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Today's reading - 8 -23 -2019 Just one unchanging Hexagram - 43 Resoluteness/Breakthrough a small piece of the text,,,,, "The force of will lies neither in physical nor mental power, but in its irresistible strength, which develops when it aligns with inner truth. Breakthrough refers to the successful effort of the will in breaking down the power of the ego. The breakdown of the ego is initiated through saying the inner No to any part of the ego that is active in the situation. The inner No brings about transformation in the realm of the atom, which is the realm of consciousness." page 365

I'm reading the book "persuing consciousness" atm. In the book the Peter Ralston (the author) says the following, which makes sense to me. He makes a clear distinction between enlightenment and transformation. Often people think that one includes the other, this is not a given. He defines enlightenment as "becoming conscious of whats actually true". Classic enlightenment referst to becoming conscious of the truth about Self and what Reality is. This realization does not necessarily bring change or transformation with it, it is simply knowing whats true. Even thought in most cases when someone has an enlightenment experience, some aspect of the mind changes but by far not all of it. Following: just because your aware of what the Truth is does not make you the best version of yourself

Here is a high level discussion about the potentially disastrous changes that we are going to face over the coming century from climate change. The talk is led by an environmental philosopher called Rupert Read who is campaigner and spokesperson for Extinction Rebellion. His general view is that the world is going to shit, basically, and we need a much deeper transformation of society, politics and ultimately our consciousness in order to prevent complete collapse of human civilisation. I suspect he is right. The discussion is quite morbid and terrifying in many ways. I thought the questions from the audience and the general discussion were very intelligent and thoughtfull, so I highly recommend watching the full video.

Hi. I found that the more I stay in being presence and silence the more I start to look strange to close people like family, friends and girlfriend. I have gone through a huge transformation. I become really silent, do not speak that much ,do no want to tell anything about me. I can relate to people but only the necessary things. I do not force myself to be like this, it is very natural to me and I feel to be much more myself in this empty states. This creates some tension, embarrassment and strange feelings to others because of my silent presence. They often ask me if I have some problem. Have you experienced something like this ?

Also psychopathy is just "lack of affective empathy", that's literally pretty much it (in a nutshell, there's more to it though but that to me would be the clear differentiator). Lack of affective empathy leads to many other consequences that we take for granted. SD doesn't have neuroscientific grounding, so an improved model could easily be made if well developed neuroscientists very familiar with SD or people in SD had a high grounding in neuroscience spent the necessary amount of time to create one. There's no reason why a psychopath wouldn't be able to go through various high levels of ego transformation (beyond what you'd normally think or assume) actually in light of understanding the flaws of SD, a flaw in SD or any model is a window of opportunities for all the things that fit through that gap, in this case, the growth of a psychopath which is an important thing to imagine to develop not only ones thoughts on what a psychopath is, firstly its merely another model with its own flaws, but what the limits of ego development are as well as how different sub-types of 'personality' uniquely fit into that realisation.

I've been staying off the forum the past month, here are the things that have been happening: I was reading Meditations on the Tarot and it is probably the best book I have ever read. It is just pure genius and world-shattering insights on every page. I stopped reading it at the letter IX: the hermit because I got discouraged by the resolution by the previous letter and the fact that the author started demolishing philosophical dilemmas that I didn't find relevant to my current situation. Still, outstanding book - I will get back to it at some point. I had 2 week vacation, half of which I spent at my mother-in-law's that lives in the countryside. I was under the influence of Meditations and had a lot of insights about interconnectedness of the world. I talked to my mother in law a lot, she seems to be spiritually inclined, but lacks knowledge on the subject. I helped to soothe her worries about her partner's misuse of alcohol and her family dynamic in general. While staying there, I suddenly became inspired to code again. My python project was on hiatus for almost a year. I'm creating a program that automatically translates CNC programs between various languages. It started as a toy project to amuse myself at work and learn some python in the process, but after many iterations grew into something that I'm quite content with (even though It's yet to translate anything). The program is implemented with two libraries that I wrote in this project: Babel and Hydra. Babel is a parser generator that is somewhat unique in that one grammar definition can be used to both read and write the language that was being described. I developed it independently from the ground up, but it turned out to be similar to something called parsing expression grammar. This "invertibility" of the grammar is crucial for my project because I don't want to write programs for reading and writing independently. Currently, commercial translator programs are one-way only and they only work from one set language to another set language and it's impossible to mix them. My program reads the CNC program, 'understands it' by simulating the CNC machine state and outputs from that simulated state. This is the trick that allows for translation, the intermediate 'meaning' of the program that is machine-dependent and preserved between languages. Hydra, on the other hand, is the library that I created to implement the 'meaning' of the program, the state of the CNC machine. The machine that runs the program is described by the tool position and orientation expressed in various coordinate systems that are linked by transformation functions. The translated program is interpreted as a set of commands to update the state of the machine, and Hydra calculates the entire new state given partial information (using the transformation functions). I tried to do this by simple numerical solvers in SymPy, but it turned out to be too slow for my purposes. Hydra is much more generic than that, it can be thought of as a discrete dependency solver. So, in the past 2-3 weeks I've been writing Hydra from the ground up and developing the conflict-solving algorithm which was pretty daunting, to be frank. Actually this is the ting that has been stalling my project for the past half year and the result is very, very interesting. Hydra is, hmmm... let's say alive. It is a tree-like organism that rebuilds itself after being disrupted by the update. it traverses the dependency hierarchy and produces parts of itself and checks if they are not in conflict with each other to maintain the set constraints. it's very beautiful and has a kind of its own intelligence. While testing it, there were many cases where I thought that it should be able to reconstruct itself when it actually failed and I spent hours looking for bugs only to be proven wrong in my assumptions. I'm very pleased with how it all turned out, the only downsides are that the Hydra user code is difficult to write (many complexities in solving) and it's getting slow again. I'm considering rewriting the program in C++ for this reason and started to dabble in my other C++ library too. For now, I implemented Heidenhain language in Babel and described a 3-axis milling machine in Hydra. Heidenhain can only read programs for the time being and is yet to feed them to Hydra for processing. I've been testing Hydra in isolation thus far. In the meantime, in the second week of my vacations, I tripped on LSD again - 100 ug. I wrote a mini trip report on the consciousness forum, so I won't repeat myself here. In short, I experienced the active coherence of the present moment as infinite love. I understood my own stupidity on a whole new level and bonded with my wife tremendously. We had a few fights in the meantime, but there's been great progress in how we understand and appreciate each other. After many heated discussions we finally decided to share our finances fully and merged our bank accounts. This got a LOT of burden off my shoulders and relieved many implicit tensions between the two of us. She also decided to actually start being responsible with our money and educate herself in this manner and I'm absolutely astonished with the results! So far, no fights about money! Yay! I also started to actually cook instead of just helping in the kitchen, so it also took some burden off her. Win-win overall. The other thing that happened is that a Zen master was giving a lecture in my town and I showed up to see him. It was around the time when I was reading Meditations and was looking for someone to humble myself back to normality after my latest awakening. it was just spot on, his presence just floored me. Amazing person, soft and firm at the same time. I kind of crashed the party there, but they were really nice and did their best for me to feel welcome and hold their curiosity at bay. Last Thursday I went on the meeting of that group and had a great one hour zazen sit. After that we were discussing the five skandas and I had an opportunity to deepen my knowledge about Buddhism. Very,very,very busy. I was actually feeling a little down today, but writing this made me realize just how amazing of a person I am. Keep on rockin' tsuki.

I'm not as experienced in psychedelics as many people in this forum. These questions are for experienced users: - How do use the psychedelic insights - experiences to progress and dive deeper in sober meditation? - Do you try to re-connect energetically and emotionally to a memorable psychedelic moment in meditation? Can you describe in detail how this occurred the last time you tried doing it? - Did your sober meditation are easier and more fulfilling after psychedelic usage? Or does it facilitate impatience, boredom and distractions? I've got the sense that both can occur depending on the skill of the meditator. - What is the 'key' experience leading up to awakening in a psychedelic session? What does the body and mind go through prior to awakening? What similarities are there in multiple awakening experiences accessed in psychedelics? Can we imitate them in a sober state? How effective was it in your experience? - And lastly, what is the current status of Leo's 5 MEO-DMT experiment on himself? Does this substance have the potential for permanent transformation with regular usage and sober meditation? It is obvious from a temporary insight 'recognition' point of view, psychedelics are extremely efficient and effective. But from the insight embodiment, daily mindfulness and stable attention point of view, how much benefit one can get from 'only' psychedelics path? Does it interfere with the brain in a way that certain value systems like discipline, diligence and effort go away too early before no-self is realized deeply on a semi-permanent intuitive level? Can this potentially get in the way of sober practice? As a last note, I want to ask about this youtube channel called: Psyched Substance: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCn8V3KNSgDr1Dai77_y8JrQ Probably most psychedelic users know about Adam in this channel. He seems quite experienced in many psychedelics but he doesn't appear to have the attitude Leo talks about when approaching psychedelics. He seems to use psychedelics as a party drug, not as a serious investigation towards the truth. (This is my impression of him). This leads me to think that only psychedelic paths can be dangerous without preliminary meditation, cognitive behavior therapy and psychology work. He doesn't seem conscious of many things serious meditators are even though he is using advanced methods like LSD, DMT and many more. I think most people seem to underestimate and undervalue Leo's psychedelic insights. These are not easy to be conscious of even for experienced psychedelic users. It seems to require a certain intent and attitude prior to tripping. The psychedelic path appears to have a mastery curve and should be respected by both non-psychedelic and psychedelic seekers. Anyways, thank you for all your answers.

@winterknight @Leo Gura Hey guys, I feel the need to contribute to this conversation. I did three years of Freudian psychoanalysis (In Buenos Aires its very normal here) and while I saw many of the roots and causes of my problems there wasnt much room for deep transformation. I felt it helped me live with my neurosis instead of freeing me of it. I also felt an old school feel where the therapist would dogmatically hand down to me certain rigid ways of being to better "fit in" with society. It was done innocently and with the best of intentions but there was a lot of truth and authenticity lost in translation. The relationship is very vertical, they are in the position of power and have the knowledge and you are a patient being helped. Since then I have done Jungian therapy with visualizations and meditations which I felt were much more helpful and faster, more effective. I am also doing an alternative therapy where you breathe together in meditation as part of the session and you feel the things you have been talking about as sensations in the body that can be seen with much more clarity than if you only talked. Its really much better. And yes, I second what Leo says about the psychedelic trips being more effective. The purification that happens, the literal "seeing" of your normally hidden beliefs, the authentic you that comes foward on the trips and shows you what you are really made of existentially. If used properly growth can occur so much quicker than in psychotherapy. Right now I am combining the best of both worlds. I am doing sessions using Yopo with a shaman, I trip and I get to talk about things with this dude I really resonate with.

What does the word ‘non-duality’ point to? The world created by thought, the world of words, language, and concepts, is the world of opposites. ‘Up and down’, ‘this or that’, ‘inside and outside’, ‘right and wrong’, ‘black and white’, ‘true and false’, ‘positive and negative’, ‘me and you’ and so on. The world of words, language, thoughts, concepts, is a dualistic world of apparent opposites. But, in reality, do opposites exist? What we are really pointing to when we use the word ‘non-duality’ is something that goes beyond all of these mind-made opposites. But how can we talk about something that goes beyond opposites, when even our attempt to talk about non-duality is dualistic? So, what the word non-duality actually means is really very difficult to describe or put into words. In fact, you could say it’s impossible. For we are not talking about non-duality as opposed to something called duality, we are not talking about pro-duality as opposed to anti-duality.In fact the non-duality we speak of is not the opposite of anything. This is impossible to understand logically or rationally. To see what is being spoken of, we must go beyond our ordinary way of thinking and seeing. ‘Non-duality’ is actually a translation of the Sanskrit word ‘Advaita’, which simply means ‘not two’ and points to the essential oneness (wholeness, completeness, unity) of life, a wholeness which exists here and now,prior to any apparent separation. It’s a word that points to an intimacy, a love beyond words, right at the heart of present moment experience. It’s a word that points us back Home. And despite the compelling appearance of separation and diversity there is only one universal essence, one reality. Oneness is all there is – and we are included. What we are really trying to do when we say ‘non-duality’ is point to life as it is right now, before the appearance of concepts and labels; before thought creates a world of things: table, chair, hand, foot, fear, me, you, past, future. What is life before thought? Can we even talk about that? Is it possible to capture non-duality into words? When we speak of non-duality it can sometimes seem like we mean ‘anti-duality’, that we are against duality or that it’s wrong or false or even dangerous. This can then lead to dogmatic thinking and religiosity and to the proclamation of rightness: “You are dualistic and I am non-dualistic! I am more non-dual than you!” That is the religion of non-duality. We are more interested in the truth of non-duality. Is non-duality a religion or belief system? Non-duality isn’t a new belief system, a religion or a ‘how to’ guide to living. It makes no promises about the future. Of course, it canbecome a belief system or religion, however, like anything can. You could start to believe that there is “no self, no ‘me’, no time or space and that everything is an illusion” – and non-duality could become your new belief system. That’s what happened years ago in my own experience; non-duality had become my new belief system, although at the time I actually believed I was free from all belief systems! When someone subscribes to non-duality as a system of belief, there’s just someone there – a separate person – believing that they’re no longer a separate person! And then perhaps they go round telling everyone that they are not a separate person. Secretly they experience themselves as a separate individual but they have taken on a set of concepts, they are living with a new image of themselves as beyond all images. You can believe you are not separate, but you can still feel separate, and experience yourself as separate. There’s a world of difference between simply believing that you are not separate, in other words, intellectually taking non-duality concepts on as a new belief system, and really seeing what those words are pointing to in a very deep way. Here, we are interested in the seeing of non-duality, not just talking and arguing about it. We can talk and argue about non-duality concepts until we are blue in the face, we can argue about who is right and who is wrong and who is more ‘nondualistic’, but we would really be missing the point of all this. Is it possible to reach a non-dual state or become spiritually awakened? Isn’t it fascinating how automatically thought (or ‘the mind’) tries to turn what we are talking about into some kind of special state or experience. Thought hears about ‘non-duality’ and wants it. And it asks, ‘How do I get it? How do I reach it? How do I see it? Who can take me there? Who can transmit it to me? Who can teach me it or give it to me? Where will I find it?’ It starts looking for something called ‘non-duality’. It starts waiting for it. It lives in hope. That will inevitably happen because the individual is always a seeker. A separate person is always looking for something. We might seek wealth, success, power, fame, or we might seek for ‘spiritual’ things instead – but really it’s all the same seeking. The spiritual seeker might seek awakening, enlightenment or a non-dual state instead of money and power and success – but deep down, it’s the same movement. Time is always involved in seeking. What we search for is always in the future. We say, ‘One day I will find non-duality. I’ll get into the non-dual state or have an awakening experience or my person will drop away magically.’ So, stop right there! You’ve already turned non-duality into a future goal. Stop and look and see where this seeking begins. So, this incessant seeking takes on different forms? Yes. Ask anybody on the street what they are looking for, and they’ll probably say they’re looking for peace, happiness, success, popularity, power, love, acceptance, understanding, fame, glory. Someone who identifies themselves as a ‘spiritual person’ might be looking for an altered state of consciousness, or some kind of transformation, or an enlightenment experience, or they may be seeking to no longer seek anything anymore! Everyone is looking for something. This seeking takes many forms but really it’s all the same seeking. It seems as though everyone is looking for different things, but actually what we are looking for, deep down, is the same. Basically, everyone is in pursuit of the same wholeness (or oneness, or completeness, or whatever you want to call it) – a wholeness that is already here, but is ignored in our pursuit of a future completion. That’s where it all begins: looking for something better in the future. Looking for the next moment that will be a better moment, a more full moment, a more complete moment. And of course, non-duality could just become something else you are looking for. We could turn non-duality into our new goal. But the word ‘Non-duality’ actually points to what is already present here and now, within this present experience, as this experience. We’re not talking about a new goal for the seeker. We’re talking about life as it already is. non-duality is not in time. If life ‘as it is’ is already perfect why do we continue to seek? The real question is ‘Who is seeking?’. What is this seeker? Where is it? Can I find it now? And is this seeker who I really am? I seem to be a separate individual who is looking for something to complete myself, but is that really who I am? Does this seeking really define me? Am I really something that is incomplete, something that seeks completion in the future? You pass through all these different layers of questions and ultimately you get to the fundamental question: ‘Who am I?‘ That’s where everything leads to in the end. So, who am I? If you ask most people that question, they’d probably reply with a story about who they think they are. They’d give you a description about what they’ve done in the past and maybe what they dream of doing in the future. They might tell you a story about their role in life – that they are a father or mother, or a business person or baker -where they work and live, and how many children they have. They’ll quite literally tell you a story about the past and future. They’ll basically tell you a story about who they were in the past and who they think they will be in the future – not who theyare in this moment. But the question is, ‘Who are you now?’ Normally that question is answered by describing the past or an imagined future. We are living with a thought-created story about ourselves. I am a shop keeper, a doctor, a lawyer, an artist, a spiritual person. (Someone who calls themselves a ‘spiritual person’ might even tell a story about how they are not a person, that they’ve transcended time and space and that they have no relationships because they have no self and there are no others. Despite the content of the ‘I am’ story, it’s still a story! Maybe, if you see yourself as ‘enlightened’ you have convinced yourself that you are not telling a story, that you’re beyond stories. But isn’t that just another story? We all seem to live with an image of who we are.) It’s a case of mistaken identity? Exactly. Is the image of yourself who you really are? Does it define you? And here’s the problem. When you live with an image of yourself, that image can always be improved; you can always have a better story. If you have the identity that you are successful business women and you’re making a lot of money, maybe you hope that one day you’ll make a fortune and be a famous millionaire. Or the story could be that you’re a spiritual person and one day you’ll become enlightened. So, are you saying enlightenment is just another story? Well, it’s always about ‘me’ completing myself in time, isn’t it. The enlightenment story is equal to the ‘one day I’m going to win the lottery’ story.Within the story you are always incomplete and always moving towards a future completion. On some level we feel incomplete now – there’s a sense of lack, or of not being whole. Everyone lives with that, although not everyone admits it or realises it. This is how the search begins: the sense of being incomplete now, that something is missing now. Then there’s the urge for a future fullness, a future completion. Something wants to complete itself in the future, but it begins with a present sense of incompleteness, a sense of lack. That goes right to the root of it all – a sense of lack that everyone is trying to escape in various ways. The sense of lack doesn’t seem to go away, it might for a while but it soon comes back. Well yes, this is the problem. Even when you get what you want and you think you’re satisfied, very quickly dissatisfaction starts up again: ‘I finally got what I wanted but it didn’t complete me.’ After twenty years of spiritual seeking you finally have the awakening experience you always wanted, but you still don’t feel complete. You make a million dollars and then you realise you still feel a sense of lack. You finally find the man or woman of your dreams, and you still want more. This is the problem with trying to complete yourself in time, trying to complete yourself through getting stuff and having experiences. There’s always more. There’s always a future. Why does the seeking, or the sense of lack eventually start up again? Buddhists see that everything is impermanent. However amazing, blissful, or apparently fulfilling something is, it will pass. Whatever you have you can lose. If you finally got all the money you wanted, it wouldn’t be enough because you can always have more money. You can be more successful, more famous, move loved, more spiritual, and so on. You attain the tenth level of consciousness (whatever that means) and then you want to be on level eleven. You want to get to the top! The self wants to be bigger, faster, stronger, more. Basically, we want to be special in some way – the self wants to stand out against other selves, and complete itself. It wants to be something, not nothing. We want to be certain about who we are and have a fixed and complete story about ourselves. But the nature of stories is that they can never be complete. And so the seeking goes on and on – always waiting for a permanent sense of total completion that never comes. How exhausting! I don’t think people realise how exhausted they are! We live on autopilot and we don’t question our seeking until this way of living breaks down, and we call that suffering. When everything is going your way and you’re getting everything you want – if the seeking mechanism is working for you – why would you question your reality? But what tends to happen is that it sooner or later life stops going your way! Then we find out that we are not in control of life and that we can’t have what we want. This whole seeking mechanism starts to break down and we suffer. When you are suffering you might start to ask, ‘Is this who I really am? Do I really need all this stuff I believe I need?’ So, we are all suffering in some way? Yes. Some people appear to suffer in extreme ways and others seem to suffer less, but everyone is suffering in their own way, even if they don’t realise it. Like we’ve said, ultimately life brings you to the question: ‘Who am I?’ Everyone comes to that question in their own way. Eventually you might start to ask why you’re suffering and question all these fundamental assumptions we’ve been talking about. Often people come to the message of non-duality through suffering, pain or distress. In other words, when the seeking begins to fail on some level, something else can begin to open up. What does the message of non-duality have to offer the suffering seeker? The wholeness or completeness that you are looking for is not be found in the future. The wholeness that everyone is looking for is actually already here within this present experience, within this present moment. The wholeness that you’re looking for – is what you are. It sounds like a total paradox when you try to understand it with thought and it really goes against everything that we are conditioned to believe. It’s not about understanding this with the mind, with thought – it’s about really seeing this for yourself, in your own experience. In a way, this offers nothing to the seeker – it is the experience of being a seeker in the first place, that’s the illusion. And it’s that illusion that this message exposes. If we ultimately cannot understand this message intellectually is there anything that can be done? No one can give this to you or teach it to you. You need to see it for yourself within your own present experience because that’s all there is. You won’t see it in someone else’s experience. It’s not a second-hand thing. It’s about this experience, right now. It’s not something to find in the future. The wholeness you look for is already appearing as everything that’s happening now: as these thoughts, sensations, feelings, sounds, smells. Perhaps this is the wholeness we’ve been seeking. And perhaps wholeness doesn’t look, sound, smell, feel or taste anything like your idea of wholeness – your concept of wholeness! Everyone is looking for their concepts of wholeness (or enlightenment, freedom, love) but true wholeness is not a concept. It’s what is already here prior to concepts. So again, here’s the paradox: perhaps there is only ever wholeness, and within that wholeness we go out into time and space and look for wholeness! Within Home, we’re all looking for Home. Everyone is trying to come Home, but they are already Home. They are what they seek, and do not realise it. So, the message of non-duality points to this ever-present completeness – in the midst of present experience. We are like waves on the ocean, looking for the ocean, longing to be part of it? Yes. That’s a great metaphor. You are like a wave in the ocean experiencing itself as separate from the ocean. The wave asks, ‘When and where will I find the ocean? Who can give the ocean to me?’ But the wave was always the ocean, from the very beginning, even in its seeking! It’s the ocean looking for itself. Even within the ocean’s failure to find itself it is still the ocean; every wave is one hundred per cent water. As all the authentic spiritual teachers have been telling us for hundreds and thousands of years, you are what you seek. Although ‘non-duality’ is just a word, what it points to is the possibility that you are not who you think you are. It’s the possibility that what you are is not this seeker, broken or incomplete. What you are is simply this open space of awareness (consciousness, awakeness, Being) in which absolutely everything seems to come and go, and that space is already at rest; it’s already Home. Is this open space that I am impersonal or personal? Well, it’s neither and both – unfortunately that question implies that it could be one thing or another thing. But space is not impersonal as opposed to personal. Thought creates opposites but in reality there are no opposites. When thought appears in the space, immediately there appears to be a world of opposites: up and down, light and dark, inside and outside, or impersonal and personal. All opposites depend on each other;all the pairs of opposites arise and fall together, and the open space holds all of this. The personal life story is just something that is appearing and disappearing in the open space that you are. ‘You’ appear and disappear in you! Does that mean that the space is impersonal? It’s impersonal in the sense that it holds all personal stories as they appear and disappear. But at the same time it’s not opposed to the personal, because that would be another story! The open space is not a rejection of anything. Like we said before, non-duality is not against duality; it’s the open space in which every thought, feeling and sensation is allowed to appear and disappear. It is the ocean that does not reject any waves, because it is all the waves. So it’s not really personal or impersonal – it holds all these concepts as they come and go. Anything can become a new form of seeking for the individual, a new identity. Yes exactly and if we’re not careful the ‘impersonal space’ state can become food for a new form of seeking! ‘One day I’m going to reach or become an impersonal state of pure consciousness.’ It’s another way of being special: ‘Everyone else is stuck in the personal but I’ve transcended it!’ It’s the same seeking, the same game; it’s just taken on a more subtle form. This open space is not something that the individual, the character, the seeker can attain. It’s the same seeking mechanism as: ‘I have gone beyond the self.’ Only a self would proclaim that! It’s like a wave claiming that it’s beyond the ocean. The seeker is very sneaky! The seeker cannotreach this open space for the seeker appears in this open space. Why do we need to tell any story about ourselves? Yes, and why can’t we just be the space in which all stories are allowed to come and go? Why do we need to hold on to any one of these stories? At the same time, we do not need to reject any story. Again, if you’re not careful, non-duality just become a new war -a war againstimages: ‘I’m not that image!’ But the very moment you say you’re not something you’ve definedyourself! You’re defining yourself again, and again, and again when you say ‘I’m not that! I’m not that!’ You start to see the genius of this seeking mechanism. It’s absolutely, infinitely ingenious!It wants to be something, anything: ‘Let me tell a story about myself, any story! I don’t care what it is!’ What is always open to be discovered is that what you are is not an image. It’s not any image; not even the image that you’re beyond images! Not even the image that ‘I am not an image’.You are not the things that come and go, but at the same time (and this is crucial) what you are is not separate from everything that comes and go. What you are, as the space in which everything comes and goes, isintimate with all of those things, in the same way that the ocean is inseparable from the waves. So, ultimately there are no separate waves. The ocean is appearing as the waves. The ocean is the waves. Then you can’t even distinguish between the ocean and the waves. In present experience, the waves of the ocean appear as thoughts, sensations, images, feelings, sounds – everything in present experience is simply a wave. What you are as the ocean is the waves as well! You are not the thoughts, sensations, images, but at the same time, what you are, as the open space in which all of these appear and disappear, is totally intimate with all of this. So, awareness and the contents of awareness are the same thing? Yes, awareness and all that appears in awareness are absolutely intimate! The ocean cannot reject the waves, why would it? Awareness, wholeness, oneness, or we could call it consciousness, takes form as everything that appears. Consciousness is not some blank empty slate behind everything. That’s how the mind interprets it. The mind interprets these words asthings. Consciousness is not a thing – it is everything that appears. This is why you cannot talk about non-duality! You cannot talk about intimacy. Rooted in that knowing that this is impossible to put into words, we are still free to play with words. We know we cannot use words to capture non-duality; we’re just using them as pointers. We are pointing to something that ultimately cannot be understood by the mind, it cannot be captured. Every wave that appears contains the ocean. That which we are pointing to is within every experience; whether you are in the office or sitting on the meditation cushion, walking in a supermarket or attending a non-duality lecture. Whether there is extreme pain, or intense sadness, that is still the ocean. It is the ocean appearing as pain, the ocean appearing as sadness. Oneness is not limited to a particular experience. It expresses itself as all experience. So, the invitation is to come back to present experience, and rediscover the ocean, and that invitation is always there, in every experience, in this experience. This present experience is the ocean that you have always been seeking without realising it. What is actually happening right now? What is appearing in this present experience? I don’t mean the story of what’s happening to you, I don’t mean what do you think is happening; I’m saying look at what is actually happening now. Come back to the present thoughts, sensations and feelings and rediscover who you really are in the midst of these waves of experience. What you truly are must be there within every experience, otherwise it can’t be who you really are. If it’s something that comes and goes, it can’t be who you really are. Who you really are, as the ocean, does not come and go. Where does suffering come into this? If who we really are is complete why do we suffer? Suffering is forgetting who you really are. We suffer when we don’t see this completeness – this intimacy – within the present experience. When we don’t see that every wave that’s presently appearing is part of the ocean and therefore allowed in the ocean, we start trying to escape this moment to attempt to reach the next moment. We experience ourselves as not whole or somehow broken so we attempt to move away from this moment. In truth, that movement is not actually possible but we try anyway because that’s how we are programmed. We try to move away from this moment to get to the next moment, to tomorrow or next year or to ten years time. We start to use time to achieve this. This is the origin of suffering. We try to escape what’s happening now. We try to run away from aspects of our present experience. We try to escape these thoughts, sensations and feelings and get to a future place where things will be better. That’s the movement of suffering. Within suffering you’ll always find seeking. Seeking is the basic mechanism behind all of our suffering. We label certain elements of experience ‘bad’ or ‘negative’ or ‘dark’ or ‘dangerous’ or ‘unhealthy’ and that’s because of our conditioning. We have been conditioned to label things as ‘fear’, ‘sadness’, ‘anger’, and do on, and to judge these as negative, or not-okay, or bad, or sinful – basically as expressions of incompleteness, as threats to completeness. Because we don’t seethe completeness in these waves, because we can’t find the ocean within these so-called ‘negative’ waves, we try to escape them and that movement ‘away from’ creates the suffering. Then we create stories and identities around this suffering: ‘Oh, I’m a victim of my suffering. I’m a victim of fear and pain! Why is this happening to me? How can I escape this experience?‘ Suffering is a great teacher. Maybe it’s the best teacher but we often don’t see that, because we don’t realise what suffering really is. Normally, we do all sorts of things to avoid, deny and numb our suffering. We take medication, drink alcohol or try to distract ourselves. Of course, there’s ultimately nothing with doing these things either! But suffering is always an opportunity; it’s an invitation to discover the completeness in what you are running away from. Which aspects of your experience right now are not okay? Which waves (thoughts, sensations, and feelings) of the ocean are being rejected right now? Which waves are not being seen as part of the ocean? Basically, what are you at war with? This is always the question that suffering leads you to. Within the experience of suffering you’ll always find seeking. You can believe as much as you like that you’re not seeking, or that you are free from the self, but whenever there’s suffering there’s seeking. It’s the story of ‘me’ looking for something, escaping something; it’s the story of incompleteness or of feeling that there’s something wrong with you. So, the invitation – not a demand – is to take a look at what you are at war with right now. What’s the story? What are the images you are trying to hold up? What are you defending? What are you rejecting? What are you running away from? Look a little deeper. Perhaps these images of yourself are not who you really are. Maybe these stories don’t define you. We suffer when we try to hold up images of ourselves – ‘I’m strong, I’m enlightened, I’m a success, I’m loving, I’m kind, I’m happy’ – which conflict with life as it is. And in the end, all images conflict with life as it is – no image can match this moment. This moment is the fire that burns up all images. In this moment there could be pain, sadness, fear –any image that says that what’s appearing shouldn’t be appearing, that you should be happy, or free from pain, is a false image. Is this about cultivating more presence? What I’d say is forget about trying to become more present; that can just be another form of seeking. It’s a beautiful idea, but it’s still the same seeking mechanism. ‘One day I’ll be present!’Ultimately, you cannot become more present; for you are presence itself. Like the word ‘non-duality’, presence is just another pointer to life as it is. It’s another pointer back to who you really are. There is already presence and there is only presence. Everything is already appearing inpresence. There is only this moment. The past and the future happen now; they appear in this presence, asthis presence. There are memories about the past and thoughts about the future appearing in this presence. It all happens now. Every sound is a present sound; you’ve never heard a sound that wasn’t now. You’ve never heard a sound in the past and you don’t hear a sound in the future! You’ve never smelled anything that wasn’t smelled now. Ultimately, you’ve never seen anything that isn’t seen now. It’s all present! So, it’s not really about a separate entity becoming more present; it’s about rediscovering presence here and now. Presence could just be another word for consciousness, awareness or Being; pick your favourite word! What you are is presence itself, so you cannot become ‘more’ present, just as the wave cannot become more or less ‘ocean’ than it already is. And that’s always there to be discovered. Life is the constant invitation to discover this in the midst of present experience. Life is the constant invitation to discover who you really are in this moment. Who discovers this? Well, who asks that question! Source: https://www.lifewithoutacentre.com/writings/what-is-nonduality/ I really liked this interview. It's like a neat summary of non-duality in an everyday language.

@Farnaby I agree with @Lubomir . In my experience you don't feel disconnected from your girlfriend because you show anger and frustration but because anger and frustration slip out in an environment where you feel like you need to hide them because they shouldn't be there. If you two were to deliberately set an environment of total honesty, where you tell her about your anger and frustration and also about how you feel about them and how they make you feel about the relationship, you tell her about your fears and insecurities and you let it all out, do you really think that a feeling of being disconnected would result? Sharing times of vulnerability and openness in relationships leads to connection, understanding and transformation. You might find reading Radical Honesty helpful. Best of luck to you guys

For the past few days I've been questioning why so many enlightened masters are men and why the love realization seems to be absent for some of them. I stumbled upon this lady's writing and was absolutely blown away. I bought and read this book. https://www.amazon.com/Grail-Path-Achieving-Transformation-Emotional/dp/0692558837/ref=sr_1_4?keywords=the+grail+path&qid=1565441524&s=gateway&sr=8-4. For the logical (masculine) type, kundalini energy will need to be raised through the base chakra. Kundalini energy is feminine energy that comes from the earth, below. The Hero's Journey is an illustration of this path. For the emotional creative type (feminine) masculine energy is received from above, (Father Sky, our Heavenly Father) requires grounding from the higher chakras. His or her path is taking expansive love and creative connection and focusing it in a logical practical manner that can benefit others. She calls this the "Grail Path" "The Grail Path and The Hero's Journey are diametrically opposite paths. The Grail Path utilizes the Divine Power of Grace to cleanse the inner being and grow the Divine Child. The Hero's Journey uses the Divine Power of Kundalini to initiate the inner transformation of killing the ego and heightening the sense. It does not matter if you call these twins Dark and Light, Bread and Wine, Yin and Yang, Lightning and Snake, or Adam and Eve. These mystical twins, through their metaphorical portrayals, show up through the ages and in a multitude of cultures." Basically to go full circle, and become Christ-like and awakened to love you raise the kundalini energy through the Hero's Journey then follow the Grail Path. Jesus was aware of the two paths as he accepted Mary Magdelene as a disciple, which was really radical at the time. The disciples complained. This is from the Gospel of Thomas. Simon Peter said to them, "Make Mary leave us, for females don't deserve life." Jesus said, "Look, I will guide her to make her male, so that she too may become a living spirit resembling you males. For every female who makes herself male will enter the kingdom of Heaven." I also ordered this book because it is supposed to be the Tao version of The Grail Path. https://www.amazon.com/dp/0062501933/ref=rdr_ext_tmb Ramana Maharshi speaks of the heart on the right, but that's because there are two energies and two paths, there's physically one on the left and one on the right. More about the different energies and the balancing of them in yogic traditions here. https://www.yogajournal.com/yoga-101/balancing-act-2 I'm concerned because I feel that people who are born artistic, and in touch with their emotions (most women) are misunderstood and mishandled when it comes to their approach to this work. We are telling a lot of people to go about things ass backwards. Will you help me change this? I know this forum is mostly made up of masculine, logical types, but we need to understand ourselves and integrate BOTH!

"The Tao produced the One. The One produced the Two. The two produced the Three. The three produced ALL things." "The Holy Grail is not an object that can be found in the physical world. It resides within the psyche and can only be seen through the mind's eye or imagination. The mindset and practices of the seeker create the Holy Grail, The Cosmic Egg, and the Divine Child. During the entire transformation, the Kundalini does not rise through the base chakra, which means that the Heiros Gamos does not take place. This is why the seeker of the grail is called a "Virgin" and why another name for this spiritual path in The Virgin's path. " Mischa V Alyea https://www.amazon.com/Grail-Path-Achieving-Transformation-Emotional/dp/0692558837/ref=sr_1_4?keywords=the+grail+path&qid=1565441524&s=gateway&sr=8-4 I should have known it was happening backwards for me. I kept getting headaches whenever I tried to raise energy.

HOLY SHIT. This woman is AMAZING! https://www.amazon.com/Grail-Path-Achieving-Transformation-Emotional/dp/0692558837/ref=sr_1_4?keywords=the+grail+path&qid=1565441524&s=gateway&sr=8-4 "The Grail Path and The Hero's Journey are diametrically opposite paths. The Grail Path utilizes the Divine Power of Grace to cleanse the inner being and grow the Divine Child. The Hero's Journey uses the Divine Power of Kundalini to initiate the inner transformation of killing the ego and heightening the sense. It does not matter if you call these twins Dark and Light, Bread and Wine, Yin and Yang, Lightning and Snake, or Adam and Eve. These mystical twins, through their metaphorical portrayals, show up through the ages and in a multitude of cultures." Hence, women fearing the snake and the snake deceiving Eve. She even says that's why Masons never allowed women to join. In the past people assumed that women's brains were wired emotional/creative and men's were wired logical, now we know that while that's the trend that it's not gender that defines that.

8- 9-2019 44. Coming to meet "Coming to meet" refers to the Cosmic Principle that it is attraction which draws complementary aspects together. It does so in its own time, without the need for pressure or contriving. When allowed to take its time and natural course, everything matures and completes itself in the best way possible. All of this occurs in the atomic realm, through transformation, creating a unity that endures. Just a small piece of the commentary from today's reading. Yesterday was was one of the most interesting days of this life. Yesterday's reading was 38 Separating/ Opposition changing lines 3 and 6 resulting in a second hexagram of 14. Possession IN Great Measure

@peanutspathtotruth My line of thinking is that transformation is best seen is a result of rising consciousness and not as a separate goal to be perused, just like money is a result of creating value, if you chase the money hard, you might not get them, as the value you should create gets out of focus. Contra-intuitive stuff. Also if you are not raising your consciousness you may easily deceive yourself about the things you want, things that may be rooted in some past trauma, some vows you made and do not remember, the society matrix ect ect. By raising consciousness you become better at seeing past such things, and therefore focus on what you really want. Still it is differently better to choose to think "I love you" instead of "I hate you" as a plain choice as you said, regardless of your level of consciousness, but its not a good long term strategy to change thoughts with sheer force of will. Think of it like a leaking pipe, some may just put a bucket to collect the water, and call it done, some may put the bucket and throw themselves on fixing the pipe. Its always better to fix the pipe, even replace it. That's why I think that : rising consciousness should be the primary goal, and the rest will follow.

An even better practice I discovered is that the ego and the whole of life are one and the same process. It's a meta perspective. And by simply seeing this allows transformation to take place.

@Yog But only raising consciousness is only half the deal no? Isn't that exactly the point why transformation is to be approached simultaneously to consciousness work? What I mean is: of course raising consciousness is super helpful in its own regard when we talk about the Law Of Attraction. But to really make it flourish, isn't it important to use the co-creative choice we have to choose the thoughts that are in alignment with the consciousness that I am/we are? Of course, this choice might be an illusion and ultimately God's choice. But nevertheless, right now I can choose to think "I love you" and feel it. Isn't that choice, always chosen again and again, what brings empowerment to the mind and "gets it on your side"? I'm asking to understand that process better because I'm fairly new to LoA etc.

This forum is a mirror that I can ‘sometimes’ willing face, it does not produce a complete transformation but it does show me what is possible. It is also a good place to heal and mend the broken aspects of self, often simply through assisting others

By liberation, I am talking about a lasting liberation and personal transformation, where an individual is free from the restraining and persistent confines of the energetic structures of the ego. Some of the things to describe an individual who is liberated: 1) Authentic - is able to freely express themselves without being locked into EGO. A great sense of variability is there - energetically they are able to shift from non-dual to the character. They are not locked into EGO all the time. 2) Free from Egoic Projections - A person is able to see through their own egoic projections. A person in a liberated state can see that these are just their own egoic projections, attachments, and are not true. A person who would be locked into EGO, would not be able to see this and for them those egoic projections would be true. 3) Universal Love vs Personal Preferences - Living with an open, unguarded, unconditionally loving heart. Loving everything but not liking everything - an individual universally loves everything, but still has their own preferences. Keep in mind, spiral dynamics is just a map and is not entirely accurate. Is there a correlation between the most advanced stages though and liberation? Absolutely. If you read what I wrote above, you will see how lower stages such as blue would not be compatible with liberation.

From what I've understood from past conversations is that being at a stage (for example; blue) and becoming enlightened, means you are an enlightened stage blue. Then another enlightenment may be had once you transition up the spiral and once again have another enlightenment experience. Enlightenment has nothing to do with your book. From the point of view of the Zen Monks' book at that time you may not be enlightened either! I don't think Leo is vague in his crediting people with enlightenment. I'm sure that Leo has done his research considering he fucking loves this shit out of this stuff. Use it as a guideline at most if you don't agree with him then I guess? You and I both know he's not budging for a couple of forum dwellers. ?. And plus, isn't enlightenment separate from actual transformation. For anything to change, it needs to be changed. All enlightenment gets you is nothing... right? So Osho can still be materialistic and enlightened, even if it does make for an odd combination. Right? The only thing enlightenment gets you is the truth:

But isn't Christ supposed to have already suffered for our sins? Yes, but it requires a holistic approach through the Holy Spirit (holy means whole, holistic). I think of the cup of suffering that Christ asked God to take away as the Holy Grail! And since Christ has suffered for all of humanity it means that when we drink of the Holy Grail through conscious holistic suffering, the suffering will not increase or remain but become a powerful tool of transformation from suffering to peace. Because Christ died for our sins the cup of suffering became the Holy Grail through which we will achieve atonement.

The ego is sadistic and feels pleasure when others suffer. It's of course an effed up situation, haha, but there is logic to it. "The ego we have created for God is that of a petty, jealous, limited god with a sadistic personality." - http://acourseinmiraclesfordummies.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/PDF-What-is-the-Ego-with-Notes-Upload-9-30-14-ACIM-Workbook-for-Dummies.pdf The way towards salvation goes through suffering, and that was what Jesus Christ demonstrated with his crucifixion as an example for all of humanity. What the ego does, unconsciously, is to recognize suffering as good, but only when others suffer! It's the ego's fragmented perspective that has caused this lopsided situation. The full usefulness of suffering is when it is from a holistic perspective as I described in my previous post, and used as a tool for transformation instead of as something to avoid or to remain stuck in.

Oh! The ego attempts to run away from suffering. What is needed for transformation is to move IN to the suffering BUT holistically. And use the suffering as fuel to melt the ego tensions. The tricky part is the holistic approach of moving into the suffering. Holistic in the sense of including all mental, emotional and physical suffering at the same time as a single field.

A new practice I'm experimenting with is to reach a level of suffering when dissolving ego tensions where the mental, emotional and physical pain is low enough to be manageable. Too much suffering and it becomes unbearable. When the suffering remains smaller it seems possible to accept it an let it burn through and melt the ego tensions in body and mind. The aim is to use the suffering as fuel for transformation. Maybe that's what Gurdjieff meant by intentional suffering. And when the ego tensions have dissolved the suffering is removed along with that. And the goal is to transform the suffering into inner peace, mentally, emotionally and physically.

One implication of the above is that it puts the responsibility of transformation totally on us individuals. From a oneness perspective it's God's will will be done, so the ultimate job of transformation is done by God, but here God means the totality, like Brahman, and we are that reality so the personal responsibility will be there on the level of doing the personal work needed. Even Christians will have to admit that since it says in the Bible (John 1) that the Word of God has made everything, so we are the Word of God. It's the ego that has the false belief that it can do or be something outside of the Word of God.