'Enlightenment' Totally Mapped Out and Where Psychedelics Might Fall Short

[zeroISinfinity]

@Joseph Maynor When Veil of illusionary form and world collapses into heart all that is, isTruth, is infinite Love. With death of self God is revealed to be only thing there is without you. 

Edited June 15, 2019 by zeroISinfinity

[Preetom]

4 hours ago, Mikael89 said:

So the Being path is simply to stop paying attention to objects (I assume experiences and thoughts counts as objects too, since they are perceived).

Sounds simple. But I think it's actually extremely difficult to do.

Yeah even internal experiences and thoughts are objects too. I can make a finer dististinction and say, stop paying attention 'exclusively' to objects and let it relax and fall back on yourself(the feeling I) more and more, consciously and intently. Those initial seeming efforts are reconciled as well when one lands on being.

Yeah it seems difficult, until it doesn't. Its basically an attention game that one gets better at by sincerely trying it out more and more.

[tsuki]

@Preetom Great post, I think it should be featured or pinned.

Self inquiry, as you are describing it, is a very advanced practice and may discourage many seekers that are just 'starting out'.
Some people need the juice of mystical experiences to keep on with the journey, but they are nothing more than ways for the ego to sustain itself.

The trouble with enlightenment is that ultimately, the ego needs to trick itself out of existence and no method can guarantee that.
The best you can 'do' is to 'not-do', to simply wait until it happens. That surrender, in itself, is the end of seeking.

Dressing it up in spiritual terms, pointing towards the wisdom of the great sages, is nothing more than marketing.
That is what constitutes 'the tick', 'the bait' that hooks into the need to 'do'. That is how the snake eats itself.

[Preetom]

49 minutes ago, tsuki said:

@Preetom Great post, I think it should be featured or pinned.

Self inquiry, as you are describing it, is a very advanced practice and may discourage many seekers that are just 'starting out'.
Some people need the juice of mystical experiences to keep on with the journey, but they are nothing more than ways for the ego to sustain itself.

Thank you.

Yes I agree. Actually before doing real self inquiry, a beginner needs a keen sense of discrimination between self and nonself. Then Being cognition happens more easily.

But unfortunately virtually most people misunderstand the technique. They follow it for a while and then leaves it without ever knowing what was the real purpose of it.

 

[tsuki]

33 minutes ago, Preetom said:

But unfortunately virtually most people misunderstand the technique. They follow it for a while and then leaves it without ever knowing what was the real purpose of it.

If they knew the purpose to begin with, then they wouldn't need to do the practice.
All practices are lessons, so is self-inquiry. It may be the final lesson, but it is also the most difficult to learn, simply because of its simplicity.

Following it, and then dropping, without 'understanding its purpose' is the practice!

[Preetom]

18 minutes ago, tsuki said:

If they knew the purpose to begin with, then they wouldn't need to do the practice.
All practices are lessons, so is self-inquiry. It may be the final lesson, but it is also the most difficult to learn, simply because of its simplicity.

Following it, and then dropping, without 'understanding its purpose' is the practice!

 

[Consilience]

I love this post. Great job dude... you should start a blog or something. 

 

The thing about psychedelics that have been most transformative for me is that they've allowed me to experience levels of being, empathy, and awareness I did not know were possible. They’ve allowed me to understand not conceptually, but directly what infinity is. Was it a temporary state? Of course, but each trip has left a residual effect, a residual lasting awareness and understanding. 

The insights are extremely important too though. If one doesn't intellectually understand the nature of mind, language, space, time, physical reality, communication, emotions, survival, and even self as ego, then the likelihood for making breakthroughs in Being are smaller. Especially for an ego that is oriented towards intellectualization and understanding. If my ego hadn’t understood its own illusory nature from a conceptual perspective, I dont think the path would ever have begun. This is all to say, psychedelics have helped with this initial process. 

Psychedelics are not substitutes for the real deal however, but they do show me all the bullshit and baggage I have left to process and deal with that Im normally unconscious of during my sober mode of being. Taking note and having the humility to learn from these tools is a huge opportunity, especially when living in a society that demands constant action and distraction away from simply Being. They are tools in this multidimensional, spiraling esque path towards enlightenment but you are correct in that having insights cannot replace the work of Being. 

[okulele]

@Preetom Are you familiar with Rupert Spira's 'Yoga Meditations'? He claims, that staying as awareness is just one part of the journey (in) and going into our perceptions, thoughts and sensations (out) is needed also to go full non-dual. What do you think?

[mandyjw]

41 minutes ago, okulele said:

@Preetom Are you familiar with Rupert Spira's 'Yoga Meditations'? He claims, that staying as awareness is just one part of the journey (in) and going into our perceptions, thoughts and sensations (out) is needed also to go full non-dual. What do you think?

Fascinating question. I've been noticing as I try to bring in more body awareness and stomach breathing that it's almost like...

disclaimer, this is going to sound really stupid... 

It's like I can pinpoint my ego and it's just this sort of unsettled nauseous feeling. It has the potential to go away and give way to peace or grows to make me literally nauseous. It's what I believed to be fear, resistance, annoyance and my ego itself and all it is is this feeling in my stomach that my brain was interpreting to be ALL sorts of awful things. When I go into conscious breaths or belly breathing, that's all that's left. 

So how to make it go away? I should trick it into being my friend and then push it off a cliff while we're out walking together someday? Ideas? 

[DrewNows]

1 hour ago, mandyjw said:

So how to make it go away? I should trick it into being my friend and then push it off a cliff while we're out walking together someday? Ideas? 

? this is too funny! 

So why show it love? Could you really even knowingly trick yourself? 

 Maybe the point is to understand it and not try to kill it, for if it is (what is) then it surely must serve a purpose. 

[Hellspeed]

On 6/15/2019 at 0:44 PM, Preetom said:

Note: By Enlightenment, I mean the irreversible real deal, not the states or levels that come and go. This might be a long post. Hope those dealing with confusion due to many contradictory statements and theories will find some clarity and get some ideas on what they can do to move forward. I am not gonna post a single thing based on speculation, things that are outside ones daily experience and things that cant survive logical scrutiny.

Part 1: What Enlightenment is and how it happens.

There is an ego/mind/I/subject perceiving everything else. This ego projects the entire field of experience and knows all the objects by paying attention. So attention is the power or mechanism through which ego projects and knows experiences both in waking and dream states.

Now the nature of this ego is it can only sustain an experience as long as it is paying attention to it. Turn your back on the sun, there is no sun to see. Similarly, literally everything starting from thoughts to physical matter are objects for ego, projected by ego. They are there ONLY as long as ego is there to perceive them.

Sounds like solipsism? Hell yeah it does. But notice whether one accepts or rejects solipsism, it is still done by the final gatekeeper which is the ego. Literally there is no object without this subject being present to perceive.

Now Enlightenment tells that this entire mode of subject-object experience is an illusion and it only persists due to inadvertence or lack of scrutiny. And all of human suffering and problems are fundamentally a result of errors stemming from this illusion/ignorance.  But there is a real substratum 'underneath' this illusion. Lets call it the Self. Now how to practically go about it?

There is an unique feature of this subject or ego. It runs amok, solidifies itself and sustains this illusion ONLY as long as it is paying attention to things other than itself. But when this same attention is relaxed from objects and turned towards the subject, this subject starts to shrink and thus the illusion starts to break apart.

The proof of it will be understood by those who ever did self inquiry in dreams. Whenever attention is directed toward the dream subject instead of on the dream objects, one either wakes up or sinks into deep sleep or in yoga nidra(conscious sleep). In other words, the dream state illusion  cant survive for long.

So focusing attention on the subject=Breaking free of the illusion.

Self inquiry is just another name of this process. Lets have a look at that.

Part 2: Self inquiry and the mechanism through which it works. (Note: very advanced pointers here. It might be in total contradiction to how that word is often thrown around)

So basically for enlightenment, one simply needs to stop paying attention to all objects. Period. But what is there other than attention or conventional mode of experience?

Interestingly, when one deliberately, progressively stops paying attention to objects, one lands on a very new mode called Being. The knowing consciousness gets replaced with being consciousness. This Being doesn't know any object of experience. It simply is awareness of being the subject itself.

The usual confusion here is whether everything goes blank or one passes out. Neither of those. There are still sights, sounds etc but they are not known as phenomena. As no attention is paid to them, the entire idea of a world or objects collapses. There is no stream of attention going out and checking whether there is still a real world or not.

All usual self inquiry methods and pointers like searching for the I, asking questions, trying to be the witness of thoughts,  trying to disidentify etc are really the antithesis of what self inquiry at its core is. Those are all activities of the ego aka paying attention. They all must come to this tipping point where objective attention ceases and gets replaced with Being. Most of the time it happens by accident and thats why most people dont know what is really going on here. 

But if one conceptually understands that it is this Being cognition that is originally meant by self inquiry, now one knows what to 'do'(relaxing attention on ones own self) and what to avoid(paying attention to things). This is simply a skillful attention game one gets good at by repeated attempts. 

When one lands on Being, mind automatically gets silenced. There is no more effort to witness the thoughts, or trying to be in the present, or trying to be spiritual etc. This is the highest and final practice one can 'do' until Enlightenment happens. The subject simply being itself without attending to other objects.

Now what is going on here during this Being session that leads to Enlightenment? Basically the ego is having satsang with the Self. This is the true meaning of Satsang. The satsang we watch on YouTube is a caricature and a pale reflection of the real deal. The true Satsang is Sanga(communion) with Sat(That which IS/Reality/Self). The Self is the real guru aka Sadhguru(not the guy with white beard ?)

There is a nonverbal, direct, nondual transmission that goes on from the Self to the ego. And this transmission is really the ONLY way one ever gets enlightened whether one may know it or not. Whatever yoga, meditation, psychedelic one is doing, their only real purpose is to bypass all the bullshit and thoughts of the mind and come to this silent transmission. If one's spiritual practice is providing exactly that, then its a direct method. If not, it is something indirect.

By attending to this satsang or being over a long period of time, the patterns and tendencies of ego keeps getting weaker and weaker simply due to not paying attention to them, as the attention is relaxed in sweet being and receiving nondual transmission from the Self. This is the culminating phase. At one point, when the egoic patterns are mostly erased through indifference, the ego/subject along with its projections(universe) literally gets devoured into the Self once and for all. This is the meaning of mind sinking into the Heart, Everything being reduced and sunk into Consciousness. This great assimilation is also known as the final surrender. Done.

After the collapse of the subject, its projection called objects are devoured simultaneouly. So the subject-object mechanism collapses once and for all and only nondual Being of the Self remains as the substratum.

So no ego ever gets Enlightened with its own activity. It is only the grace or power of the Self which facilitates enlightenment.

Important note: This nondual transmission is NOT an experience one can know. So please dont search for it as if it was another object. Its like a mechanism running in the background, like updating an OS.

Part 3: Where psychedelics may fall short.

So we can see that  Enlightenment can ONLY happen by attending to the non dual transmission from the Self, the real Satsang. Simply said, Being. It can NEVER happen by any activity of the ego-mind, that means thinking, concentrating on objects, insights, models, experiences, efforts done by the mind etc.

So it turns out that if one wants to get Enlightened, it is all about being, being, being; until one literally 'forgets' how to know something as an object in a dualistic view. Its NOT about insights, understanding, trying to embody, learn, do something, getting flashy experiences, trying to be spiritual.

Basically, Enlightenment can happen without the ego ever knowing or figuring out anything at all! Enlightenment can happen without ever bothering about god, universe, other people, karma, cosmology etc. It only happens through that silent transmission. 

Now my hunch is these are the 2 main setbacks of psychedelics.

1) Psychedelics are not sustainable over a long time. Yes it bypasses the delusions of ego and goes to the nondual transmission very quickly(given its a potent one like 5 meo). But alas the satsang is too short and repeated dosage hour after hour would fry one's system.

2) An even greater danger. After the psychedelic peak experience, the ego is back again. Fresh and rejuvenated, ready to get back on its JOB which is attending to objects with its voracious appetite! It cant help but going back and mistranslating that silent transmission in the name of insights, understanding, improvement, levels, figuring out reality, breakthroughs, living on the memory of becoming god, embodiment and whatnot; thinking that it will get enlightened by its own accumulated activities. Distortion upon distortion. Stuck in a twisted web of knowledge. Condemned to remain as this votalie complex between the real and the unreal.

 

Note: The purpose of this post is not to fight with other paths and people. Just giving a general practical map of this highly confusing topic. If it sounds logically fair, take whatever helps. If not, may god help you

If there is any question from anyone, I'll try to answer it.

You don't know dude, we grow all the time. 

Want the true truth?

 

EGO is source, you are like a prism!

Use your body prism only on the head or a fragmented part of the body, and we call this EGO.

If you want to be egoless, sorry, cancer will arise in you, like maharshi.

So, blessed dare the strong.

 

Namaste

Edited June 17, 2019 by Hellspeed

[zeroISinfinity]

@Hellspeed

You already are egoless. ?️

Heart is the Source. ?️

I love Truth bombs and my own bullshit (mods?) sometimes. 

Want my wings back. 

 

Edited June 17, 2019 by zeroISinfinity

[Preetom]

14 hours ago, okulele said:

@Preetom Are you familiar with Rupert Spira's 'Yoga Meditations'? He claims, that staying as awareness is just one part of the journey (in) and going into our perceptions, thoughts and sensations (out) is needed also to go full non-dual. What do you think?

Yes I'm very familiar with almost all of Rupert's system and explanations. The 'yoga meditations' are really modern repackaging of teachings from Kashmir Shaivism. If you look at a classic , practical nonduality text like Drik Drishshya Viveka; there are 2 kinds of samadhi explained there. Internal samadhi(disidentifying from the ego and being established as one's true Self) and external samadhi(seeing that this so called universe is nothing but one's own Self).

Now my take on this is actually the opposite of what these instructions 'seems' like in the surface. It gives an impression like there are 2 distinct parts one needs 'do', complete 100% to finally call it a finished project. But really this is not the case. The external and internal Samadhies; even though they sound like 2 different things, really lead to the same destination. At the point of Samadhi/Being/Absorption, there is no inside-outside or me-world duality anymore.

You can verify this for yourself. When you are absorbed in Being/Awareness, you never feel like ''Oh I've completed the first half and now I need to jump outside and integrate the world now as well''. You'll also notice this trend if you read classic scriptures like Vivekchudamani, Drik Dhrishshya Viveka, Aporakshanubhuti, Atma Bodha etc. These texts goes pages after pages long, going into pinpoint discrimination and scrutiny between the Real(Self) and the unreal(ego/phenomena)...to finally establish the infallible supremacy of the Self.

Now when this long, arduous process is done, do they go into this seeming 2nd part as similarly long process? No! Instead, the entire universe is reduced within few verses and proclaimed as nothing but the Self. So the universe and all phenomena are unreal as 'things' but are real as only Awareness/Self.

So in the end, the bottomline is that one needs to sink into Being. Doesn't matter if one is going through the external yoga path or internal extinction path. These 2 distinctions are there simply for a teaching or mapping out purpose for the seekers. But he who sees a solid, firm distinction between the two as if they are two separate processes has mastered neither. Rupert understands this very well and he usually encourages his students to experiment with both to see which ones hits on the money more.

@Consilience  Thank you for the compliment and sharing your understanding. Blog? maybe one day. After I've demonstrated this truth once and for all for myself and get a deeper understanding of whats really going on here. I don't wanna delude people

11 hours ago, Hellspeed said:

You don't know dude, we grow all the time. 

Want the true truth?

 

EGO is source, you are like a prism!

Use your body prism only on the head or a fragmented part of the body, and we call this EGO.

If you want to be egoless, sorry, cancer will arise in you, like maharshi.

So, blessed dare the strong.

 

Namaste

...You are like the 21st century Jesus

Full of cryptology and bold claims haha

Anyway I'll just leave a little prayer for the 18 million cancer stricken ''egoless enlightened'' folks all over the world every year 

Edited June 18, 2019 by Preetom

[Preetom]

13 minutes ago, Mikael89 said:

What the heck.. even more scriptures to read? Jeez..

Tell me once and for all all the names of books which I should read if I want to read the scriptures. I have already read Bhagavad Gita, Upanishads, Yoga Vasistha (The Concise Yoga Vasistha), Ashtavakra Gita, I have Ribhu Gita but haven't read it yet.

I need the names of the actual books, not only of the scripture. Because there are 100000 different translations of the scriptures and I want to read the best translation.

You've already read enough scriptures. The purpose of reading scriptures is not to only read scriptures, as if it was some sort of trophy which increases one's worth. Make the truths proclaimed in them as your living reality.

And the texts I mentioned were written by Sri Adi Sankara and I usually read the translations made by swamis of Ramakrishna Math. I find them very straightforward, logical and self-explanatory.

Edited June 18, 2019 by Preetom

[Jkris]

@Preetom ???

[Preetom]

20 hours ago, mandyjw said:

Fascinating question. I've been noticing as I try to bring in more body awareness and stomach breathing that it's almost like...

disclaimer, this is going to sound really stupid... 

It's like I can pinpoint my ego and it's just this sort of unsettled nauseous feeling. It has the potential to go away and give way to peace or grows to make me literally nauseous. It's what I believed to be fear, resistance, annoyance and my ego itself and all it is is this feeling in my stomach that my brain was interpreting to be ALL sorts of awful things. When I go into conscious breaths or belly breathing, that's all that's left. 

So how to make it go away? I should trick it into being my friend and then push it off a cliff while we're out walking together someday? Ideas? 

What you've encountered is the primal signature of ego in the body. That sensory charge IS the ego, energetically speaking. Almost all of our activities, distractions, thoughts, feelings are designed such a way that we are always distracted from discovering it and seeing it as it really is.

Almost all our activities, thoughts and reactions are on behalf of this ego, the false subject. It sustains this entire illusion by the constant primal message that I am inside the body, I am located, I am thinking, acting, doing, I need to secure myself so on and so forth.

This is what needs to be done. The sense of I has to be dis-entangled from this ego sensation once and for all. And by doing that, the 'I' will automatically attune itself to what it really is, pure Awareness/Being. This needs to be seen clearly over and over again until this lifelong habitual tendency to regard a sensation inside the body as 'I' ceases. Contemplate these questions.

1) Is this sensation aware? Is this sensation aware of other sensations, thoughts, sights, sounds?

2) Is this sensation alive? Is it this sensation which is going through life? Did this sensation grew up, got married, had kids, has likes and dislikes, makes decisions?

3) Am I aware of this sensation or is the sensation aware of I?

4) What happens to 'I' when this sensation comes and goes and fluctuates? Do I feel myself coming and going, phasing in and out of existence along with it?

5) How is this sensation related to me in any way? Why do I consider it as me or as a part or me? Why do I regard this insentient, dumb thing as me? Can I exist without it?

Through these precise scrutiny and clear seeing, one's system start waking up from it's own folly. That's all thats needed. And when the extreme energetic charge of me-ness evaporates from that sensation, then it will collapse completely or remain like an insignificant shadow unable to affect you and your life ever again.

 

Edited June 18, 2019 by Preetom

[Aeris]

Good but what is the point of having 'your' enlightenment  ?

I know it sounds like an egoic sentence question. 

But maybe we want peace only to make war ( samuraï enlightenment )

Can you explain what you do when It's done ?

I suppose you didn't reach this state if you would have done it. You wouldn't be here.

Or Can you shift and choose two states of being ?

[tsuki]

When it's done, you enjoy your peace until a seeker finds you. Then, you end the seeking.

[Preetom]

10 minutes ago, Aeris said:

Good but what is the point of having 'your' enlightenment  ?

I know it sounds like an egoic sentence question. 

But maybe we want peace only to make war ( samuraï enlightenment )

Can you explain what you do when It's done ?

I suppose you didn't reach this state if you would have done it. You wouldn't be here.

Or Can you shift and choose two states of being ?

''Oh monk, when a fire is extinguished, does it go south, north, east, west, up or down?'' - Buddha

''What to do now?''- who asks this question? 

This is what most people don't like to hear. The individual life is over. The flame is extinguished. 'Nothing' happens after that.

But this is so paradoxical and sounds misleading that a real sage doesn't usually talk about this, it's quite impossible to talk about it as well.

[ElvisN]

On 6/15/2019 at 1:44 PM, Preetom said:

Part 3: Where psychedelics may fall short.

So we can see that  Enlightenment can ONLY happen by attending to the non dual transmission from the Self, the real Satsang. Simply said, Being. It can NEVER happen by any activity of the ego-mind, that means thinking, concentrating on objects, insights, models, experiences, efforts done by the mind etc.

So it turns out that if one wants to get Enlightened, it is all about being, being, being; until one literally 'forgets' how to know something as an object in a dualistic view. Its NOT about insights, understanding, trying to embody, learn, do something, getting flashy experiences, trying to be spiritual.

Basically, Enlightenment can happen without the ego ever knowing or figuring out anything at all! Enlightenment can happen without ever bothering about god, universe, other people, karma, cosmology etc. It only happens through that silent transmission. 

Now my hunch is these are the 2 main setbacks of psychedelics.

1) Psychedelics are not sustainable over a long time. Yes it bypasses the delusions of ego and goes to the nondual transmission very quickly(given its a potent one like 5 meo). But alas the satsang is too short and repeated dosage hour after hour would fry one's system.

2) An even greater danger. After the psychedelic peak experience, the ego is back again. Fresh and rejuvenated, ready to get back on its JOB which is attending to objects with its voracious appetite! It cant help but going back and mistranslating that silent transmission in the name of insights, understanding, improvement, levels, figuring out reality, breakthroughs, living on the memory of becoming god, embodiment and whatnot; thinking that it will get enlightened by its own accumulated activities. Distortion upon distortion. Stuck in a twisted web of knowledge. Condemned to remain as this votalie complex between the real and the unreal.

 

Note: The purpose of this post is not to fight with other paths and people. Just giving a general practical map of this highly confusing topic. If it sounds logically fair, take whatever helps. If not, may god help you

If there is any question from anyone, I'll try to answer it.

@Preetom Do you seriously think that @Leo Gura would have been able to reach his level of awareness without 5 MeO? 

 

What makes you think that?