they knew themselves you know poetry tibetan grammar and even buddhist philosophy in the beginning that was not my interest at all.but what they were that was inspiring the quality. The human quality and then i thought how i would become like them not just know what they know. And because there was a kind of a The first trigger was seeing a documentalry movie on some of the great teachers and some friend of mine those and at the end of the documentary there was a five minute silence upon one face of the meditators and hermits and spiritual teachers the dalai lama one after another just like silent it was so powerful. I thought like 20 socrates or 20 senfosis or fasisceists whoever .you feel like representing them wisdom of humanity just there alive in all times and so i thought where i should go to see and that was very interesting because Somehow someone like that and i am going to show some images show you what you could become its a source of inspiration. Give you that that this is possible you know somebody made it somehow then of course you get interest in how.first you have to see that it makes sesnse . So also in the course of living in the himalayas. After a while travelling back and forth . Some of the things became quite clear. You know what brings a sense of fulfillment in life. And it seems that we so much put our hopes and fears in the outer conditions.So now.Lets be clear from the beginning. Its its we want outer conditions to be optimal compared to 150 years ago when the life expectancy even in europe was like 30 years and now who doesn’t want to live long to be healthy to have access to education to have a wonderful working place harmonious human relations in one’s family and friends with people living in country where there is peace where there is not a oppressive regime so all that we deeply sort of yearn for that and thats right. WE ought to develop that to the maximum we can to and especially . In a world where there is far from being granted for many many places of the world where 3000 children still die everyday of malaria and all that you know and there is so much to do just to bring those minimum outer conditions. Yet its quite clear too that if we only put our hopes and fears in the outer world we Its not going to work in our search for direction for meaning for genuine sense of fulfillment and accomplishment what we would call genuine happiness. genuine happiness does not mean pleasant feelings one after the other each one more and more intense piling them up renewing them seeking them and then falling out collapsing of exhaustion at the end . Thats not going to work . So its more like a cluster of qualities that we can develop as skills you know openness genuine altruistic love compassion inner strength some kind of inner peace and then that gives you a sense of confidence thats not just like the false confidence of arrogance but confidence that you are less vulnerable and therefore more ready also to be of service of others and contribute to a more compassionate society that gives you better way of flourishing yourself and others and because less means more confidence means less feelings of insecurity or fears then more readiness to be there for others. So its quite clear that outer conditions themselves are not enough however necessary or useful they might be. Not enough because we also can clearly see that our state of mind the way we interpret and translate those outer conditions in our inner sort of experience are what really determines states of well being and or misery and the state of mind can easily override those outer conditions. 11:17 We can feel terrible in a little paradise and we can feel still very strong and joyful to go about one’s life and contribute to the happiness of others even in the face of adversity and So dalai lama once gave this striking example if you move in a very luxurious flat at 100 floor of a hi-tech skyscraper for the first time you just bought it and then you are totally ruined within destroyed in your your heart and in your mind all you are going to look for is a window from which to jump, On the other hand you could have this great joy to be alive and petty and whatever all those human qualities even when you know when the outer conditions doesn’t seem nice at all because your state of mind is stronger.And that such a fortunate situation. Because imagine that to find happiness 12:16 The world will have to be the image of your desire your fancies. the universe will have to be vast catalogue in which you can order all the ingredients for happiness.forget it. No Its never going to happen like that. There should be 6 billion catalogues and everyone will choose different items and they will never work. So but no this is not just a it seems obvious but great thinkers thought otherwise. Emmanuel Cant wrote complete happiness will be the complete fulfillment of all our desires in quantity quality and duration.now. Just the whole idea of happiness goes to the drain . this would never happen never how can that be and anyway in permanence is there even if you had for a fraction of a second everything to be happy then one piece was turning to be missing the next day so again collapse. It doesnt work. And we know in real life as i remember once going to tahiti with the young abbot of my monastery first two buddhist monks in tahiti was big news So in the ....... In the ....in the ....yes ..so in the evening news there were two big items . They found a snake in the forest there are no snakes in tahiti and second item two buddhist monks arrived in tahiti. SO The next day we were in this wonderful like postard looking sunset in Paul gogenz house and while he was not there but a beautifully lit swimming pool.I am sitting there and we are looking at each other and you know.....ss.. Who is the owner of that supposed to make us happy. There seems to no relation.And if that makes us happy then what If you double the size of the swimming we would be twice as much happy. So of course no no relation. Its the way you interpet things. 14:25 And we had the confirmation of that of the way of interpreting the world the next morning because you know Tahiti looks great on postcard.but its pretty hot and damp wet when you are there . So We were sitting under a beautiful tree and there was imagine there was this kind of soft sort mist refreshing mist falling from the tree. We are sitting there in complete bliss thinking wow This is a real paradise no even the trees are air-conditioned. But Then someone came and said you know those are pissing flies/. So Our perception of the world changed right away. 15:05 So now so lets assume that the inner conditons for well being are really what will determine the quality of every $$$ that goes by. And Thats fair assumption .but then thats when in the most metaposition because Thats our mind. The final experience of all of that.Thats At least i am not having to modify the whole world to our taste. But we can change our mind. If we can change our mind then we can change our world thats the world we experience so thats the idea so for that we need to identify which conditions in our mind are leading to sense of fulfillment sort of fruition accomplishment and sense that we look 20 years ahead if we look back we see that somehow thats the best that we could do with our capacities and which was the right direction something that is truly meaningful in our life. So what are those conditions that will nurture the quality also the quality of every moment that passes. Because after all Life is not just remembering the past and projecting the future. The quality of the present moment. Thats what the days is made of. As someone said If we take care of the minutes the hours will take care of themselves. If all the minutes are unhappy how could the hours and day be somehow be fulfilled. So we need that quality . 16:31 That has to do with the states of mind. Then there are states of mind which are totally detrimental to the quality of that life like hatred to be sentimental grudge nagging jealousy obsessive desire sort of arrogance all those (are just) makes you feel miserable and of course they also induce you to act and speak in ways that also cause suffering around you. so its a lose lose situation that comes to very self-centered excessive $$$$ feeling self-importance bringing everything to oneself and trying to buildup so called selfish happiness sometime at the detriment of others well being Thats absolutely not going to work.if a selfish happiness is the goal of your life then that life is soon going to be without any goal .because That simply cannot work. The reason it cannot work is because excessive preoccupation with onself is the constant source of torment and being vulnerable to everything criticism praism failure and success all those would take a disproportionate sort of importance there. You will be like a storm in a glass of water. And thats each of those will be like small balls bouncing in that small tiny bubble of the ego and then hurting you every-time .we need to explode that self-centeredness bubble and let those bullets be lost in the vast space of open-minded and so that we not just simply obsessed whats going to happen to me and how do i feel. And all these things Its just way of buying trouble for ourself . So now there are other types of emotions and mental state which definitely we feel as something that is nourishing the sense of well being like say loving kindness unconditional love wanting to an act of generosity with no strings attached . Just a mere wish of bringing some happiness or relief from suffering to others and some sense of inner peace inner strength inner kind of contentment. So all those together makes a way of being. And thats what genuine happiness is. Its not just pleasant feelings even and trying to like accumulate them endlessly because pleasant feelings are so much fleeting even if you try to renew them they depend upon circumstances upon time. They change in nature from one moment to the other. Something that is very pleasant like a chocolate cake one serving is great two three you become nauseous so the same thing as a change of nature there must be beautiful music you can dream of you might if you have really hooked on to it listen 3 4 times at a row but imagine 24 hours nonstop what a fatigue . Doesnt work. And also it is something that somehow is so centered upon oneself you can experience intense incessant pleasure if everyone is suffering even at the cost of other making suffer its not something that it is inspiring necessarily and so vulnerable to change. No. Happiness as a way of being as a optimal sort of way of the mind to be. . Wil remain throughtout the ups and downs throughout the different emotional states and give you give you the resources to deal with whatever comes so rather than being dependent on the fluctuating changes of ups and downs of life lets give you the resources to deal with those changing conditions. Its like the depth of the ocean its always there compared to the change of the surface where theres sometimes storm sometimes beautiful weather but in both if you dont have the depth then you are in the midst of the weather change of the surface with nothing to refer to 20:41 So it is a way of being. Or as manner of being. But manners need to be learnt. Its not granted. yet Its true we are more or less born with the kind of triats.There are more happy and extrovert kids or kids which are little bit more violent and some others are very sweet and will give their toys to others. So we have traits. But those are just blueprints. This is not the time to elaborate on that but epigenesis means that even you have this set of genes at any time something that could regulate their expression. Wonderful studies now done showing that almost any kind of gene that determines traits can be modified by the environment by receiving and giving love and tenderness. Gene can be for stress can be blocked for life if there is a strong component of tenderness very early in life and so those are just sort of potential that we are more or less sort of gifted in the beginning but hard work and the interaction can change that. So there is this flexibility in everything in genes in the way we experience the world. So there is margin to change. 22:05 And not only that but by which can kind of mystery our mind the way we experience things will just change towards happiness because we wish to be happy. Everything else in life we need to learn. Like going to school leanrt by experinece. There must be some fundamental quality just come like that. Its human nature. It would be terrribly boring three days on uninterrupted happiness is so boring its always the same but suffering is so vibrant. It always changes you know so exciting but you know is it true or are we just saying that to justify the fact that we are not quite sure how to change that. And then we try to make a philosophy to it with that state of affairs because in truth you know 23:52 When you are sitting maybe in a beautiful garden or somewhere by the lake with someone you love and just like enjoying the beauty of nature and feeling harmony with the world with others with yourself with less inner conflict working the stars or something like that and feeling really at peace are you going to regret the tense atmosphere of a emergency room of a hospital or something. Or if i come now and you are sitting peacefully and say please get angry right now and you will say why should i you know i am fine or would you like to spend the whole afternoon being terribly jealous. You will say no why this doesnot sound such a nice prospect but if i say would you like to spend the next two three hours you know having compasssion or loving kindmess as the main sort of state of mind Wows that seems pretty you know. We feel instinctively that even though we cant escape from the for the time being from those kind of different kinds of mental toxins.WE rather be well off without them. Now is it possible to change that because we might say its so deeply Intrinsic to human nature that we cant do anything. So yes ina way it is in human nature and we all have those positive and negative emotions. So in that sense it is part of human nature but to be part of something there are different ways of being part of something. You could be part of something like the whiteness of the screen thats all over the texture of the screen and to remove that we would have to destroy the screen.But this is also somehow part of the screen. It stays on the screen but it doesnt penetrate the screen doesn’t belong to the screen doesnt remain on the screen and the screen allows it to appear yet it is not modified as such but it allows it to appear so thats the key in order for all the mental states mental constructs to arise in our mind whether positive emotions or negative ones no matter. There has to be some kind of basic screeen or like the light If i show a torchlight to shine on you the light can show in the garden beautiful flowers or maybe a pile of garbage so you might say this is beautiful this is ugly the light allows you to seee that but the light doesnt become beautiful or ugly the light just makes that perceptible visible. 26:19 Likewise at the fundamental aspect of cognition of the mind we call the bay of consciousness or the sort of pure awareness. Its kind of basic cognitive factor and that thing meditators can introspectively sort of experience that behind the screen of thoughts this kind of pure way of presence or we call the laminous aspect of mind in buddhist terms . luminous not that it glows in the dark or like those google thing shooting from the earth. But that it is luminous compared to a dark object like this stool where there is no cognitive quality whatsoever. So it luminous. It a cogni..cognicent. So now that is not tainted by hatred jealousy and so forth. It allows that to occur . It cannot be. If hatred was so intrinsically part then it should shine on everything like the light was beautiful in itself everything would be beautiful when you shine the light on something or ugly or whatever. So thats not the case. That gives margin because those mental constructs are result of causes and conditions . So it gives modify those causes and conditions and thats the principle of mind training, and thats what meditation is all about. Meditation has many meanings 27:38 But the root the actual literal meaning in sanskrit bavana means to cultivate. And in tibetan gom means to be familiar with something to become familiar with a new way of being with qualities with the perception of a world which is ore attuned with the reality and not seeing the world as autonomous permanent objects but as a dynamic sort of flux interdependent on ceaselessly changing causes and conditions even our consciousness is a stream a dynamic stream constantly changing and so it also develops qualities like compassion and loving kindness so meditation is really to cultivate something. It can be to cultivate inner calm to begin with like through mindful breathing let the thoughts subside little bit and through not being caught in the constant whirlpool then from that state we can develop those qualities like compassion and loving kindness. So it is something that need to be trained and everything has to be learned. Our life is spoiled brat of our mind it is going to continue to run over the place and this you know we are the mixture of constant joy and torments we can do much better. We say this is normal but normal state is just a pandemic. We are so much alike we think that everything is normal. But optimal is something else. And with this is possible. So we can use all kinds of methods and techniques thats what the sort of he methodology or the science or the contemplative science is about. 29:09 Using antidotes. For instance. Antidotes means there are things that are one to one that are mutually exclusive. You cannot in the same gesture stretch your hand friendly way and give a blow. You cannot in the same moment of thought want to harm someone and want to do good. Its very simple but if you think of that the more you bring say altruistic thoughts thought of benevolence in your mind the less at those moments there will be space for malevolence harmful thoughts and so forth. So you can imagine that yes we do feel moments of love and moments of resentment but we dont cultivate them we dont try to generate loving kindness and just keep it flowering in our mind and remaining it and feeding it and sort of maintain preserving it for 5 or 10 minutes its not something we do but thats what we need to do if we want it to become a part of or mind. To change our minute to minute emotion and then moods then finally traits thats how we learn. 30:10 fgbvb It wont happen without a mimimum of sort of dedication and to dedicate oneself to someething and to find the time for it we need to see the advantages of doing so. And in case of changing one’s mind the advantages are quite obvious. Ther are many other ways but just to give you a quick example Not indignation in the face of injustice 34 Since we speak of changing your mind chnaging your brain some years now we have been collaborating with neuroscientists. This is an endeavour that has was started by dalasi lama inspired by him to study the influence on the brain of The areas that deal with the fingers with the motor coordination and all kinds of things. It has vastly increased in activity even in size so what happens not if you not learn the piano but if you learn compassion. You know training vigilance attention. Would that change the brain too. If that does it means that meditation not only blissing out under a mango tree and trying to empty your mind unsuccessfully. But it is really a deep change that comes through mind training that was an interesting sort of approach so 35 we need to start with experienced meditators because now if there is a noticeable difference in them. If there was no difference in the experienced dont expect 35:25 Here are the place where they come from. Well its almost as nice in the google campus but its still easier to meditate there then on the subway. But we can soonhave a google campus on tibet or something somewhere and so meing will be very happy to be on top of everest without oxygen and So those are the beautiful places where they come from and this was in eastern tibet August 1st the hottest day of the year and the night before we were camping with tibetan friends they said we are going to sleep outside. I said why we have big tents. No its summertime. So they slept outside. 36:11 In the morning there was 10 cm snow on their clothes. So this is what i am fortunate to see from the window of my small hermitage in the himalayas so i cant complain And this is a example of a what is spiritual teachers here. You can see that there is some kind of beyond word it kind of human quality that we sort of cant miss. In reality it is sertainly very strong it is almost like human goodness becoming almost palpable. Thats what Paul eckman you are going to receive soon one of the world’s specialist on emotions thats how he described his encounter with the dalai lama there is something that you almost physically not there not this weird vice but something that so sort of natural ands simple and yet something that you can really feel. Inner strength mixed with goodness and sort of solidity but at the same time sensitivity . I mean its very hard to describe but its really that makes an extraordinarily good human being and this cat is certainly one of the fortunate ones and this is my first teacher Kanjuriem bushey and then and ya this is the hermit who comes out of 6 years of meditation in the hermitage so the question is Is he so happy because he finally he is coming out or because he did 6 years of meditation and knowing him well i would favor the second hypothesis that this is something that he acquired through his training. So in madison wisconsin the meditators have 256 electrodes and they are two ways of measuring brain activity one is through electro cephalogram that is a very good time resolution thousands of seconds change can be recorded on the scalp but not so clear exactly where it happens in the brain. So we have to combine that with fmri which is magnetic resonanace scanner which is a very good 3 dimensional analysis of way things happening in the brain and imaging but not so good in time wise . The resolution is 1 or 2 seconds so its like a camera in the first case its very fast shutter speed but not so well focused second case it is very well focused but slow shutter speed but if you combine both you get both time sort of resolution . So thats coming out of 2 and half hours in the scanner so theres huge relief from the mini retreat . This is richard davidson the lead scientist in madson wisonsin In the labs doing this tsudy in princeton and harvard and berkeley and so far from here and more and more 38:58 So there are many states you can study because meditation is very varied so that you can focus on attention mental imagery visualization you can study compassion and thats one of the one way studied most and each of these as different brain signatures. So compassion here i spare you all the reading the unconditional feeling of love that begins with an object but then to more and more universe and and to all sentient beings and this is a very powerful and strong feeling of loving kindness 39:33 So this is the first paper published in the PNAS and now the actual first results. So now what we need is to compare things. We need to compare the meditator at rest and in meditation . Also we have compared meditator with control group those who are novice in meditation and see if there is a difference. So we give the instructions to them same instructions that meditators used for many years and ask the to do it for a week and come back to the lab and then in the lab what we do is the minute of rest getting into state of compasssion or focused or whatever the subject is and then doing that again and again 30 40 times in out in out and measuring changes with the experienced meditators and with the controls. In case of the controls the green line is the resting state the blue line is also the meditation state. They try they feel something but its not so strong enough to elicit a strong response in the brain. Here you see with the meditators that the rest line is the same but now when they engage in compassion meditation there is a huge increase 1200 percent of their brain waves particularly in the gamma waves which is connected with the connection in the brain and so forth. It does happen also interestingly enough mostly in the areas of the brain where the left prefrontal cortex which has to do with positive emotions so compassion is among the most powerful positive emotions and just to give you an idea this is a huge increase: 41:00 Maybe there is something big happening in the brain if you are about to be run over by an elephant. But to go from a resting state and in 15 seconds voluntarily bring a powerful mental state thats never been recorded like that in neuro science. So even they everyone started to doubt is it an artifact something so it almost a year to make sure that this was really the result of meditation and not just something else. This is just a different way of showing or displaying the same result. Another way. Here are the controls here are the meditators. Its very very different this is the real time monitoring the compassion meditation sort of takes off increases then the meditator will have a small keyboard and with the right and left arrows he will command 1 2 3 4 5 and then if you prolong that to some minutes he might stop losing it little bit so that he will go down he is not going to look at the numbers to be influenced but he will check in with the keys and then he will come down maybe 4 3 2 and then brings it back to from here again he will go up the ups and downs seem to be very closely related to what is actually measured in the brain 0.69 corelation you know if you are statistician there is a chance of one in a 40 million times that this is just random or due to chance 42:27 And this is now the brain imaging and here the compassion the area that is vastly activated is the left pre-frontal cortex which has to do with positive emotions joy Sense of enthusiasm so compassion is in itself the most powerful emotion . Now interestingly enough too the blue signifies the decrease of activity and that area of the right pre frontal cortex is normally associated with depression rumination excessive self concern negative effect so here that compassion is almost as an antidote to depression which is of course a fascinating avenue of research 43:11 Now also this aspiration to relieve suffering that comes with compassion strongly reduces activity in the amygdala which is known to be connected with fear and anger. So again compassion reduces that. It also increezes activity in the motor area of the brain that means compassion comes with a readiness to act of couse for the benefit of others. So now attention normally if you have to maintain your attention very sharply you start losing it out of fatigue and now if you are the task where you see flashing numbers very fast and this time you have to press a button after 5 or 10 mins you start making more and more mistakes your score goes down which is happening here but with meditators after 10 mins there is no change and now we did that for 60 mins absolutely no change 2 errors in thousand trials and they dont report to be tired just like a set of flow this is specialty what the skill is about you do it naturally perfectly without being tired but you know this a in the face of so much assumptions The founder of modern psychology no one can maintain their attention for more than a few seconds on a given object. But its to be quite different here. And this shows areas of the brain those that are activated in the meditators when they perform those attention tasks and compared to the controls that just cannot do it that much. So now what about short term training ou may say its great for you to be in the himalayas for years what about us you know you can go to the swimming pool yes there is yes thats quite good but what about meditation we your dear friend is trying to ring a boon an extra boon in google. What if we do 30 minutes a day for few months well thats exactly what was done in a very highly stressed employees of a biotech company in madison. They volunteered to do 30 minutes a day for 3months and there was a control group which they said we will give you the training after please come to the lab every week. So then the measurement was done before and after . So this on trait of anxiety a bunch of questionnaires and that determines your level of anxiety can see here time 1 the control group and the meditator no difference and there was a significant difference after just 3 months . Now the left i mentioned about this right side activity of the brain negatives one as you can see here at time 2 i dont know why it says 3 here the meditators are much more activated on the left side and surprisingly the control group was even negatively activated because you know its kind of boring you have to the lab without doing the meditation they were a little bit upset at the end of those 3 months. But later they went through the training dony worry Now interestingly enough the immune system is boosted and significantly not to miss work they have to get a compulsory flu shot in November they dont skip coming working so now when you give a vaccine whether it will work or not it depends upon he strength of your immune system . Now in the first iraq war a vaccine that normally would take 80% cases because the soldiers who were going to the war so stressed it would take only 50 %. The level of stress decreases the effectiveness of the vaccine So those who are gone through this 3 months of 3o minutes of meditation their immune system response was boosted 20%.. So that also means the same strength to fight actually flu and other diseases 47:10 Now the stress level which is measured with the cortisone in the saliva in the meditators is 4 times less than in the control group thats not with the novice meditator thats with the meditators people doing long retreats. So there is definitely an effect in those preliminary studies even for short term i mean not short term but a short amount of time everyday already in 3 months it shows significant effect and then maybe next year by something that might make big time sort of news we are now studying the aging process which has to do some of you might be know at the end of the dna the chromosome they are free what they call as telomeres and it shortens the age. Now it still is a preliminary result. I am telling us between you and me 48:00 After 3 years of intensive meditation thats not 30 mins a day theres more like a in a meditation workshop for 3 months a significant decrease or diminishing of the telomeres. Wow that would be big news isnt it? Stay young meditate So now to come back to the outer conditions which i mentioned in the beginning we often see people who are extremely rich extremely powerful on top of that they might be strong and beautiful and you hear they are miserable or depressed you say whats wrong with this guy ? If i had all that i would be happy weel thats not the case of course for money which is one of the obvious candidate if you are below the poverty line and cant feed your kids and suffer terrible conditions . Yes o go above that makes a huge difference in the quality of your life. After that beyond that then doubling tripling just doesnt make any difference 48 : 55 Here is the gdp in the united states three times increased from 46 to 96 . The gross national happiness stationary even slight decrease. Now marriage buys you happiness. Here you are. Time zero. 5 years later. Well you know richard davidson who gave me that slide said i have been married happy for 30 years but thats what has come out of the study. Yet there is another data that shows it still better happier repoted life for people who are married or companionship rather than people who are single or separated but relatively the change of happiness basically you come back where you were. And now widowhood. Well you recover from it also. 49:55 So external factors only have a limited effect on our level of happiness. They do have but altogether if you bring all the social factors then there are thousands of studies over 70 years basically they contribute to something about 15 % of your reported happiness. People differ in their emotional disposition and affective style and those dispositions are relatively stable if you win the lottery you are greatly happy but one year later you more or less come back to same level, they can be changed thats the point. 50:26 Meditation has demonstrable effects on the brain and they represent one of the few ways in which purely mental training has been demonstrated to have robust impact on brain function. And this is a meditator and these are the monks escaping from the lab. So now here you might say well theres a contradiction here . You said that happiness can be trained and we just show that before after marriage before after widowhood money doesnt make any difference so then what if thats stable whats the point of meditating you are going to make just another of those peaks and come down.so whats the point. Well remember as i mentioned in the beginning genuine happiness as a way of being is not the peaks of joy and pleasant and the lows of depression and so forth. This is the ups and downs, but when you go up and down you go up and down above and below a baseline. So here mindful. Meditation and mind training raising the baseline. 51:26 The platform in which you standing in line the place where you come back. Those ups and downs its going to happen. Maybe you will be less vulnerable to them less carried away by them less affected or impacted by them you maintain this sense of direction and meaning in life. But you can change that. And so thats a really worthy endeavor in life. And also to get inspiration to do that we need to identify some kind of potential we have within ourselves. We need to at some point sit quietly and say what really matters for me in life what do i really want to accomplish in life.not just you know filling questionnaires after you pass some test put that into a machine or computer or going to a professional orientation and then okay you have this this this and thats what you are good for. But really feel what deeply you would like to spend your life so that 20 years later when you look back you say no i did my best thats what i wanted to do and i have a sense of fulfillment and accomplishment thats otherwise you know whats the point. Even if you succeeded in this this this that and you feel not so you know there is no sense of accomplishment is not there some sort of fulfillment was worth it to live in that way. Thats what we want. 52:49 I think its so important to identify in ourselves what we really want what really matters and then find a way. Theres always a way to accomplish it. So i think this if meditation could be as a mind training not taking the exotic aspect or oriental aspect of it. Just it it could be become a genuine contribution to a more open compassionate society and so to the quality of our life. So thank you for your attention 53:16 Questions Thank you very much.That was fascinating. I am just curious about the power of meditation. Children with Aspergers. 54:09 since last year we are taking trying to study education not only from educators and social but bringing together psychologists educators social workers neuro scientists and contemplative science and this is the first time that it is happening at a very good level of science and contemplation. So there have been obvious ideas of doing with children which have attention deficit and you know this is very really beginning approach but this is part of the what we would like to contribute to more like a secular approach to those things not just the Buddhist level nothing wrong with the buddhist level but it might look too much like a religious approach and then deprive te tools for actually serving society in a deeper way so i have a friend in france who has a trainig called secular training to attention its very good and everybody is very happy about that. Well i think this is the way to go yes no the mind and life institute 55:30 I keep hearing the number 10000 tens of thousands of hours of training and its really cool to see the fmri effects of meditation but i also curious there have been advances in training so that random people who cant do that for 20 years ..a simple biofeedback kind of a thing where people can recognize the state like the monk who was pressing the keys on the keyboard he knew what he was feeling 56:00 You know we have been taking our feedback and when we start to get hooked on the electro cephalogram and we can look you can start generating compassion and you see those gamma waves going bzzzzooo its kind of fun but at the same time you know Its little bit interfering you know suppose i see myself in my hermitage trying to meditate i dont want to watch a screen on brain waves and this is electrode 825 and i am trying to make it shhweep go up. I think this is more like a distraction . But i think again the 10000 hours argument its thats why we do now all these studies Our goal is if there are robust results there was one groundbreaking paper in PNS three years ago and now there’s 3 more coming this year which will really establish that contemplative neuroscience field maybe better but the real goal is once there is robust study with the experienced meditators and really to go to everyone otherwise there is no use of the curiosity but if it really applies you know in the biotech company certainly it can apply here 57:11 I am wondering when you are an expert meditator you have an average level of happiness and desire otherwise. What if you stop meditating . How long does it take to go down. Is it something that lasts for long ever or not at all Well you know the idea of stopping meditation of 20 years to see how terribly miserable i would become. Thats not exactly. Meditators are very determined volunteers you know. Its like the kamikaze of happiness No then its like a medicine you have to take forever No no i think there are things like skiing. I skipped skiing for 35years i can show you a photo last year it was a joy after 2 hours to be able to ski as before. So i think there are i think there is something that so deeply changed thats it certainly remained. Thats the point of a way of being of a baseline it takes time to acquire it but because of that it has a really strong and firm foundation And actually it has to be a test. We say you know its fine if the meditators are siting in the sun basking with full belly no problem but when confronted with adverse circumstances thats where or she is put on the scales and i think that way in daily life we can see what we need to see . Now The fireworks of mystical experiences dont last. But its like the hand of a clock. When you stare at it its not moving but when you look from time to time it has changed so those changes are slow hence the need for mind training but because they are slow they are much more likely to be stable. And thats the idea. Now the brain wont degenerate too quickly hopefully and then your experiences also i think its something that at some point there;s a kind of a sort of a no return point in this kind of a baseline. Yes thank you . Thank you so much for your attention applause Complete

At first, I only got a vague idea-- that if we were all self-serving, then we would disregard the good of the whole. I see so much more nuance to it now. I recently got in a discussion with someone where I proposed a radically different view point,not a personal insult, but just considering a different perspective . I was promptly told to fuck off and that I was complete moron and exactly what was wrong with the world. Now, you may think this is where I judge the other person for being low-consciousness. And truth be told, that's what I did do in the moment. I was also angry and hurt. I tried to judge the other person, but then I remembered my training (my personal development work) and I took a step back and saw things from a broader perspective. Rather than narrowly focusing on the few aspects of this other person that triggered me, I tried to understand. After about fifteen minutes of actively trying to empathize and gain understanding, I saw why this person acted the way they did. I also acknowledge a lot of aspects of the other person's higher-self that I had blinded my self to when I was initially judging. I understood why this person was filled with anger and hate, to some degree. It was due to the same type of reaction that I initially had. We judge people through the lens of our own egos, what Abraham Maslow called deficiency perception, rather than in a holistic, big picture way,or being perception. We judge and condemn instead of seeking to understand and empathize on a deep level. Since we are so identified with our beliefs , we will do what we can to preserve them and thus our egos. This is why we resist actually trying to explore other paradigms. This tendency to to debate rather than actually try to understand other points of view is what prevents of from really understanding others, creating enemies and hostility rather than peace and love. After realizing what I had done and how I had let go of my negative feelings toward this other person who condemned me, I felt bliss and lightness. I was simultaneously deeply moved by the insight that no matter how refined we make our legislation, our institutions, our technology, etc. ,we are limited in our development by our own egos and lack of consciousness.