Attention as the Gateway to God

[Consilience]

“If you are paying complete attention, everything is nirvana, but if you lose your attention even for a second, samsara begins all over again.”

This is from Christopher Bach’s LSD and the Mind of the Universe.

I think this quote has profound implications for our consciousness work. One of the reasons psychedelics are so effective for amplifying our consciousness and providing insights is that they essentially force our attention into the present moment. At high doses, your mind has no choice but to submit to right here, right now. Typically the ego is surviving by creating a never ending stream of distractions through the form of thoughts or by being captivated by the distractions we see in every day life. Yet many of these distractions are only given meaning as a function of time and separation. This is huge to notice. Yet if we’re being 100% honest, it’s easy to see that this moment is the only thing which fundamentally exists, existentially there is no time or separation in which a distraction can be given meaning, truth value. All meaning is empty. 

When we take certain psychedelics at the appropriate dose and with the appropriate set and setting, the artificial separation our egos superimpose onto reality get shut down, and our attention is completely stabilized into the present. This dynamic is what allows us to become conscious of The Self/The No Self/God. God is this moment, the only moment to ever exist. If your attention span is too weak to truly stabilize onto right here, right now, you will not be able to become conscious of existential truth. If your attention span is constantly slicing and dicing your field of consciousness into separate bits, you will not be able to become conscious of God. If your attention span is easily pulled into time by thoughts while doing nothing, you will not be able to become conscious of God. 

Unwavering attention stability is a requirement for being able to see Truth. This is why I always am so quick to recommend meditation, specifically a Samatha based meditation practice which cuts straight to the point and had its practitioners working on concentration. (Shameless The Mind Illuminated plug) Until you can sit for hours straight without attention shifting, you wont know God, you wont know yourself. In fact, attention instability is one of the ego’s most powerful defense mechanisms, its why distractions work so well at all. 

Combining psychedelic work with a meditation technique that works on attention stability all while knowing how to contemplate is the mother of all cocktails for discovering truth. But even with psychedelics and contemplation, until your attention is strong enough to stand still at your will, you wont be able to integrate your trips or insights into every day life. As you learn to hold your attention, you will necessarily become more deeply conscious of the present moment, which is of course the only path to know Truth. Truth is right here, right now. 

Attention stability not only allows you to know this present moment at deeper and deeper levels, it allows us to see more clearly falsehood since nearly all falsehood exists as a function of time and separation. Separation can only function if our attention span and mind is allowed to rapidly create objects out of experience. If we can slow this process down to super advanced degrees as it does on a psychedelic, this falsehood is seen even while sober. 

Basically what Im trying to say with this post is this: If you’re serious about consciousness work and understanding God, you’ve got to make it a focus to learn how to concentrate.

[Crystalous]

Thank you so much.Concentration is the key with or without psychedelics.

[Crystalous]

Truth is the healthy destruction of the self.Mother Truth is borned when you see what is not Truth which basically is everything.All of your experience and reality is filtered by the prism of the self and literally is your self, your fake self.Reality becomes Real reality when your self becomes the real self.This mechanism is activated and takes place when you observe and perceive objectively the mechanism of the inner voice image and sound.This awareness is the light which when reach the peak of understanding the no existence of the previous existence(ego destruction-Archangel Michael), it becomes amazingly powerful and you experience enlightenment.

[Inliytened1]

@Consilience wonderful post thanks for sharing.  Yes one of my main meditation practices is concentration these days. (and has always been).

 

[VeganAwake]

Yes eliminating distractions for clearer concentration was important for me as well... Leo actually has some great episodes that can help with this I believe one of them is called distraction egos favorite defense mechanism...

[Mo0ngrass]

I know this. Thank you for reminding me and providing the fuel I needed to practice sustained attention at all times. 

Love. 

[Consilience]

@Crystalous @Inliytened1 Thank you both.

12 minutes ago, VeganAwake said:

Yes eliminating distractions for clearer concentration was important for me as well... Leo actually has some great episodes that can help with this I believe one of them is called distraction egos favorite defense mechanism...

Yes this is one of his most important episodes. What Ive found is that it’s not merely the fact of distraction though, it’s also the fragility of attention stability which gives power to the distractions. This then ends up creating a negative feedback loop. The more distracted we get, the weaker attention becomes, the weaker attention the more easily we are distracted.

While I agree with you insatiable seeking can become problematic, I also think if the seeker never commits to practices like attention stability via meditation or contemplating, they'll probably be lost in samsara. The ego-mind is just so so so conditioned for this distraction business. 

[Consilience]

@Mo0ngrass ??❤️