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I'm interested in the change of direction Leo has taken. He makes a good point about rewatching his previously released episodes. The talk he gave a week ago was over 3 hours yet I watched it twice and would probably gain something if I watched it a 3rd time. His series on self deception is one I watched repeatedly. The idea of observing and processing one's own schadenfreude is something I've kept returning to. Purifying the emotional center is another way of putting it. The way it's expressed in Gurdjieff groups or Fourth Way Work,,, Metanoia is another rarely used word that has significance in regards to personal transformation. In the King James Bible, this Greek word - 'metanoia' was horribly translated as repentance. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metanoia_(theology) Martin Butler's last podcast is relevant to the idea that it's negativity that makes the world go around. How does ordinary resentment feed schadenfreude? Negative, lower emotions like resentment trashes out our third eye or intuitive capacities.

Watching Leo's latest video. "What if depth is the trap?" "If reality is infinite, then why do you keep going down the rabbit hole? There's no end." "What more is there to gain by going deeper?" All these questions popped into my mind. But then I realized something. Leo is just a talking head, myself, letting me know of farther terrain. See, I've been going through a huge transformation lately. This seemed to be a big sign, in neon letters: "I need to work on myself." Just as Leo went through a huge awakening, so have I. So many fears. So much uncertainty. Holding me back. Everything is just a "ping" for me to awaken further. That's all this reality is. My addictions are pleasure without joy. WHAT I'M AFTER IS JOY!!! My neuroses are just cycles that keep me from realizing I'm Infinite, pure Love. OF COURSE!!! Everything is a call to awaken deeper and discover more fruits. How have I been so blind? Do you realize? Everything in YOUR life is moving you closer to God. All you judgments, fears, and insecurities. ALL of it is preparing you to realize your true nature. If you were God, wouldn't that be how you would construct life? We are all scared. But the "you" that's scared is the "you" that must die. The last thing you want is to die. See, this connects with the last season of Mr. Robot, season 4 (can't recommend it enough). SPOILERS. (stop now and watch it on amazon prime unless you don't enjoy a wonderfully crafted and transcendent story. Seriously, you already got what you came for. These following words don't do it justice in the slightest. Watch it.) The "Elliot Alderson" you've been following for 4 seasons is not the "real" Elliot. He suffered from a split personality disorder. So the Elliot you've laughed with, cried with, rooted for, and hated for 4 fucking season has been the dark Elliot. The one who took over without you knowing it. The one who kept the "real" Elliot held hostage in a dream where every fantasy came alive. Almost every fantasy, that is. "You," that person you think you are reading these words on a screen, is the dark Elliot. An invader. Your society raised you this way. Certain traumatic events shaped you this way. "You" are built of walls and resistances to protect you from a cruel world... the one you couldn't love or accept in its totality. Because the real Elliot was raped as a child, he created another personality as a defense mechanism. The child created a monster without knowing it, and that monster started taking more and more control over his life. It was what he always wanted to be. For Elliot, he was an extremely smart little boy, with a Dad who showed him the wonders of computers and other technology. So the "dark" Elliot became a computer hacker who wanted to right all the wrongs in such a cruel society. He wanted to return all the power to the people. He saw all the injustice and wanted to make it right. He created "F-SOCIETY," a vigilante hacker group with the sole mission of taking down the big conglomerates and erasing all debt and economic injustice. If only it were that easy... Reflecting on my own life, what I wanted as a kid came true... I just wanted to play video games, jack off, and shut out the world. Yes, it's all clear to me now. I didn't want anything special. I didn't understand the world. I was spoiled rotten by my parents and became very self-centered. "Why do anything at all? Can't I just... do nothing and play video games? Pleasure myself? If there's no meaning to it all, what's the rush? Career??? Pshhh...." I've been acting out these childish wants for close to 10 years, and I explored their conclusions. It prepared me. Yet the "real" Elliot still calls to me. He's pushing me towards greater self awareness. I've seen things that can't be unseen. Awakening. Psychedelics. I can't stop understanding more about myself. I'm at a point where now where "I see you." The dark Elliot that has been running my life for so long. He's just a child. Scared. But I know he needs to die for the real Elliot to live on. That's how Mr. Robot ends. You see, the dark individuated consciousness watches a movie with his family one last time. He lets go. But he's ready to. He has suffered enough to understand that he's been robbing the real Elliot of the fruits of life. In fact, his whole journey through all 4 seasons has been pushing him to realize this. The last words of the show? His sister leans in, and whispers with heartfelt emotion like she's seeing him for the first time: "Hello, Elliot." The entire show, however dark it may have seemed, was really a potent story about Love. The "dark" part of Elliot was compelled to die, as a sacrifice for the "real" part of himself he never knew. The one thing the real Elliot never experienced in his prison dreamscape, was the love of his sister. We experienced a letting go; a death. But death is just imaginary. It's a necessary mechanic of evolution. For new growth to occur, first must come the destruction of the old. I must embrace that child in me. He's scared of what may happen. But I have to comfort him, and ensure that everything will be alright if he just lets go. There's a partition in all of us that doesn't want to let go. He's scared of the trauma that may be unleashed. Maybe there are experiences you've had that you couldn't love. But you are not that child anymore. You can now face these truths with a new perspective, if you're ready (and don't beat yourself up if you're not ready. It takes time). Let that child die in your arms, reborn. With Love.

It depends on what one defines as 'rigged' but when the Democratic party does everything it can to stack the process against Bernie including closing polling places in areas he had a clear advantage to gain more percentage points in tight contests making it harder for his supporters to actually vote. Not to mention the media doing everything it can to craft a negative narrative about Bernie in attacking everything about him including his supporters which really does influence undecided voters about whether they want to be painted in that way themselves. Then other candidates do everything they can to block him from potential delegates to win it outright with a majority it does make one consider that word could be apropos to the situation. Yet, that doesn't mean they actually cheated the vote count which would be election 'fraud' as opposed to what one could just consider 'rigged'. Of course, that does not erase what you suggest about their ability to transcend the things that would prevent them from being ready for such a transformation.

In awakening quite often the clarity we view our own self with also exists with how we view others but it may not be as complete of a transformation immediately so it will be a benefit to your path to discern whether you are seeing others in the clarity of awakening or the veil of ego.

Aging is a natural process and not a disease. Spirituality is a life long process of transformation. Nothing to do with aging. The whole idea that we'll be immortal is a huge fallacy. Technology can only aid survival but cannot halt death.

It's not meant for you or me or anyone who wants family, romance etc etc. It was designed for those gurus who sat alone meditating in the mountains and who wanted to live like a hermit away from cultural bondage. You need to account for the context here. They are not modern day motivational speakers with wife and family and a flying career. These were ancient hermits who lived and favored a particular lifestyle for themselves and their descendents It was a school and system that they followed very much like the rules or teachings of a catholic institution. You only have to apply nuggets that personally appeal and bring a progressive transformation in your life. Rest you need to ignore because it's not applicable to you but it was applicable to them in their time A lot of the eastern teaching of being away from society makes sense to Eastern people since back then (and even now but not often) societies were extremely oppressive and granted no freedom for spiritual exploration or even personal occupation of choice because of a rigid hierarchy. Hence running away from social burdens made absolute sense in terms of freedom and bliss

Sometimes self sabotage is the only way to progress... transformation is rarely linear. If Biden gets the nomination my gut is saying 4 more years of Trump as well. But 4 more years of Trump could very well create the collective suffering and damage needed to transform our society for future generations. I had hoped the damage already done would be enough.

It's really just cause they wanna be like Walter White in Breaking Bad. It's a sign of transformation you know.

As I mentioned before I inclined to yoga especially ashtanga because it grounding for my self. I reached the point where I decided to take teacher training course because it could serve as a survival instrument and I hoped that some of these people were far in the personal development. Well, I know it is not true and I realized that many of them they are just still stuck in survival mode. Not only that but I asked about yoga teacher jobs and I realized that yoga studios are screwing up yoga teachers and in order to earn enough money one has to waste lots of personal energy and there is no enough energy left for their own practice. So my goal become how to go beyond survival? There is no security in the world but I listened to Sadhguru and he expressed that it is almost first time in history that we can just buy stuff, live from it for a long time (a year or so) and concentrate on transformation. Hurrah, so I buy stuff, close myself, going to exercise and meditate and I'm going to transform myself into enlightened being. I realized that it might not be the path for me as one can look at it as running away and it can at certain point become a problem. How to go beyond survival as a householder with family? I had to wait until I have seen that my children can be self-sustained and I can be involved at the limited level. Anyway, I've observed that there is some healthy level of parents influence on children but beyond it parents just create barriers and blockages in children's future development. At the same time I look at my relationship(s) and I wonder what would happen to the relationships if one goes beyond survival? I see there issues with my addition to pleasure, porn and sex, I think I worry about the unknown. I transformed my life to a rhythm where I would incorporate meditation, yoga, self-development into my life. However, I've seen it is not enough. The only resolution I could come up is that I start something that would support my practice and at the same time bring some compensation that would support my life and expenses or at least part of expenses. So, I decided to start yoga studio where I would play a role as a teacher. At the same time I have to find a space which I would own and I could manage how much to pay yoga teachers so myself too. However, this idea changed over time and it transformed from yoga studio to holistic center. I would use topics and experiences that I went trough and offer it in terms of workshops over the time. I wondered how would I call it, I came up with an idea of sahaja yoga (sahaja means spontaneous enlightenment). Then friend of mine become involved in choosing name and she proposed name Arya and given that I wanted to involve her in the studio I changed the name. Also I did not want to influence things, I try to give things free flow. Then I was influenced by Leo's video which ultimately explained few things around Self and Love that I already experienced and I had them in my mind but they were not connected. I started to see connections and it led to ultimate idea for name: Self + Love.

Where to begin... this body is male around 40 years old and live in Sweden. Overweight but in pretty good shape strength-wise. But that doesn't matter. Ok let's start again I found actualized a few years ago. I have always had a life long interest in the "meaning of life" is suppose that's where it went wrong and right from the beginning. I now 30 years later realize that there is no concrete meaning to your life at least not how I had imagined it but then again I found a lot of helpful tools along the way to live life. Then again in the new year of 2019, I decided to meditate regularly. A primary reason was to have one critical skill to use if I got a terminal illness in the future. I figured it would be good to have rock-solid mindfulness. But the regular usage of the mediation app for 15 minutes to 30 minutes a day for a year started something. I could continue a connection to oneness were there before was no road ahead. Then I found actualized again when Leo made his real-time enlightenment becoming good video. Despite understanding that 99.9% of the earth's population must think he has become crazy everything made sense to me and I saw the final stretch of road to enlightenment. The thing is I have a life that is not compatible with enlightenment. And it resists the transformation. I can feel and predict it and I see that my ordinary life is crumbling for every inch of enlightenment I let into my life and every day. And it is so hard to stay the course because I have no one to tell to bounce ideas to ask for advice to share the transition with. I believe my whole life might change if I continue this road. I believe that once you have glimpsed the road there is no turning back. My work as a sales rep for a tech company was boring before but now it seems like madness to continue. And I can't let my mask slip at work but I am just an inch from telling them straight "I hate selling can we please do something creative instead?". Fear. Surely I will get fired for saying that. In my relationship, all decisions were fear-based and based on how to be a good boyfriend. We almost broke up but I stuck with it and promised myself to be true and speak my mind and wishes. This is of course not the deal she signed up for and thus the relationship might crumble. My "free" want to spend it in a state of ecstatic creative flow! But how a lifetime of keeping the lid on my creativity and waiting to figure out the meaning of life has set som breaks on that process but at least now I know what I am looking for. Spontaneous inspiration to do stuff. Things where the automatic reaction is "what might people say?" there I think is the best portal into an exciting creative opportunity. So I hope I will document this journey here. In some way. I don't want to be rich, famous or influential. I just hope that one day I can look back to this post and realize I now live a life where I am free to be true to myself and others. Where creative flow is my livelihood and I have no fear.

@Martin123 it's sort of interesting, whenever i had my first awakening after/during my reading of the power of now some years ago, i actually just assumed all the fears and unconscious behavior could be dealt with by simply grounding myself in the present moment. Over time it became incredibly hard to do this and i found myself binge watching and rereading more eckhart tolle, taking ice baths and meditating, especially when/before doing things i'd usually be all 'up in my head' about. Eventually i found out the hard way that having a mere awakening didn't change anything related to my attachment issues with women, the deep seeded fears and beliefs that felt natural to express still found their place. After i'd learned about the attachment theory everything seemed to click, i was given answers and solutions to how "i and others" perceived various situations. This went so deep i remember crying tears of joy that "how sick i could be" was learned behavior for self protection and that digging deeper into these issues was the "how to" transform into a healthy secure individual. Forgiveness was possible it seemed but like any other tool, it only gave what i was willing to accept about the story i'd been told by my very own programming; so ultimately, finding clarity in purpose and vision is by far the path to true self transformation. Is attachment theory necessary for this? No, but it can definitely be helpful in exposing blind spots. Ironically enough it can also be just as much a distraction/hindrance to changing one's story/narrative because it puts limitations that are only really circumstantial on oneself and others I don't think Nahm was intentionally trying to exploit/attack your ass (or way), but i can see how you'd interpret his post as such based off your previous posts. Truth is subjective dawg, your interpretation of his advice is what conjugated the accusations. His advice is completely valid, step out of the story, rewrite the script. Only without the understandings in attachment, the rough patches could be more daunting/unbearable as i found to be the case

@Nahm The clarity that arises is pretty simple. What you're suggesting is a form of spiritual elitism that ultimately devalues the ones who are in the midst of their healing journeys seeing self-realization as some sort of a promise of a relief, while being deceived by those who only use it as a form of spiritual escapism. Your attitude, with all due respect, isn't too far from what leads to allegations of sexual misconducts against spiritual Gurus who promise an all-encompassing relief in the form of transcendence. You cannot transcend suffering, you can only awaken to endure the suffering that acts as a divine agent of alchemy and transformation. Anything else is a rather harmful form of escapism that ultimately doesn't serve anyone, only delays one's evolution. It is fine to speak about self-realization when self-realization is the topic. But it has nothing to do with emotional integration and evolution, and the placement of such advice in these areas is rather dangerous, because the individuals on the path of emotional transformation (and while that is ultimately all of us) tend to be in very vulnerable and impressionable positions and states. Spiritual oppression, it is a patriarchal attitude leaking into the vulnerability of spiritual evolution. Not good @Nahm, truly, and I say this with love and respect, but absolute firmness and clarity. Not good at all.

It seems to me that there must be a subtle body within the physical body. Like a morphic field that controls how the body grows, how wounds are healed etc. The subtle body is I believe finer vibrations of the vacuum energy. And the subtle body interfaces with the physical body via the water in the body. (Water has amazing properties.) Moving from third to fourth density involves transcending the ego and getting a more advanced and capable subtle body. The ego shadow has to "die" to allow for a rebirth into a collective fourth density consciousness. And that "birth" process is about fourth density capacity through the Holy Spirit moving into the subtle body and into the physical body through the water in the body. It's a transformation from a third density body to a fourth density body, what Christians sometimes call a glorified body.

@Francis Trach Just my own 2 cents. For anything to have sentience it must have what can be termed "reality sentience". This means that to the extent that there is sentience, the person is aware of and can make adjustments to reality. This is the definition of free will. You are an aspect of reality, which is to the extent that you have sentience, free to transform reality. To this extent, you as reality, are responsible for every decision that is bound up and made within sentience, outside this, you are excused. Free will and sentience have a coupling which cannot be uncoupled, this is because sentience itself exists as a kind of freedom, this is why awareness appears as a kind of "nothingness", this is because this is the encasing by which contents can flow through and you can make changes to the universe through the synthesis that your consciousness engenders in its interaction with those contents. This doesn't mean we're "all powerful free will universal changing beings" of course, meaning free will exists on a spectrum and we exist somewhere to the right in the animal kingdom as well as individual differences existing right across the human population. Free will resides in the prefrontal cortex mostly, thus it is the place where people should concentrate most if they wish to improve their free will incrementally over the long term rather than have it diminish more and more with age due to misuse and lack of use. There's really no way out of free will unfortunately, and I seriously doubt anyone here would be able to logically falsify the statement. Reality exhibits ultimate sentience and therefore ultimate free will relative to that sentience, we are like tiny microbes as reality which have been granted with awareness to reconfigure along with reality in the larger picture of realities ongoing transformation and understanding of itself.

@Nahm defiantly leaps & bounds from 3 years ago but it’s cool, for a while there it was like I was bipolar, some days Blissed out, some days Mr. Anxiety, All part of the transformation I guess, if I can keep progressing like this I know one day I’ll be great! self inquiry is also an all day event with me which is an amazing tool as well. shinzen young said his stream entry of enlightenment was with sds & his polishing or finishing off was with self inquiry. I believe he said this.

Thank you. ?? I feel like I had a major realization about my psychedelic path that Ive yet to notice thus far. Maybe it’s because of the tools Im using (LSD and mushrooms) not being as powerful as 5MeO or DPT however it seems to me that in these wildly altered states of consciousness not only am I able to gain insight, but what Ive noticed is that these insight’s transformative capabilities have been inconsistent to say the least. On the one hand, I am forever changed after as much tripping as Ive done. Ive felt oneness, love, truth, nothingness and consciousness in ways I never thought possible... Ive literally felt the love of god and infinity. It’s nut. But I still come down. The energy that is this ego/body/mind returns and a contracted self energy resurfaces. Yet in a sense... it doesn’t return. From a certain pov, I can walk around dead sober and slip back into what I can only describe as psychedelic states of consciousness. I can tear up on a train going home from work because of the empathy and compassion I feel for complete strangers, I can look nowhere and see how all of this is spontaneously coming from nowhere... but I still come back. Attention still “sticks” to the imagery and story of me, as if there’s true authentic legitimacy. I don’t feel enlightened and yet enlightenment never feels separate from who I am, what I am. So what are psychedelics really doing? It feels like they are pushing possibilities forward, they are pushing the boundary yet the boundary snaps back. The transformational process seems to certainly be occurring but it feels like it’s only being sustained because of how much other work Im doing besides psychedelics. I see possibilities, I go super saiyan, and come crashing into ego, only to finally see that this distinction between tripping and sobriety is utterly arbitrary. Psychedelics are a high, a state change in which truth seems to become so much clearer but more than that, they present a possibility for how life may be lived but these possibilities are as temporary as the altered state. Until the possibility is integrated through the slow transformation and evolution of this mind/body/ego system, it will be entirely fleeting. But until transformation is seen as 100% available right here right now, how can one hope to transform? Moreover, what does truth have to do with transformation? Sort of rambling at this point... essentially I feel these tools have so much to teach, but after this last trip, I feel the weight of responsibility of the integration/transformation work. The psychedelics don’t promise change, they can almost guarantee massive, powerful insight but even these insights aren’t enough to produce the changes in experience you’d expect from becoming conscious of certain facets of truth. Why is that so? I truly wonder. Habits that seem to help: - 1 hour meditation per day following tmi system - constant passive contemplation “who am I?” “What am I?” - keeping my body healthy - sleep - no pmo - using weed very sparingly - practicing metta - journaling - watching actualized.org videos - reading books - moving towards situations that create fear like approaching strangers or holding eye contact - following principles like keep going and patience etc.

Hello guys. I'm trying to understand my own stage. So I was doing analysis and was going back to my old thinking patterns since I was young(6-8-10). One thing I'm aware is that I was 100% non judgmental, and even now when I see ppl I'm like that's the way he understands things, or if someone insults me in anyway I'll be like, he got triggered by something else or he felt threatened by my attitude. Also I used to go to church/mosque cuz I though praying to god was good and made me feel good. My praying would be literally like this: Jesus,budha,allah,Mohammed whatever is the truth thank you, and I would go to sleep ? (nvr interested in learning Islam method of praying or any kind of church ritual) Had friends, atheist and Christians. Also I lost this belief in GOD, or whatever I though god was when I was like 15 16, I was like wait a min, all those books are fairytales, but still thought that thers some good morals and needed for some ppl to help them with a deeper sense of life and help them psychologically. Since I started meditating though 3 years ago, and since I came to the US 2 years ago my patterns of thinking would go like this: I need to do smth with my life, and also I developed some sort of devotion toward my guru and Shiva as a figure of not the truth but someone who gave humanity tools for transformation. I also had mystical experiences if you will, like my vision turned green while meditating, and I lose sense of my body completely, no tension, no feeling on the body, it's just me, my emotions are still there but the connection with my body completely gone. Does this makes me a BLUE/ORANGE/GREEN/YELLOW? BLUE coz I think shiva or my guru are needed for my spiritual growth, ORANGE cuz I need to do smth tangible with my life, GREEN coz I value respect a lot and consensus, YELLOW cos I find it funny and I'm aware that understanding reality or having mystical experiences can come either from yoga,psychedelics,watching Leo's videos or just going deep decoding your psychology, and reading about Systems lately and how important they are. Also I had those experiences, does it make me PURPLE according to the model or TURQOISE. Also guys I'm being aware of some old programming I had before, everytime I meet someone that kinda was doing what I was doing, or knowing more than me in a certain field I would feel threatened, was this some kind of RED?

You may have already heard that advaita talks about oneness, the oneness of the existence that exists without a second; it says that this oneness is your true nature! But this is not a theory and not something that is meant to be just intellectually understood. This oneness is realized in one’s living experience which not only transforms you but also liberates you from all psychological bondages. I will give you a short introduction on Advaita Vedanta but will also let you know about some pitfalls that one can encounter if certain things are not understood. Before Advaita Vedanta is taught, the disciple is expected to develop four-fold qualifications called sadhana chatushtaya. I will also quickly go over them in this post. First, advaita (non-duality) doesn’t really have a contradiction with dvaita (duality). And there was a reason why various dvaita (dual)) schools emerged after Shankara’s time. What is usually described as advaita philosophy or the non-dual oneness is the fruit of the spiritual path. What is described as dvaita philosophy (the duality of God and devotee) is actually a path. In the beginning of bhakti, there is duality; but it always ends with non-dual oneness. In Advaita Vedanta, bhakti or devotion is considered as one of the means to purify oneself and develop sadhana chatushtaya or four-fold qualifications. But the problem with Advaita Vedanta is usually this: people directly go for the theory or the higher teachings in Vedanta without developing these four-fold qualifications. It is developing the four-fold qualifications that takes the most part of a person’s journey. This mere intellectual understanding sometimes results in pure arrogance with absolutely no transformation. When you tell someone that sounds like “You are God”, it is very likely that it will be misunderstood; the person may also forget his duties and become very careless; because from the perspective of Advaita, nothing really matters. But in practical life; everything matters. Even after realizing the truth in your experience, you still have to play the role in the real world. You would certainly live like a water drop on a lotus leaf, but the world still sees you as an individual bound to the obligations of the society. Advaita and Dvaita People like Ramanuja and Madhva who came after Shankara addressed the above mentioned problem. If you see the traditions in the world which see God and devotee as separate, you will notice that they all promise a place after death where they can live in God’s presence. We often hear vivid descriptions of vaikunta, paradise or heaven. This was just used as a trick or a social tool. To the general public, it was this teaching which was appropriate: develop loving devotion to God and surrender to him; after death, you can live with him forever. This was like tricking a child. By saying this, they can lure them into showing devotion. This in turns purifies the mind. According to the tradition, even if liberation is not possible for a person in this life, the spiritual development that he went through is carried forward to the next birth. There have been many places in the world where people were quite primitive and completely lacked any moral sense or obligation towards society. Just imagine a vast peninsula which has no empire, no state, no kings and no public laws. 5th century Saudi Arabia is one of them. Many people, as a reaction to how things have turned out in the name of Islam and how Muhammad’s life was described in Hadiths written down many decades after his death, have come to a conclusion that Muhammad was a power hungry warlord, who was just after power, women and sex. But that will contradict many things in Islam itself. Even the critics of Muhammad agree that Muhammad was a genius. Also, historians suggest that he was not illiterate as it is believed by Muslims. Muhammad also played tricks; he made compromises too. The idea of eternal hell was actually a social tool developed by Plato, a disciple of Socrates; it is not there in old Testament of Bible. Muhammad used this concept to discipline the people of Arabia. He was against female infanticide and many other social problems. Most importantly, Muhammad asserted that surrender or submission to one supreme God is the true form of worship. There was no concept of religion those days, even though people had various beliefs. People only had a concept called ‘deen’ which meant ‘the way of life”. Muhammad asserted that Islam or surrender to God is the right way of life or deen. Islam stands on five pillars which basically is: oneness of God and submission to God; 5 prayers a day which has different postures just like yoga, a way to convey submission and also to focus one’s attention; fasting for a whole month with an attitude of devotion and love; going on a sacred pilgrimage where various devotees from different races and places gather as a symbol of equality and charity to the poor. But Muslims later became too sensitive towards their faith; even though Muhammad improved the status quo of Arabia as per historians, he couldn’t improve it completely in his lifetime. So, only Sufi tradition preserved the original teachings more clearly, which the mainstream Islam rejects as heresy. Jesus also insisted that love towards God and love towards human beings are his two commandments. So the bottomline is devotion is one of the ways to purify oneself. And a personal God or a personification is required for it; this divine has to be one and not many, so that one can surrender to it. It is the same as prapanna as described in Gita. Apart from devotion, karma yoga, or doing one’s duties without attachment to the fruits of actions, also purifies the mind and develops the four-fold qualifications. Karma yoga is about focusing on the action rather than the result, on the present rather than the future; it teaches to develop love towards one’s actions and do the actions with focus and involvement, not with a mind that is daydreaming about the results. Pure Karma yoga produces states of flow quite effortlessly. Other sitting meditations and kundalini yoga also comes under karma yoga. Four-Fold Qualifications - Sadhana Chatushtaya So now you may ask; what are the fourfold qualifications that one should develop? 1). Shad-Sampat Out of those four, let us just see one for now, which is Shad-Sampat or six virtues. So this one among the fourfold qualifications is further divided into six: Sama: calmness of the mind; Dama: gaining control over the mind and senses. Uparati: The tendency to naturally drop certain conditioned behaviors and habits; for example, you may lose interest in certain habits. Titiksha - forbearance. Not getting too excited in pleasure and ability to withstand suffering. Sraddha - trust; This is a trust in spiritual path and see it as a working method; this trust naturally develops once you start feeling some changes in your mind and experience. Samadhana: Resolving all the internal conflicts so that you gain the ability to focus. The most practical way to go for is to first slowly develop these six virtues; don’t give any deadline. The practice has to be taken slowly and gradually so that you also live your social life in the meantime. For example, a person who starts with can first work on forbearance or titiksha. This means that whenever you go through suffering, you should go through it willingly since there is no choice and try to bear the suffering without getting too distressed about it. You can also develop shraddha, or a faith that you would be able to grow spiritually as the time goes by. Focused attention meditation that involves focusing on an object (like dhyana or shamata) can bring calmness to the mind and develop sama. It will also slowly develop dama or self-control. That is essentially about bringing the wandering mind under control without letting the mind distracted by sense objects. Uparati is something that would happen naturally when other virtues are developed. Samadhana is something you develop last. 2) Vairagya - Non-attachment The next thing in four-fold qualifications that I am going to explain is vairagya or non-attachment. Many people mistake that non-attachment is renouncing one’s possessions. But one can lead a normal worldly life and still develop non-attachment,. This is usually symbolized as a metaphor: one lives like the lotus leaf in water; even though the leaf resides in water, it doesn’t get wet or the water doesn’t stick to it. Vairagya also refers to a certain state of mind; To understand that we have to learn about a concept called ‘hedonic treadmill”. Hedonic treadmill theory is a psychological theory that states that regardless of the objective outcomes of lives such as success and failure, the experience of life always returns to a base-level happiness. Happiness never increases as time goes by; the base level happiness always remains the same but it keeps us in the hedonic treadmill, chasing for objective outcomes without actually reaching anywhere. This base-level happiness is a limited happiness and one is not satisfied with it. It is only self-realization or the realization of the truth about one’s own nature which can make the limited level of happiness to blossom fully, giving an individual the absolute sense of fulfillment and liberation. When one realizes that running on this hedonic treadmill is fruitless and is not interested in the objective outcomes, he has developed vairagya. Now one may ask, if one chooses to not to be interested in the objective outcomes, won’t he stop working or performing? No; this will increase the performance. Because it will actually make the karma yoga to mature. Since you are not interested in objective outcomes, you can be fully devoted to action, while doing your obligatory duties. As I said, flow states are very normal when one is in karma yoga; so actions actually give a sense of enjoyment at this point. 3. Mumuksutva - Desire for liberation Now you know that self-realization and the liberation that happens because of it while living is the only thing which will give you the absolute fulfilment. So, your concern shifts automatically from worldly desire to the desire for liberation. Your calm mind, non-attachment and the desire for liberation will make you more focused on the practice and also make you qualified to understand what Viveka is. It might have taken a few decades to reach up to this point. But there are exceptions, like people who get vairagya and mumuksutva in a very early age in life. 4. Viveka - Discrimination of the observer and observed. One need to realize something that is self-evident. You know the existence of anything because you are conscious of it. You know that a tree you see exists because it is a perception perceived by the consciousness. Consciousness is what that knows everything; that knows that this world exists. So, existence of anything is only known by the existence of consciousness. You are also aware of your own thoughts, emotions, subtle mental movements and mood changes as they float as the contents of your consciousness. When you see everything from a totally subjective perspective, you will see that this world itself appears as a perception in your consciousness; it is as if everything is happening within consciousness. It takes a great deal of objectivity to understand and develop viveka. Usually a human being is too attached to the concept of ‘me’ or ‘self, which gives him a sense of separation from the world. But when you develop non-attachment, it will be very easy to see this concept of little ‘me’ as an object of consciousness, which only appears to exist because the thoughts flow in the mind in a high speed. Just like a fan which is running in a high speed creates an illusion that there is a circle, the thoughts when moving fast gives a continuity and creates the illusion of self. But if you take a step back from your thoughts and just observe what they do, sometimes they may slow down and you may be able to silence your mind for a few seconds. In that few seconds, you would just exist as consciousness simply perceiving sense perceptions. You can now see that you are actually consciousness itself, and that the thoughts, emotions, body and everything you perceive in consciousness is not you; But consciousness, which is the true Self, is now identified with the body, mind and many other concepts like one’s beliefs, one’s nationality, one’s religion etc. It mistakes a selective part of what is observed as self. This idea of mistaking the body and mind as one’s self is avidya or root ignorance, which is considered as the root cause of all suffering. Since it is because of consciousness that the world is perceived, consciousness is seen more real than what appears on the consciousness. This consciousness or the pure awareness has no attributes and gives space for the life experience to occur and the perceptions to exist. Whether you are sleeping, dreaming or in a waking state, it is consciousness which pervades all these three! With this understanding you can inquire everything that happens in your consciousness and see that it is not you; because you as the pure awareness that observes a thought or emotion should be separate from what is observed. Since you can observe the thought, the thought is not you. This discrimination or clear identification of the observer or the pure awareness (the real you) and the objects of observation (thoughts, emotions, perceptions etc) is viveka. Now this may raise a question. Doesn’t Vedanta say that everything is one and there is no two? Doesn’t the discrimination of observer vs observed promote duality? No.. Actually, this discrimination is necessary to remove the attachments and the selective identification of consciousness with body, mind and certain mental concepts related to the egoic self (my beliefs, my religion, my country etc). The concept of oneness doesn’t have to be promoted as a teaching, belief or a philosophy. This is the reason some traditions do not talk about oneness or the absolute Brahman that exists without a second. It may actually confuse people at the earlier stages. Brahman is the same as your real self. Upanishads say prajnanam Brahman, which means consciousness is Brahman. You can imagine your consciousness as a screen and everything that is observed in consciousness as moving pictures on the screen, In a sense, the screen and the pictures are different; but the pictures do not have any independent existence on their own, So the picture part is called as maya and the screen part is brahman. But you need to understand that the screen can exist without picture. The pictures are just modifications of the same reality. You may see thousand men marching in a screen but the screen is one. But until or unless this oneness of Brahman becomes living experience, theoretical understanding of what is Brahman is of no use. When the final realization dawns, both observer and the observed is realized as one and the same; this is Advaita. If you want to really understand oneness, it has to start with developing sadhana chatushtaya first. The final stage of Vedantic path involves to be completely established as a witness or awareness; It is called as shakshibhava or nididhyasana. This is the same as mindfulness in Buddhism. It requires just being a witness and passive observer of everything that passes by in consciousness. You just let the mind happens by itself; you neither give force to the thoughts, emotions and subtle movements of mind nor suppress them. You simply let anything arise and pass away in your conscious experience. Your focus is more on silent gaps between thoughts and mental movements. these gaps keep increasing until the observer and observed converges and all the distinctions disappear, There are many other things taught in Advaita like karma and creation of the universe. But they are not really much important, Understanding karma helps, but many things can be learnt in the later stage. The only thing one can focus on as a starting point is to work on purifying one’s mind. I have explained more about Sadhana chatushtaya here: You can read my book “The Truth About Spiritual Enlightenment: Bridging Science, Buddhism and Advaita Vedanta” to learn more. Also read: Buddhism and Vedanta are the Same – A Detailed Comparison Shanmugam P's answer to What's the essence of non-duality?

Hey thanks ❤️ And thank you for asking... Patience. I think experientially, patience is like an acceptance of now, and letting go, a being, a surrendering to now. Often times I can get fixated in the future, whether its 5 minutes from now or 5 years from now, the mind, my mind creates these stories and imaginations of what it wants to one day occur or what it needs to plan for. But when I look at nature, when I look at the pace at which life moves, it moves very slowly. Transformation, evolution, change all happen at a snail’s pace relative to the quick fixes the mind craves. So patience is like reconnecting with the operating principle of life... just be with whatever is and be patient as impermanence and change play itself out. Moreover, let the patience be imbued with trust that whatever happens is exactly what needed to happen, and is all a form of self love and growth. My goals will manifest however they will manifest, trust the slowness of this journey and be at peace with what is already.

I posted the following in another thread and it can be worth repeating it here. I found it amazing that all major religions have the concept of a new earth. I read somewhere that the word "sea" in ancient Hebrew can mean "evil" and although the Book of Revelation is written in Koine Greek I think "no longer any sea" in Revelation 21 means no longer any evil (or separation), not that the oceans will dry up or anything like that [see quote from bibletools.org below]. And the new earth seems to me to be a profound transformation of the earth we live on and a revelation of the kingdom of God on earth, which is within us Jesus said, but hidden in our fallen world. Christianity "See, I will create new heavens and a new earth." - Isaiah 65 "Then I saw “a new heaven and a new earth,” for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea." - Revelation 21:1 Judaism "HaOlam HaBa, or "the world to come", is an important part of Jewish eschatology " - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_to_come#Jewish_eschatology "The Temple will be rebuilt (Ezekiel 40) resuming many of the suspended mitzvot[9] (commandments) He will then perfect the entire world to serve God together (Zephaniah 3:9)" - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_eschatology Islam "Allah creates new heavens and a new earth. Upon their completion, the third trumpet will be blown. It is “the trumpet of resurrection.”" - https://christinprophecy.org/articles/islamic-eschatology/ Hinduism "In Hindu eschatology the current age is the Kali Yuga, a period of decline. Kalki ('Destroyer of Filth') will appear to purge all evil, beginning a golden age of Satya Yuga." - https://www.revolvy.com/page/World-to-come "Kalki ... is described in the Puranas as the avatar who rejuvenates existence by ending the darkest and destructive period to remove adharma and ushering in the Satya Yuga, while riding a white horse with a fiery sword." - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalki Buddhism "Maitreya's coming is characterized by the decreasing of the oceans in size, allowing Maitreya to traverse them freely. The event will also allow the unveiling of the true dharma (Law, Teaching) to the people, in turn allowing the construction of a new world." - https://sirius-eng.net/liki/maitreia.htm Notice the terms: corrupt system, multitudes, nations. That's this fallen world we live in! And: And to connect back to Judaism:

Id be glad to hear some opinions about this. I am wanting to work more on psychedelics and reach for transformation and transcendencd. I remember my first psychedelic was ayahuasca and it was beautiful and extremely scary at once. Also it has a dreamy nature to it, of course with an intense amoubt of visuals and jungle vibration accompanied. Thats why I wonder if it can actually delude someone even more into ego games, due to its playable nature it possesses and cause it works on the third eye. On my one and only Bufo Allvarius ride I had a terrible experience and did not breakthrough but nonetheless I felt much more purer afterwards and rid of unnecessary thoughts. Ayahusca actually made me dream more and I remember the trip is always accompanied by the feeling of not understanding anything. As I am not ready for another Bufo session, here Id like to find opinions on the benefits of ayahuasca and another psychedelics for example Peyote or San Pedro. What are the benefits and maybe even disadvantages of Ayahuasca and Peyote regarding, transcendence, transformation and understanding/enlightenment.

I'm not saying don't moderate them. What I'm saying is that if you block something out as fundamental as human sexuality, you end up with a contents under pressure situation... that ends up getting in the way of consciousness work and self-actualization. And that's why I disagree that the dating/relationship sub-forum should be deleted. That's all I'm saying. But I understand your feelings, as I feel the same way about sexism. It really doesn't feel good and it salts collective and individual wounds. There's a lot of pain and anger and fear there. And the wounds are deep and ancient and infected. And they effect both men and women, but it's only women who tend to realize it and feel it strongly. And this gives us a unique advantage in helping men and women with this issue. And this is a space where you can bring things to light that can help people that would otherwise be stuck in a bad position. It's a space where you can push back and influence people (men and women) to see what's actually going on. And of course there are many people that don't like to look at this. But I'm not just sharing for their sake. Talking to brick walls is not helpful for the brick wall... and I certainly don't do it for me because it's not fun. But some of the onlookers on this public forum will be deeply influenced. Because I share in this way, so many people are not aware of these things. And I've had quite a few men and women who seek out my services to help them integrate their feminine side. Also, your age is not so relevant to me. And I find it strange that my disagreement with you is being met with the level of resistance that it is on this topic. So, if your assessment is that you have healed your wounds because you're twice my age, then I have to push back on that notion. These are ancient wounds and collective wounds as much as they are individual. And it takes a lot of equanimity to be receptive enough to get deep into the wound enough to start healing it. You have to understand it at such a deep level that you can find compassion even for those men that are spitting vitriol toward women and trying to diminish us. And the compassion grows out of understanding why the wound is effecting them that way. It's really about systems thinking. And because it's a collective wound, you won't be able to fully heal until it's healed in the collective for men and women... which probably won't happen completely any time in my lifetime. But it's about the journey and making things better and better. And if you only focus on the substance of what the 'too far gones' say, you won't see how helpful this kind of awareness is for people. So, the existence of the Dating/Relationship forum tends to produce some low quality content. But it's also the space where the most transformation can happen. Issues always play out on the sexual stage eventually. Repression (in the mind or internet) is not healthy.

Hello – I’ve discovered writing trip reports in this fashion really helps me with integration and the last two I’ve shared seem to be received well from the forum, so here I am with my latest haha. This will be kind of long, but it’s very powerful material. This will be written using personal pronouns and from a perspective of ego, but please do your best to intuit the relativity here. Background: To really understand this trip, I have be fully honest about what’s lead me to this point in my life. I was unfortunately very misguided, unknowledgeable, and unwise when I graduated high school. See, I went into University without much of a plan or vision about what kind of life I wanted, all I knew is that everyone kept telling me I had to go to school. It didn’t matter if I had to take out student loans, I HAD to go. Well, fast forward and I’m senior about to graduate school and I have a little over $100K in debt. Yep. I felt foolish, I felt so much regret, I felt like an fucking idiot. How could I have let this situation unfold? Why didn’t I have the simple foresight to see this path was wildly un-strategic and a bad idea? To be honest, there was and still has been this deep existential dread associated with these loans that really sank into the core of my being as I went through school; it was like these loans provided a background vibration, or context to my waking experience that pounded away at my excitement for life, just dulling it with every beat. As if this wasn’t enough, two weeks before graduation I go to the emergency room where I was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes, a pretty brutal autoimmune disorder that if not managed correctly will slowly destroy multiple body systems and kill you. It pretty much slowly damages the body even when you have good control though. I remember feeling so hopeless that night in the hospital room. Not only did I have $100k in debt, but now I had one of the most expensive chronic illnesses in the United States (look into insulin costs) that could really ravage my body. So this trip felt like some sort divine healing session where I truly tapped into all of my pain and trauma from this situation, but in a theme of going full-circle, simultaneously tapped into my inner potential and why I’m here living this life. The only words I can use to describe what the peak felt like was going Super Saiyan, which I’m sure a large majority of the forum knows about from the anime Dragon Ball Z. I don’t mean to sound cheeky or humorous here, it’s just the only term I could think of to describe what happened during this trip. Set: I wrote down 4 questions: What is vision? What is intention? What is will? Who is doing all of this? Setting: As per usual, my room, my music, and my cat. Themes: - Super Saiyan - Vision and Life Purpose - Lightwork - Will - Patience - The Principle of Keep Going Super Saiyan One of the most amazing faculties of psychedelics is that they allow mind to tap into different experiences of time. During the peak, write before I felt like I achieved a state of “Super Saiyan,” it felt like a giant energetic bubble was growing in my body, almost like a ball of lava, within which all of my pain, particularly the pain from my loans and illness came crashing into awareness all at once. I experienced the years of my college education in this one moment. I experienced all the existential dread from those loans at once. I experienced the emotional pain from every finger prick and insulin injection, every high and low blood sugar episode at once. I felt all my helplessness at being chained by the American education system, I felt all of my helplessness at being the bitch of the American Pharmaceutical Industry, having to pay absurd amounts of money for health insurance and medicine just to live. And as the bubble expanded further and further, something snapped inside. Everything went full circle. It felt like kundalini or some other energetic force shot through the emotional bubble inside my body, and suddenly I was at complete and utter peace. It was like I was in the eye of my storm. It felt like I had completely let go of all of the pain, all of the trauma. However, just like in physics energy can neither be created nor destroyed, only transformed and that’s what this emotional surge did, it completely transformed. The energy from the pain was still 100% there, but it no longer was trauma, it was vitality. It felt zen. It felt like perfect harmony. It felt like perfect balance. It felt like with every breath I drew in, I could feel the universe providing energy for my purpose and with every breath I drew out, I felt like I as God was breathing out this purpose into the world. It was like a hurricane of energy was emanating from my body and mind instead of being stored inside as mental pain and bodily tension. This state of Super Saiyan is one of complete nowness, complete peace, complete fearlessness, complete effortlessness, and interestingly enough, complete formlessness. As motivation, inspiration, pain and suffering ebb and flow through life, you can find inner indestructibility as your true self. To act from this authentic space of inner potential is what it means to go Super Saiyan. And what's so beauitful, is that it is available in every moment. Vision and Life Purpose I realized how incredibly powerful vision is. Vision can be the context for your entire life. Every action you take, no matter how small (brushing your teeth) or how large (working on your life purpose) can be done within this overarching meta context that we can call vision. Recently I’ve felt in somewhat of a limbo with vision, almost like I’ve been embarrassed or scared to fully embrace my life purpose, but this is no longer the case. I’m here to teach other’s about spirituality and help the collective consciousness of humanity wake up. I will do this through public speaking one day. At this moment, I’m very focused on paying my loans off by the time I’m in my mid 30s (I’m 23), so I’m using YouTube as a way to get my voice out. My channel’s name is Existential Wonder if you’re interested. Eventually however, I want to find a way to do this through public speaking rather than video. Anyways, your vision is like a beacon for the energy of your form, your ego, your avatar, your survival as an individual, to align and attract towards with action. The more you understand your true nature, the more you will understand what your life purpose is and what type of vision you need for your life. Initially it may seem like there’s a paradox here. If your true nature of formlessness, and nothing actually matters, why pursue Life Purpose? And isn’t Life Purpose all kinda egoic in nature? It’s about the individual, and I’m not an individual, I’m infinite formlessness. One of the interesting features of God is that it operates at multiple levels, multiple perspectives simultaneously, so even though yes you are God, you are also a human doing human work, doing human survival. The nature and context of this survival can be more or less aligned with your soul, your “higher self.” I know some people on this forum dismiss such notions of higher self, but what you need to understand is that your higher self is just as much you and not you as a coffee cup. It’s simply an energetic force that resides within the whole of your experience as living as a human. It’s your self-actualization. Believe it or not, you as God want this energetic force, this energetic potential to play out and manifest. More on this later. Essentially though, vision is the beacon to center this massive energy and infinite potential that you have as an individual. As the energy grows inside of you, as you feel the call to Self-Actualize, and find your purpose, vision is the lightening rod to harness and create a single pointed focus for the energy. This helps you align all of your actions towards your mission rather than being swept away by devilry. Let vision be the context for all your action. I encourage everyone reading this to find your purpose ASAP. Can’t recommend Leo’s life purpose course enough, it’s incredible. Will Ah, the ol free will vs. no free will debate. I know there will be non-dualists here that disagree with me, and there will even be scientists who’d disagree with me, but I don’t really care. The fact of the matter is that you do have will, you do have choice. Your will is to self-actualize and return to yourself, to find enlightenment. This is what you're here to do. This is what you truly want to do. Let me reiterate, this is what you WANT TO DO. This is your DEEPEST SEEDED DESIRE. So here’s the thing, in every moment you can either choose to act from a place of devilry, or place of authenticity. The freedom of both is available, that’s how much freedom you really have as God. And no matter which option plays out, it’s the Will of God haha. It’s kind of a mindfuck… And it doesn’t make sense. But please realize Free Will is you becoming conscious of the fact that in every moment, you are truly free to act from whatever place you want. You are 100% free to be a devil (to play out your hedonism, addictions, cower from your fears, and embrace laziness, and basically be selfish), or you can be you (act from a place of fearlessness, self-actualization, truth, love, and selflessness). That’s really what free will means. It means there is the freedom for the energy to play out whoever it’s going to play out and if you think you can’t start taking action that aligns with your true nature, you are wrong. To dismiss free will is to dismiss the energetic freedom available from taking action. I wish I could explain this more, but I’ll leave you with this: Never underestimate your willpower. Don’t try to figure it out with your rational mind. Become conscious of your Absolute Freedom. Lightwork Leo’s latest blog post really brought this to my attention. During the trip, it felt like that I became conscious that I am in this particular life very much on purpose, almost like this life was chosen by me as God. It was important that I be chained to multiple western systems (student loans and healthcare) because I’m not here to leave society as hermit or monk, or to live life modestly and out of sight. I’m here to help humanity wake the fuck up very much as an active member of society. It felt like I became conscious that all this suffering I experienced from my loans and illness was all necessary to get my ass in gear so to speak. The suffering was needed to give me the energy for my life purpose. If I wanted to live a life of seclusion and meditation, I’d have been incarnated as someone who goes off and lives that life. No, I’m here to help plant the seeds of collective awakening for humanity. Now I have to be careful here not to get some kind of messiah mentality. I don’t feel like a messiah or Jesus figure. I don’t feel special, or better than others. I realized on the trip that this lightwork role can only truly be manifested from a place of humility and selflessness. The moment you think your better than others or casting judgement on other’s, you’re being a devil and don’t understand what Truth and Love are really all about. This trip felt like I finally, and fully accepted the mantle of responsibility for my suffering and for my purpose here as a member of humanity. And Leo’s blog post of lightwork really resonated with how my life has been and continues to be. Oddly enough, it felt like this life really was a choice, these struggles really were a necessary part of the path that I accepted long ago… Before birth. I remember this energy inside of me feeling so ancient, like it had been slumbering and waiting for a moment of activation. But who knows man. Psychedelics get some weird mind states going. Patience You’ve got to be patient. Patience for yourself as you wake up fully as God, patience as you self-actualize, patience as you manifest your life purpose, patience as you work through your traumas and suffering. In the state of being Super Saiyan, part of the overwhelming peace that I’d achieved was that I found the importance of patience through this transformational process. Patience is one your strongest allies, and I became conscious of just how important it really is for all facets of life. Your path will take time, transformation and evolution takes time. Just be patience and trust yourself. When you can act from a place of patience, you are literally aligning with the forces of biological nature here… So just be patience and breath. The Principle of Keep Going I’d discovered this life principle a while ago, but I really rediscovered it on this Trip. It’s entirely self-explanatory, which is why it’s so effective and beautiful. Just keep going. No matter what struggles you’re forced to endure, no matter how much you suffer, no matter how much pain you have inside, keep going, please keep going. You owe it yourself on all levels, as an ego, as the collective consciousness of humanity, as the collective consciousness of Earth, and as God, to keep going. Keep persisting and never give up on your path. Until your last breath, keep fucking going dude. You have the tools to available. Actualized.org is literally a gold mine of the techniques, habits, strategies you need to succeed at your purpose no matter what flavor or variation it takes on. We are all incredible fortunate to have found this place. Life is going to throw everything it has at you; your inner devil is going to keep tempting you over and over and over. You’re going to suffering enormously. You’re going to feel unmotivated, lazy, helpless, depressed, ashamed. Your negative emotions are going to try and rule your life, but you’ve got to find that inner peace and inner stillness that I promise is inside, and keep going. Keep going until you see who you truly are and what you’re here to do. As this dynamic of the trip was playing out, an image flashed into mind. It was an image I drew years ago in a state of deep depression, but I see now more than ever what I was drawing. Now more than ever, I feel ready to face the work of this lifetime. Thank you for providing the space to share.

Substances can definitely be part of awakening. Though the awakening itself is prior to that, and every single second of your life is part of that process. Not just the peak moments that arise out of those substances. Or any peak moment for that matter. And while transformation can certainly be offered through these peak moments, integration is not. So, the simple (sober) moments in your life are as important as the profound ones. You wouldn't be able to handle transformation after transformation if you weren't also able to integrate them. So, while these huge transformations can definitely be beneficial, they are never the goal. That would just be another way of chasing experiences. Or objects. These peak moments are simply perfectly timed openings that correspond to your needs in that very moment. If that means getting high, then so be it. If that means intense retreat, so be it. You'll know what to do, cause you'll be doing it. So let go of what you think is needed for awakening. Whatever is needed will always occur. As it's always occurring right now.

E V I L 1. Knowledge of true evil is a direct knowledge of reality itself. 2. Such knowledge is not immediately possible for living creatures. 3. The experience of reality by normal creatures is expressed as the experience of their presence in some outer space external to them. 4. In itself, this experience expresses a lack of encounter with reality. 5. Therefore, a normal being has only a general elemental premonition of the possibility of evil. 6. The quality of this premonition is an ontological discomfort. 7. This discomfort is nothing but the feeling of a deep, inescapable alienation that separates normal creatures and the universe in which they live. 8. The real life experience of any normal creature is the experience of complete loss. 9. This experience is behind any attempt to form an orienting idea of being. 10. In fact, any such idea from the very beginning is a way of hiding from oneself a strangeness of reality 11. The most common in the formation of orienting ideas is the aesthetic predisposition of normal creatures. 12. Thus, the most general way of hiding a strangeness of reality from oneself is the notion of beauty. 13. A normal creature immersed in ontological discomfort perceives a completely strange as monstrous. 14. The quality of the monstrous is determined by the premonition of evil common to normal creatures. 15. It is the horror of the monstrous that determines the connection between the principle of form and the thirst for orientation. 16. A normal creature does not suspect that any form is knowingly and absolutely monstrous. 17. Concrete certainty of any form is given only by primordial arbitrariness. 18. Total arbitrariness of any form expresses fundamental strangeness as an inherent metaphysical property inherent in reality. 19. This fundamental strangeness is revealed only in a true encounter with reality. 20. A meeting with reality means precisely a meeting of the subjective principle with pure and total arbitrariness. 21. Meeting with reality is a concrete and direct detection of evil. 22. Only a complete and active intuition of evil makes such a meeting possible at all. 23. The intuition of evil is the flip side of the illusory nature of any experiential experience. 24. This intuition immediately gives knowledge of the hostile opposition of global arbitrariness to the subjective principle. 25. The absolute tragedy of this knowledge is that global arbitrariness permeates absolutely everything. 26. Thus, the intuition of evil reveals that for a subjective principle, existence as such has the character of an insidious trap. 27. By virtue of this deceit, the cessation of existence puts an end to any concrete manifestation of the subjective principle. 28. However, the connection of objective existence with a concrete manifestation of the subjective concerns only the external side of that hopelessness that is embodied in creature. 29. The truly internal essence of hopelessness is the hermetic isolation of reality in itself. 30. In this hermetic isolation, perverted infinity inherent in reality is expressed. 31. The essence of this infinity is the quality of continuous continuity inherent in all-pervasive arbitrariness. 32. Due to this continuity, every given is completely equivalent to any other possible given. 33. In this equivalence, all possible alternatives to actual reality are completely analogous. 34. As a result, reality itself has no genuine alternative in itself, in the realm of the possible. 35. The subjective spirit meets and opposes to reality as to arbitrariness, and seeks to find the prospect of its own triumph in the alternative to reality. 36. From the point of view of the subjective spirit, the potencies inside reality itself are completely barren. 37. The continuous continuity of global arbitrariness is metaphysically nothing more than comprehensive immanentism, in which the absence of the absolute is embodied. 38. It is the absence of the absolute that is the ontological basis of evil. 39. This absence guarantees the hopelessness of the captivity in which the subjective principle resides. 40. Ultimately, the purest evil is immanence itself in its spirit and principle. 41. It is the spirit of immanence that communicates to actual reality the appearance of an immutable justification. 42. Actually, immanence includes countless potentially different expressions of reality. 43. Therefore, global evil is infinitely wider than any actual expression of reality. 44. Due to this, real evil in some way has a negative transcendence with respect to being. 45. This negative transcendence makes global evil invulnerable to any inherent tendencies. 46. Thus, with respect to global evil, there is no real antithesis. 47. The possibility of an antithesis to global evil arises only through a fundamental rejection of reality. as an antithesis to global evil, good is, from the point of view of the subjective spirit, a completely illusory futile prospect. 49. From this point of view, good is a complete reconciliation with the very principle of evil. 50. Focusing on the good implies the acceptance of hopelessness and hermetic isolation as a kind of saving aspect of reality. 51. The instinct of hopelessness gives rise to a myth of universal love in good-oriented creatures. 52. The essence of this myth lies in the illusion that the possibility of absolute atonement is given in reality itself. 53. Such an illusion exists due to the fact that evil is perceived as insufficient and not-total. 54. A turn to fundamentally unreal is the only unique opportunity to confront evil. 55. This possibility comes from the fact that evil has two cardinal aspects. 56. On the one hand, evil expresses the general nature of the objective. 57. In the objective aspect of evil, the element of universal inertia is embodied. 58. However, for the subjective spirit, evil turns into its polar opposite side. 59. This other side, from the point of view of the subjective, is the principle of radical surprise. 60. Radical surprise occurs as a breakthrough of the fundamental absurdity through the layers of external inertia. 61. This breakthrough carries the possibility of an unexpected transformation of being. 62. In the fundamental absurdity, the energy of transformation is dissolved, as the only true accomplishment. 63. For an incarnated creature, evil is revealed in the potential perspective of a real miracle. 64. Because of their state of loss, normal creatures perceive a real miracle as a nightmare. 65. Only the subjective spirit that has taken on a titanic responsibility knows evil adequately. 66. This knowledge presupposes freedom from blind thirst for atoning reconciliation with global evil. 67. This knowledge means the rejection of any ethical assessment of evil. 68. The subjective spirit experiences the reality of evil in the unmotivated nature of things. 69. From spirit's point of view, evil is the basis for solving the unique problem of the metathesis of reality. 70. The titanic responsibility of the subjective spirit is the acceptance of evil as spirit's own internal burden. 71. This acceptance provides insight into evil as the starting point of a titanic spiritual perspective. 72. In this perspective, fantastic being opens up as a paradoxical transmutation of the very foundation of reality