Realizing absolute formlessness - 7 day solo retreat + 300µg AL-LAD - Report & advice

[TimStr]

Fuck.

If you told me a week ago what I am going to write now, I would have laughed at you. On May 25th I realized absolute Truth.

 

What I did:

During the week, that passed I had a 6.5d solo retreat and with some intense 10 to 12h of daily practice. The weekend before (May 18th-20th) I went on a nice camping trip with 3 of my friends and fellow self-actualizers. We did some inner and regular self-actualization work together and enjoyed time in nature. This was a great preparation and helped me to put some space between practical everyday life and the retreat.

My intent was to reconnect myself with spirituality and to go deep into the work.

I combined several different practices, kriya yoga, labeling and do nothing meditation, holotropic breathing, walking meditation starting at 5am in the morning. On the 4th day I took 300µg of AL-LAD. I tried to time everything in a way that I was a least likely to get disturbed by my housemates. Here's my schedule:

M = meditation
SDS = strong determintion sitting
SHF = "see, hear, feel" (labeling)
Holo = Holotropic breathing

Allthough I was able to follow through with the entire schedule without missing one single practice (which I am kinda proud of ), I ended up having a lot of what I would call half-assad sits and sloppy meditations. I had to move and open my eyes a lot, even during strong determination sitting, and I ended up getting lost in thoughts a lot.

Nevertheless I was able to enter a state of great calmness by wednesday. I also did 1h of walking meditation 3 times/d, just walking around in a park next to where I live so I wasn't really that isolated from the rest of humanity allthough I didn't really speak to anybody.

In case you might be wondering, I had psychedelic trips before this one. I was actually doing psychedelics before I stumbled about Leo and the concept of personal developement. And over the last 5 years I had a couple of mushroom and salvia trips, one 25I-NBOMe experience and 3 AL-LAD trips prior to this one  (100, 200 and 150µg).

 

What I experienced:

The actual retreat and practice itself was rather ordinairy. I had to go through some emotional work and purging to enter a state of great calmness and equanimity on day 3. To cultivate this internal peace helped a great deal with preparing me for day 5.

The holotropic breathing also did a lot. I typically fall asleep soon after the breathing is over after a state of trance where most of the purging seems to happen for me. After waking up I alway feel so relieved.

On the 5th day, I prepared everything for the actual trip. I sat down and said to myself: "I am ready to learn! Whatever may come, I am open and will accept it." Then I orally administrated the 300µg of AL-LAD and listened to some music for about 35min to help myself relax a little from a mild pre-trip anxiety. As I noticed it starting to take effect, I turned off the music and laid down on my bed.

I started to see visual phenomenon and allowed myself to get fascinated by the patterns of the ceiling above me. I just let myself ooze into them and start to get absorbed. Everything got more and more intense and suddenly everything (my whole visual field, but also the inner world of mind and the fields of sound and touch) collapsed into one giant mosic like totality.

And then, I suddenly realized what happened. I was no longer there. There was just infinite formlessness. I became Truth.

I should note, that the experience was profoundly beautiful and profundly shocking at the same time! My human body just contorted in awe and horror. I felt every single emotion at the same time. I also noticed, that I started to hear sounds. High ringing type of sounds, that augmented the chirping of the birds outside and low drone like sounds, that seemed to be related to my breath

Now the really profound thing was, that I seemed to be able to switch back and forth between this state of being absolute formless infinity and the state of being a contracted human form. This was immense! I experienced how I (absolute infinity) contract to create form, mind, relative reality, ego and suffering. I realized, that I am god and how I am constantly creating everything. I realized, that what most people call hallucinations or visuals on psychedelics are actually artefacts of how creation of form from fromlessness happens. They are just how absolute nothingness looks like when it creates reality.

This switching back and forth produced enourmus insight and I was able to learn so much! It went on about 4-5h and then, I started to stay more and more in the domain of forms. As the trip became milder and taper off, I decided to take a long-ass walk because I wanted to be outside and in nature. It was so beautiful.

My mind still was in this hyper-intelligent mode, that it seems to enter on AL-LAD and started to produce insight after insight, and it integrated all the theory and concepts about nonduality with the experience.

The trip was about 8 to 9h long and I entered a nice afterglow, that lasted the whole next day, as I continued my retreat. I returned back to the state of great calmness, I had the days before the trip and the experience became more and more of a memory. I started to realize, that this glimpse won't be permanent. But the insights stayed with me.

 

What I learned:

I became Truth. I experienced, what I truely am. Everything is in perspective now.

I learned how creation and existence work. I understood how I (the Big I, nothingness, god, infinity, formlessness...) contract to spit out all dualistic forms including my human form, the mind and reality. I also realized, how I have to create suffering and ego in order for this to happen. This was an profundly powerful and eye opening insight. It also showed me, how I (my human form) can literally not exist and be happy at the same time. For my body even to take a single breath, I have to create form and therefore suffering. And it made this whole issue of having to physically die to get enlightened very clear. Letting go completely litterally is the way, that I can return to nothingness. There can only be Truth or there can be creation and suffering.

I understood every single contemplative practice, how each one works and in what way it is supposed to reveal Truth to you. Kriya, breathing, and all the different meditation techniques, Leo and Shinzen talk about make total sense now.

I also learned how to meditate intuitively. The way Infinity came to me and the way, I had to let go sort of made a permanent imprind and I was able to recreate the way I focused my mind and surrenderd myself on the next day. It's basically a combination of open, choiceless awareness and a very deep surrender (simular to the do nothing technique). Leo's guided meditation video actually get's pretty close to it. Allthough I am not able to recreate the deep state I had on my trip, I can archive a calm and extremely peaceful no-mind kind of state that way.

I learned how life purpose and spirituality work together. This became so clear to me by becoming infinity and seeing how reality comes into existence. Maintaining a minimal sense of self for this mammal, that I am to survive is best done by aligning myself more and more with the truth and with living an integrated purposeful life.

I learned how the whole issue of authenticity and relating to other people is connected with spirituality. This was huge insight. The only way to relate to other beings without creating suffering is the way of utter vulnerability. Like if you literally would lay you naked body in the arms of another person, exhale your last breath and say: "You can have everything! My entire existence, it's yours!" This kind of surrender is the exact same surrender that is needed for enlightenment.

I learned, that the biggest trap, I can now fall into is to cling to the memory of my awekening too much and to have too strong of a desire to recreate it. Whenever I am clinging to the memory, I am not surrendering to the Truth.

 

What's next:

• More practice and more tripping. This experience of infinity I had is already fading and I see, how I have to do a LOT more work, to make it penetrate the core of my being more. I want to take my spiritual practice way more serius and I want to embody what I have learned.
• More theory. Even though I have studied quite a lot, I now feel like I needed the experinece to truly understand any of the theory. There is so much more to learn now.
• More life purpose work. I am curently building a life around being a musician and I want to do it in the way that is as alighned to Truth as possible. Having seen infinity made it increadibly clear to me how this has going to happen.
• Doing more for my body. I have seen what increadible miracle it is to have the form of a human being and I want to take care of this mammal that I am as best as I can. And allthough I have a pretty clean diet, I have all sorts of tense muscles in my back and consume quite a lot of caffeine. Getting more into fitness and exercising is inevitable right now.
• Working on truthful and authentic relating to others. I want to be able to open myself to others way more and to become a lot more honest.

 

Tips and advice:

• Unlike Leo, I would advise you to have your first experience of Truth with AL-LAD rather than with 5MeO-DMT. I understand, that this is sort of personal, but if I would take the 20min of my trip, that where most intesne and imagined myself getting blasted into this state within a few seconds, I wouldn't have been able to let go so smoothly and I guess wouldn't have learned nearly as much.>
  Think of it this way: If you were trying to understand light, and you can choose between a lightbulb, which is nicely dimmed on and off again, and a single bolt of lightening, I guess for a first timer, the lightbulb is much more helpful.
• Probably my most important advice: Study the theory! If I wouldn't have been studying the theory of nonduality for the last couple of years I would literally have gotten nothing out of the experience. My mind wouldn't have been able to make sense out of anything. It would just have been some hallucination for me. Having concepts of what I was experiencing helped a great deal with recognizing it as absolute Truth and the way that AL-LAD makes your mind become this hyperintelligent wisdom machine worked greatly with that (which is another reason why I would recommend AL-LAD over 5MeO for a first time experience).
• On retreat, practice starts to take on at different dynamic on its own. Stuff comes up and it might be getting very hard to do some of the techniques as good as you would be able to do them in your daily practice. Don't judge yourself for that and don't judge your performance. Surrender to whatever happens and try not to get frustrated. The retreat is at play here and it will give you whatever you need to learn right now (sort of like a trip). Thinking in terms of good or bad retreats is not useful (recisely like thinking in terms of good or bad trips is not useful ).
• Solo retreats are perfect settings for breakthrough doses of psychedelics. If you are serious about experiencing Truth for the first time than this is definately one of the most recommended alternatives.
• If you're struggeling with this issue of life purpose vs. spirituality, consider psychedelics. For me they made the solution to this increadibly clear. They actually showed me, that there is no real difference between the two, especially, if you understand how your core values relate to Truth.
• Lastly: Remember, that letting go is the key!

 

I am so greatful right now. Awakening is so powerfully life transforming and liberating. Thank all of you for walking this path together. I hope this report is helpful. If you have any questions, I am happy to answer.

Edited May 27, 2018 by TimStr
typo

[moon777light]

wow this is incredible, congrats and thanks for posting all of this

[okulele]

Thank you. This is really inspirational!

[Guest Quanty]

As you mentioned, you had very nice trips. 

But if you cannot stay in that state, then you are far off from awakening. You just experienced the egoic perspective of chatter and images. 

 

[TimStr]

9 minutes ago, Quanty said:

But if you cannot stay in that state, then you are far off from awakening.

Yeah absolutely. I haven't attained full liberation. After the experience, my ego restructered itself and I am now back in the domain of forms.

I have experienced the absolute nature of reality, though, and now I clearly know what enlightenment is and also what full liberation intails. Without that experience, all my knoledge about that topic would just have been of conceptual nature. Having this glimpse was a crucial and highly helpful step on my journey.

It's kind of funny by the way. The actual experience itself was so empty of ego, it was so "not me" so to speak, that it even feels kind of presumptuous to me to claim it as being "my" experience, now, that I am back in the world of forms.

[astrokeen]

@TimStr , thank you. That was a very helpful and fascinating post. Your advice tips are very useful. 

It seems to me that the depth of your experience was more dependent on the intense preparation and effort you were making during the retreat rather then the type of psychedelic. Perhaps taking any psychedelic would have enabled a similar experience. 

Was this the first time that you had combined a retreat such as this with a psychedelic? Had you had any breakthroughs with others?

[TimStr]

37 minutes ago, astrokeen said:

It seems to me that the depth of your experience was more dependent on the intense preparation and effort you were making during the retreat rather then the type of psychedelic. Perhaps taking any psychedelic would have enabled a similar experience. 

Yes, could be. I would guess without the retreat, the experience wouldn't have been nearly as profound. Yet I think that even with the preparation it still required a high enough dose for me to achieve a breakthrough. I don't think that I would have happened by just adding in the retreat.

 

38 minutes ago, astrokeen said:

Was this the first time that you had combined a retreat such as this with a psychedelic?

Yes, first time. I tend to intensify my daily practice before trips, but I've never had one during a retreat.

 

42 minutes ago, astrokeen said:

Had you had any breakthroughs with others?

No, this was my very first breakthrough.

[Vladimir]

Quote

If I wouldn't have been studying the theory of nonduality for the last couple of years I would literally have gotten nothing out of the experience.

I'm currently struggling with this nonduality concept, what kind of material would you recommend?

[Nahm]

@TimStr Excellent share. Thanks! ❤️

“Without that experience, all my knoledge about that topic would just have been of conceptual nature.”

That, imo, is one of the toughest insights, as fear is soooo sneaky. 

And great foundation work! Smart.

[TimStr]

1 hour ago, Vladimir said:

I'm currently struggling with this nonduality concept, what kind of material would you recommend?

The first and most important thing to realize is, that nonduality is NOT a concept. All concepts are dualistic by nature because lamnguage and symbols are dualistic by nature. Nonduality is not. This is why you have to have a direct experience in order to truly understand it. You have to become it.

It's very helpful to have some understanding about the nature of insight. There is a great video interview series, that Leo did with Peter Ralston, that I highly recommend: https://vimeo.com/181710583

As far as books, also Ralstons material is great, and I also recommend the books of Andre Doshim Halaw. I love them, because they are very short and conscise and crystal clear. I also like Daniel Ingram and Shinzen Young very much. Especially Shinzen has some great descriptions of infinity. There is a great audio progam by him, called The Science of enlightenment.

Also Leo's videos about the topic.

Edited May 29, 2018 by TimStr

[astrokeen]

@TimStr , could you please recommend resources/links for some of the exercise you mentioned in your retreat week.

SHF = "see, hear, feel" (labeling) - what is this please?
Holo = Holotropic breathing

Thanks

[el_duderino]

thanks buddy. one of the best trip reports I've read so far

[TimStr]

10 minutes ago, astrokeen said:

@TimStr , could you please recommend resources/links for some of the exercise you mentioned in your retreat week.

SHF = "see, hear, feel" (labeling) - what is this please?
Holo = Holotropic breathing

Thanks

Sure.

Labeling is a form of mindfulness meditation. You meditate by labeling every single experience with "See" "Hear" or "Feel". If you hear something, you focus on it and say "Hear" with you inner voice. If yo see something, so focus and say "See" and so on... I learned this from Shinzen Young, he is very big on labeling. There is also a video by Leo on mindfulness meditation.

Holotropic breathing I a method of intense breathing that can alter your consciousness, developed by Stan Grof. Leo did a video on that quite recently, which is called shamanic breathing.

[Vladimir]

15 hours ago, TimStr said:

The first and most important thing to realize is, that nonduality is NOT a concept. All concepts are dualistic by nature because lamnguage and symbols are dualistic by nature. Nonduality is not. This is why you have to have a direct experience in order to truly understand it. You have to become it.

It's very helpful to have some understanding about the nature of insight. There is a great video interview series, that Leo did with Peter Ralston, that I highly recommend: https://vimeo.com/181710583

As far as books, also Ralstons material is great, and I also recommend the books of Andre Doshim Halaw. I love them, because they are very short and conscise and crystal clear. I also like Daniel Ingram and Shinzen Young very much. Especially Shinzen has some great descriptions of infinity. There is a great audio progam by him, called The Science of enlightenment.

Also Leo's videos about the topic.

Thank you brother!

[astrokeen]

@TimStr , thanks. 

Things seemed to have moved on since I looked into meditation techniques last :).

It would actually be very helpful to have a glossary on this site, with brief explanations just as you have presented. This could include names of psychedelics too.

cc @Leo Gura

[phoenix666]

wow, I really enjoyed reading through your report. wonderful, congrats @TimStr! 

On 28. Mai 2018 at 1:00 AM, TimStr said:

I seemed to be able to switch back and forth between this state of being absolute formless infinity and the state of being a contracted human form. This was immense! I experienced how I (absolute infinity) contract to create form, mind, relative reality, ego and suffering. I realized, that I am god and how I am constantly creating everything.

this bit <3 gold I know what you're talking about. had the same experience on AL-LAD <3 it's incredible, constant creation and collapse and being able to zoom in and out between formless expansion and contracted ego, wow.... love it! thanks for sharing, I'm excited for you.

[TimStr]

14 hours ago, astrokeen said:

It would actually be very helpful to have a glossary on this site, with brief explanations just as you have presented. This could include names of psychedelics too.

There is one.

And there is also Leos Getting Started Page:

https://actualized.org/start

[TimStr]

12 hours ago, phoenix666 said:

wow, I really enjoyed reading through your report. wonderful, congrats @TimStr! 

this bit <3 gold I know what you're talking about. had the same experience on AL-LAD <3 it's incredible, constant creation and collapse and being able to zoom in and out between formless expansion and contracted ego, wow.... love it! thanks for sharing, I'm excited for you.

Yeah, that is sooo stunning! And this created this "Oh my god! It's all me!" moment. Glad to hear, that you share that experience.

Have you posted a trip report about your trip?

[Leo Gura]

@TimStr Great report! Great work. Some powerful insights there.

P.S. I don't advise 5-MeO for people who have never done milder psychedelics. AL-LAD is great for newbies but still very powerful.

[Extreme Z7]

Sweet stuff, Man.