Trouble overcoming death

[fluidmonolith]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1zjuDdysOL8

In this week's video, Leo suggests that the death of our egoic identity feels similar to, and in fact may be identical to, physical death.

I have a related experience: A few months ago while engaged in meditation and other forms of study, I came to the powerful realization that to further my understanding of reality, I would need to be willing to die. At that time, my ego did not permit me to die. I have been considering solutions to this issue since then.

I know of accounts of others who have had enlightenment experiences in which they claim a sense of physical death. I suspect I will need to accept death to move forward, but in the months since my initial experience, I haven't come to any conclusions regarding how to do it. 

Has anyone else struggled with this? If so, how did you overcome this challenge? Is this just an issue where more meditation and introspection are needed? Or are there other possible solutions or perspectives?

Thanks

[Gili Trawangan]

Psychedelics can help with that, because, unlike with meditation, you don't get the choice of aborting the experience.

[fluidmonolith]

@Gili Trawangan Thanks for your reply. I have been experimenting with dmt as a form of ayahuasca, which led me to the above realization. But I've been pretty cautious with my dosage as I'm doing this solo (no guide). Perhaps a higher dose is necessary.

[Nahm]

23 hours ago, fluidmonolith said:

I would need to be willing to die. At that time, my ego did not permit me to die.

 

23 hours ago, fluidmonolith said:

I suspect I will need to accept death to move forward, but in the months since my initial experience, I haven't come to any conclusions regarding how to do it. 

A higher dose will ‘do it’. Also, notice, if there is no death...and those comments are reinterpreted accordingly, then you wouldn’t actually be able to die. This would indicate it is the belief in death, the having identified with an “alive” “body”, which is surrendered. 

“My ego did not permit me to die”    The “my” is “the ego” (the thought / belief “I have an ego”), the ”me”, or rather awareness which the “me” points to, doesn’t die. Because the ego doesn’t exist as an entity, only a thought, “it” can not “permit” or “deny” anything. 

You can’t really accept death because it’s not actual. The thing to scrutinize is the beliefs support that you were born, and you’re currently alive. “How to do it” is misleading. It’s less, not more. Without the beliefs, it’s already the actuality. 

[Forestluv]

2 hours ago, fluidmonolith said:

I have been experimenting with dmt as a form of ayahuasca, which led me to the above realization. But I've been pretty cautious with my dosage as I'm doing this solo (no guide). Perhaps a higher dose is necessary.

A couple suggestions. . . Ime, psychedelics like Ayahuasca have a lot of visuals and can be a complex "experience". There is "ego death" due to deconstruction of the personality construct, yet there is also reconstructions that can get later get contextualized as "realms", "dimensions", "lessons", "insights", "spirit guides" etc. These can be very insightful and amazing. . . In terms of "death", I would consider this a form of death in terms of ego death - yet there are still appearances. That's fine, yet a couple days later the mind will want to contextualize into an "experience" and try to "make sense of it". This type of integration can be great. . . Deconstruction and Reconstruction has immense value. Yet for me, deconstruction to pure clarity without reconstruction also has immense value. Imo, the purest deconstruction is a psychedelic without any visuals - without any "bells and whistles". Simply pure deconstruction to Nothing. To the purity of Now. Singular. One. Clear. . . I've done about 12 different psychedelics and 5-meo is the crown jewel for this - hands down. Yet that's not to say other psychedelics don't have deep value as well. 

2 hours ago, fluidmonolith said:

But I've been pretty cautious with my dosage as I'm doing this solo (no guide). Perhaps a higher dose is necessary.

If you are questioning whether or not you experienced "ego death", you haven't. The dose isn't high enough. It's great to be cautious and work your way up, yet ime I would be mindful of a "sub-ego-death" zone in which the ego is dying, yet the dose wasn't quite high enough to finish the ego off. Once one crosses over to the "other side", there is no more distress because there is no longer anyone to be distressed and there is nothing to be distressed about. Yet just below this breakthrough, there can be distress ime. For some people it's no big deal, they can surrender to anything. But if an ego wants to control the narrative and reality, it can get thorny. 

 

[fluidmonolith]

@Serotoninluv @Nahm Thanks for the detailed thoughts and suggestions - I'll look into 5-meo.